Muslim-Majority and Christian-Majority Countries vs Democracy Index Scores

Updated October 27, 2024

Is there statistical evidence to suggest that the proportion of a country that is Muslim corresponds to the degree to which that country is democratic?

In this analysis, I compared two datasets: one, the Democracy Index score of each country, and, two, the portion of each country that is Muslim.

I then analyzed the two datasets.

On doing so, I found a moderate, statistically significant negative correlation indicating that a higher Muslim proportion of a country corresponds to a lower Democracy Index score:

R: -0.5163

R2: 0.2666

N: 167

p: < .00001 (result is significant at p < .01)

Are Muslim-majority countries becoming more or less democratic over time?

If we assume that a hopeful goal for Muslim-majority countries is to become more democratic, is there evidence to suggest that they are becoming so?

I looked at this as well, again using Democracy Index scores, this time for 44 Muslim-majority countries.

I weighted the scores according to the portion of a given country that is Muslim. On doing so, I found  a small decrease:

2006	3.6
2010	3.5
2014	3.8
2018	3.7
2023	3.3

The Democracy Index score is a 10-point scale. The lowest score as of 2023 was Afghanistan (0.26) and the highest Norway (9.81). The index is based on 60 indicators grouped into five categories, measuring pluralism, civil liberties, and political culture. In addition to a numeric score and a ranking, the index categorizes each country into one of four regime types: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes, and authoritarian regimes. The first Democracy Index report was published in 2006.

Is there statistical evidence to suggest that the proportion of a country that is Christian corresponds to the degree to which that country is democratic?

The following is the result of a Pearson correlation comparing percentage of a country that is Christian vs 2023 Democracy Index score:

Although technically a positive correlation, the relationship between the variables is weak, though the result is still statistically significant, suggesting a slight tendency for a country's Democracy Index score to increase as the Christian portion increases.

R: 0.3494

R2: 0.1221

N: 162

p: < .00001 (result is significant at p < .01)

 

Are Christian-majority countries becoming more or less democratic over time?

If we assume that a hopeful goal for Christian-majority countries is to become more democratic, is there evidence to suggest that they are becoming so?

I looked at this as well, again using Democracy Index scores, this time for 89 Christian-majority countries.

2006	6.3
2010	6.1
2014	6.2
2018	6.1
2023	5.8

As with Muslim-majority countries, we also see a small decline in the Democracy Index scores for Christian-majority countries.

We also see that the average Democracy Index score for Christian-majority countries is 6.1 vs 3.6 for Muslim-majority countries.