ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 gives an account of the relationships between religious affiliation and democratic values. First, a global analysis is conducted on the basis of data from the European Values Study and the World Values Survey. Thereafter, results from a number of regional surveys are presented. Overall, the results contradict the assumption of a relation between religious adherence and democratic values. When religious and political contexts are kept constant, the differences in the attitude towards democracy between adherents of different religions largely disappear. However, Protestants (narrowly defined) tend to have a more negative view of authoritarianism than persons of other religious denominations. This finding is particularly interesting as it suggests that on an individual level, Protestantism appears to promote democratic values not only in its cradle, but also when exported to Latin America and Asia. Regarding the proposition that secularism fosters democratic values, results are conflicting. Global analyses indicate that the support for democracy or authoritarianism is more or less identical among religious and non-religious persons but results from the analyses conducted in regional settings show that persons with no religious denomination are more negatively disposed towards autocracy than respondents who belong to a religious branch.
