Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Question of Religion's Role in Politics and Society Modernization, Secularization, and Beyond?
- 3 Quantifying Religion
- 4 Global GIR from 1990 to 2002
- 5 Western Democracies
- 6 The Former Soviet Bloc
- 7 Asia
- 8 The Middle East and North Africa
- 9 Sub-Saharan Africa
- 10 Latin America
- 11 Patterns and Trends
- 12 Conclusions
- Appendix: Data Collection and Reliability
- Bibliography
- Index
Appendix: Data Collection and Reliability
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Question of Religion's Role in Politics and Society Modernization, Secularization, and Beyond?
- 3 Quantifying Religion
- 4 Global GIR from 1990 to 2002
- 5 Western Democracies
- 6 The Former Soviet Bloc
- 7 Asia
- 8 The Middle East and North Africa
- 9 Sub-Saharan Africa
- 10 Latin America
- 11 Patterns and Trends
- 12 Conclusions
- Appendix: Data Collection and Reliability
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
All of the RAS variables were collected as follows. A research assistant wrote a report on each country based on general sources, such as the US State Department Religious Freedom reports and the World Christian Encyclopedia (WCE), journalistic sources from the Lexis/Nexis database, and country-specific academic sources including journal articles and books. A more complete listing of the sources used can be found in the notes for Chapters 5 through 10. After I approved the report, the same research assistant filled out a codesheet, which I reviewed in tandem with the report. The primary purpose of the second review was to ensure consistency in codings between coders.
While clearly there was more information available for some countries than others, I am confident that the data closely reflects reality for two reasons. First, the general sources, including the US State Department and the WCE, contain good information for most states. However, these sources, while nearly always accurate, did often omit information. Second, even in the less covered third-world states, including many African states, religious issues drew considerable attention by human rights groups and the media. Thus, when the general sources indicated that religious issues were relevant in a country, the additional sources usually provided further detail. While it is certainly possible, and even likely, that the dataset is missing some information, I am confident that the data very closely resembles the reality on the ground as well or better than do other datasets that focus on similar topics.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A World Survey of Religion and the State , pp. 365 - 368Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008