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Autocracy, Religious Restriction, and Religious Civil War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2016

Dongsuk Kim  and
Hyun Jin Choi
Dongsuk Kim*
Affiliation:
Korea National Diplomatic Academy
Hyun Jin Choi
Affiliation:
Kyung Hee University
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Dongsuk Kim, Korea National Diplomatic Academy, 2572 Nambusunhwan-ro, Seocho-gu, Seoul 06750, Republic of Korea. E-mail: dongsuk12@gmail.com; or to: Hyun Jin Choi, Political Science Department, Kyung Hee University, 26 Kyungheedae-ro, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea. E-mail: choihj@khu.ac.kr.
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Abstract

This article illuminates the relationship between level of religious restriction and the onset of religious civil war in the context of autocracy. That is, we investigate how autocrats' religious restriction accounts for religious civil war. We hypothesize that in autocracies, moderate religious restriction is likely to engender religious civil war (Hypothesis 1), policy change from religious laissez-faire to moderate restriction raises the probability of religious civil war (Hypothesis 2), and the transition from tight restriction to moderate restriction is likely to trigger religious civil war (Hypothesis 3). To test our hypotheses, we conduct statistical analyses as well as case studies. The results confirm Hypotheses 1 and 2, but not Hypothesis 3. This suggests that (1) within autocracies, different levels of religious restriction exert different effects on religious civil war and (2) moderate religious restriction is dangerous enough to spark religious civil war and religious laissez-faire helps to generate religious peace.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , June 2017 , pp. 311 - 338
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2016 

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Footnotes

This article was originally published online without the funding information, which now appears below. An addendum has been published in this issue.

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2016S1A2A3913925).

References

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