Developing and Archiving International Religion Data Brian J. Grim Roger Finke Pennsylvania State University Association of Religion Data Archives

Starting in July, also in cooperation with the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life Washington, DC Research supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation

Situation Religion, religiously-related values, and socio- religious conflict are important and growing forces in the world today: - whether due to the irony of secularization - or due to an increasing supply of religious competition.

Problem Demographic data on religion around the globe come from a limited number of sources, e.g., - Oxford’s World Christian Encyclopedia - CIA’s World Factbook Religious values data are limited, e.g., - World Values Survey - Global Attitudes Project (Pew)

“Solutions” Collect more religion-specific data, e.g., - Pew’s current 9-country Pentecostalism poll Centralize data from existing sources, e.g., - WVS, GAP, WCD, etc. (incl. aggregate database) - Other sources (see handout) Innovatively generate new data, e.g., coding: - International Religious Freedom (IRF) Reports

State Dept. IRF Reports (annual)

Coding of IRF Reports

Indicators of Data’s Validity

… where the law and/or constitution provide for freedom of religion. … where the state does not defer to religious authorities on life-course issues. The number of countries =

… where established or existing religions try to shut out other religions. … where people are discriminated against based on religious identity or activity. The number of countries =

… where a government bureau supervises religious affairs. … where there is religious violence. The number of countries =

… where there are religious tensions reported. The number of countries = 143 = 73% of countries World Average AfricaEast AsiaEurope/ Eurasia Near East & N Africa South Asia Western Hemisph. 73%72%74%77%95%88%53%

Conclusions Religion can and must be better understood. A specific focus on empirical socio-religious data is needed. These data must be archived and made available to multiple audiences: - researchers - educators - the press - policy-makers