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Conversionary Protestants Do Not Cause Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 November 2020

Elena Nikolova Open the ORCID record for Elena Nikolova [Opens in a new window]  and
Jakub Polansky Open the ORCID record for Jakub Polansky [Opens in a new window]
Elena Nikolova*
Affiliation:
Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies-Regensburg, Central European Labor Studies Institute, and Global Labor Organization
Jakub Polansky
Affiliation:
University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: Nikolova.ele@gmail.com
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Abstract

In The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy, Robert D. Woodberry (2012) claims that conversionary Protestantism influenced the emergence of stable democracies around the world. While his historical analysis is exhaustive, the accompanying empirical evidence suffers from severe inconsistencies. This letter replicates Woodberry's analysis using twenty-six alternative democracy measures and extends the time period over which the democracy measures are averaged. These two simple modifications lead to the breakdown of Woodberry's results. We find no significant relationship between Protestant missions and the development of democracy, which raises concerns about the robustness and broader applicability of Woodberry's findings. The letter discusses some alternative explanations for Woodberry's results, which can inform future research on this topic.

Keywords

religiondemocracyconversionary ProtestantismChristianity
Type
Letter
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , October 2021 , pp. 1723 - 1733
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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