Why Economic Development Does Not Diminish Religious Conflict

Abstract Does economic development reduce religious conflict? Many believe that cleavages and conflict over religion should become less pronounced in developed countries. In this article, we argue that economic development can actually increase the risk of religious conflict by helping create the background conditions that give rise to it. More specifically, when countries devote more economic resources to interfering in religious affairs, they experience correspondingly higher levels of religious hostilities. Conversely, if countries have fewer resources to devote to interfering in the religious realm—a situation naturally characteristic of poorer countries—they experience less religious conflict. Thus, poor countries do not necessarily experience higher rates of religious conflict than wealthy countries. We test this theory using a country-level, time-series analysis of a global sample of countries from 1991 to 2018. We find strong support for our theory. The results are robust to a wide range of model specifications and statistical approaches. Our findings make an important contribution to a long-standing conversation on the causes of religious conflict in the modern world.