journal article

The Salience of Religious Issues in Ethnic Conflicts: A Large-N Study

by Jonathan Fox

Nationalism and Ethnic Politics
vol. 3, iss. 3
pp. 1 - 19
Autumn 1997

The purpose of this paper is twofold: First, to establish that despite arguments to the contrary by the modernization/secularization and the functionalism schools of thought, religion plays a role in ethnic conflict; Second, to present a basic large-n cross-sectional data analysis of issues relating to ethno-religious conflict. The results show that ethno-religious conflicts are different from other ethnic conflicts and that religion does play a role in some ethno-religious conflicts but that role is not as common as one would believe given anecdotal evidence taken from current events.