1. Christianity and Democracy in Asian Pluralistic Religious Markets: Taiwan and South Korea.
- Author
-
Cheng-tian Kuo
- Subjects
- *
DEMOCRACY , *HYPOTHESIS , *CHURCH & politics , *DEMOCRATIZATION , *VALUES (Ethics) , *RELIGIOUS diversity - Abstract
Using the Taiwanese and South Korean samples of the 2000-2004 Asian Barometer dataset, this paper confirms the Christian democracy hypothesis that Christianity (including Catholicism) contributes to democratization by indoctrinating democratic values and behaviors to their believers. However, the statistical analyses also support the religious market hypothesis that the logic of competition in pluralistic religious markets compels various religions to converge on dominant democratic values and behaviors within each country, although different religions and different countries continue to vary in the degrees and aspects of democratic commitment. These findings offer a more optimistic view for the prospect of non-Christian "religious democracies" than what the current scholarship proposes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2006