QoG Data

Religion and State Project

The Religion and State (RAS) project is a university-based project located at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. The general goal is to provide detailed codings on several aspects of separation of religion and state for 183 states on a yearly basis between 1990 and 2014. This constitutes all countries with populations of 250,000 or more, as well as a sampling of countries with lower populations.

Dataset type

Time-Series

Dataset level

Country

Last updated by source

2017-08-03

Citation

When using this dataset, please cite as:

• Fox, J. (2008). A world survey of religion and the state. Cambridge University Press.

• Fox, J. (2015). Political secularism, religion, and the state: A time survey analysis of worldwide data. Cambridge University Press.

• Fox, J. (2016). The unfree exercise of religion: A world survey of religious discrimination against religious minorities. NY: Cambridge University Pres.

• Fox, J. (2017). Religion and state dataset: Round 3. http://www.religionandstate.org/

• Fox, J. (2019). A world survey of secular-religious competition: State religion policy from 1990 to 2014. Religion, State and Society, 47(1), 10–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2018.1532750

• Fox, J., Finke, R., & Mataic, D. R. (2018). New data and measures on societal discrimination and religious minorities. Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion, 2(14).

@article{biu1,
 author = {Fox, Jonathan},
 doi = {10.1080/09637494.2018.1532750},
 journal = {Religion, State and Society},
 last_updated = {2025-11-28},
 number = {1},
 pages = {10--29},
 title = {A World Survey of Secular-Religious Competition: State Religion policy from 1990 to 2014},
 volume = {47},
 year = {2019}
}

@article{biu2,
 author = {Fox, Jonathan and Finke, Roger and Mataic, Dane R.},
 journal = {Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion},
 last_updated = {2025-11-28},
 number = {14},
 title = {New Data and Measures on Societal Discrimination and Religious Minorities},
 volume = {2},
 year = {2018}
}

@book{biu3,
 author = {Fox, Jonathan},
 last_updated = {2025-11-28},
 publisher = {NY: Cambridge University Pres},
 title = {The Unfree Exercise of Religion: A World Survey of Religious Discrimination against Religious Minorities},
 year = {2016}
}

@book{biu4,
 author = {Fox, Jonathan},
 last_updated = {2025-11-28},
 publisher = {Cambridge University Press},
 title = {Political Secularism, Religion, and the State: A Time Survey Analysis of Worldwide Data},
 year = {2015}
}

@book{biu5,
 author = {Fox, Jonathan},
 last_updated = {2025-11-28},
 publisher = {Cambridge University Press},
 title = {A World Survey of Religion and the State},
 year = {2008}
}

@misc{biu6,
 author = {Fox, Jonathan},
 last_updated = {2025-11-28},
 title = {Religion and State Dataset: Round 3},
 url = {http://www.religionandstate.org/},
 year = {2017}
}

Variables in this dataset

Browse variables and select them for download.

Official Religion

QoG code: biu_offrel

Official Religion measures whether the government has an established religion. For a religion to be established there must be a constitutional clause, a law, or the equivalent explicitly stating that ...

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Religious Legislation

QoG code: biu_relleg

This variable refers to laws or government policies which legislate or otherwise support aspects of religion. This includes diverse laws and policies including the direct legislation of religious prec ...

View variable