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Finke, R., & Grim, B. J. (2020, April 26). International Religious Freedom Data, 2005.
Summary
This file contains measures from the ARDA's coding of the 2005 U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom Reports. This coding produced data on 196 different countries and territories (see below for list of countries coded), but excluded the United States. It also includes three indexes calculated from these data: Government Regulation of Religion index (GRI), Social Regulation of Religion index (SRI), Government Favoritism of Religion index (GFI) (see Grim and Finke, 2006). The ARDA also coded International Religious Freedom Reports for the years 2001 and 2003. All three years of data (2001, 2003, and 2005) are aggregated into a single dataset, International Religious Freedom Data, Aggregate File, which we recommend as the best data to use for most statistical models.
Each year (since 1999) the US State Department releases International Religious Freedom Reports on approximately 196 countries or territories. Based on the text in these reports, ARDA researchers systematically coded the measures included in this file. Under the direction of Brian Grim, the ARDA's Project Manager for International Data during the coding, these reports were assigned quantitative measures by using a coding instrument, essentially a survey questionnaire. Although the most immediate goal was to develop measures for religious regulation and favoritism, the questions included measures for specific acts of discrimination, prejudice, persecution, warfare, property rights, forced migration, and other acts that might (or might not) be related to the religious life of the country. For all variables, the coders were asked to make substantive observations of the qualitative data and to base their codes on empirical observations of actions or patterns of behavior that were documented in the reports.
Users should be aware of the following limitations: (1) All variables reflect information that was coded from the State Department Reports, and when no problem was reported, then the item was coded as "0." This means that "According to the Report, the item was not mentioned as a problem." Since the reports tend to simply not report a problem rather than say that "the problem is absent," we are not able to reasonably determine whether the problem was unobserved or absent. This means that the data reflect what was reported. (2) The focus of the reports is on limitations of religious freedom. Thus, we would argue that the most accurate measures are those which address the core issues related to the restriction (or regulation) of religious freedom and religious persecution. For example, government favoritism of religious education could arguably be harmless to religious freedom (helping the poor obtain skills) or harmful (training terrorists based on a religious ideology). Thus, since such issues tend to be reported when there is a problem, they cannot be used to form a full picture of the role of religion in education for a country. (3) The three different years of coding are not three discrete measures, but rather represent trend information that continues to be reported for several years running, which makes sense, for instance, because cases of violence tend to have continuing effects.
Thus, it would not be advisable to treat the data as separate measures from which time lines are developed since it is possible that later years report newly arising problems in addition to old ones. (4) The aggregate dataset for the three years of coding contains the mean score of each ordinal variable and the mode score for categorical variables across the three years. We suggest that those using the data for social scientific modeling and analysis use the aggregate data set, which has the benefit of greater variation in the variables and lesser error since random errors from one year will be attenuated in the aggregate data.
For a more detailed description of the coding procedures, see Grim and Finke (2006).
Grim, Brian J. and Roger Finke. 2006. "International Religion Indexes: Government Regulation, Government Favoritism, and Social Regulation of Religion." Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion 2 (Article 1). http://www.religjournal.com
Grim, Brian J., Roger Finke, Jaime Harris, Catherine Meyers, and Julie VanEerden. 2006. "Measuring International Socio-Religious Values and Conflict by Coding U.S. State Department Reports," JSM Proceedings, AAPOR-Section on Survey Research Methods [CD-ROM], Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association: 4120 - 4127.
Grim, Brian J. and Roger Finke. 2007. "Religious Persecution in Cross-National Context: Clashing Civilizations or Regulated Economies?" American Sociological Review 72:633-658.
Finke, Roger and Jaime Harris. 2012. "Wars and Rumors of Wars: Explaining Religiously Motivated Violence." In Religion, Politics, Society and the State, Jonathan Fox, ed., Boulder, Colorado: Paradigm Publishers.
Additional Note:
List of Countries or Territories Included in this Data File: Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas, The Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burma (Myanmar) Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Chile China-Hong Kong China-Macau China-Taiwan China-Tibet China Colombia Comoros Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Costa Rica Cote d'Ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic East Timor Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Fiji Finland France Gabon Gambia, The Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea-Bissau Guinea Guyana Haiti Honduras Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Israeli Occupied Territories (Palestine) Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, (North) Democratic Republic of Korea, (South) Republic of Kuwait Kyrgystan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourgh Macedonia Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova Monaco Mongolia Morocco Mozambique Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Surinam Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syria Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela Vietnam Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe
*Note: This file was updated in October 2011 to account for missing data in the religious affiliation variables (LG1PCT01-LG5REL05).
Fall 2012 Update
Note: The original values of GRI_05 were incorrect for some countries in the original version of this dataset. The dataset has been updated to correct this issue. The uncorrected values of GRI_05 are included in this dataset and should be used for replication purposes only. These uncorrected values are available in the variables GRI05REP.
