A Comparative Study of the Relationship between Government Regulation of Religion and Religiosity in Islamic Societies

Document Type : Research

Author

Mohammadreza Taleban

Associate Professor of Sociology, Imam Khomeini and Islamic Revolution Research Institute, Tehran, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22067/social.2025.85730.1461

Abstract

Government regulation of religion can be defined as that part of the laws, rules, policies, and administrative-executive actions of governments that limit, guide, govern, and control the activities of religious individuals, groups, and organizations. This type of regulation relates to the policies or actions of government officials in managing and administering the religious life of citizens as part of the services provided for good governance and ensuring compliance with laws and rules that are observed to achieve desirable activities in a society based on the values ​​promoted by the government. The relationship between the government regulation of religion and religiosity has been at the heart of conflict between the two paradigms governing the sociology of religion, i.e., secularization and the economics/market of religion in the last few decades. The arguments set forth by sociologists advocating the paradigm of secularization led to the hypothesis that government regulation of religion is positively correlated with religiosity. On the other hand, the new paradigm, the economics/market of religion, has presented arguments to prove the hypothesis that government regulation of religion has a negative link to religiosity. In the present research article, the mechanisms linking two variables of government regulation of religion and religiosity are explained in terms of the above two paradigms, i.e., secularization and the economics/market of religion. Then, the conflicting hypotheses are empirically studied with secondary data related to Islamic countries through cross-country analysis over a period of 15 years. The findings lend credit to the hypothesis developed from the theoretical approach of secularization, which confirms the positive link between government regulation of religion and people's religiosity. At the same time, the results of the present research did not provide strong empirical support for the hypothesis of the theoretical approach of economics/market of religion regarding the negative relationship between government regulation of religion and people's religiosity.
 
 

Keywords

Government Regulation of Religion

Religiosity

Paradigm of Secularization

Economics/Market of  Religion Paradigm

Islamic Countries

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