Separation of religion and state in the twenty-first century - Comparing the middle east and western democracies

The separation of religion and state in western democracies and the Middle East is examined using five measures from the Religion and State dataset: the official relationship between religion and the state, the comparative treatment of different religions, discrimination against minority religions, regulation of the majority religion and religious legislation. The results show that, while all the these factors are mort prevalent in the Middle East, all of them are also present in at least some westeri democracies. Also, all western democracies except for the U.S. have at least some of these five forms of government entanglement with religion. These results imply that the U.S. separation of religion and the state is the exception for liberal democracies, rather than the rule and that religious democracy, including Islamic democracy, it possible.