Nikolova, Elena;
Polansky, Jakub;
(2021)
Conversionary Protestants Do Not Cause Democracy.
British Journal of Political Science
, 51
(4)
pp. 1723-1733.
10.1017/S0007123420000174.
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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.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Conversionary Protestants Do Not Cause Democracy |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1017/S0007123420000174 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007123420000174 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Social Sciences, Political Science, Government & Law, religion, democracy, conversionary Protestantism, Christianity |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10210085 |
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