Religious Conflict: Examining the Effects of Polarization and Fractionalization.

Religious identity plays a crucial role in the way groups and individuals behave and perceive morality. Religious identity separates "in-group" from "out-group" members, demonizing opposing groups and justifying violence based on religious value-systems. This paper provides a theoretical and comparative analysis of religious conflict in Nigeria and Tanzania, by examining religious polarization and fractionalization, relative to levels of democratic governance and public perception. Nigeria and Tanzania are effective case studies in examining religious conflict, since both are Sub-Saharan African states with largely split populations of Muslims and Christians. Cingranelli-Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Data Project (2014), Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), and a dataset created by Montalvo and Reynal-Querol (2005) will be used for this assessment based on their relevancy to religious conflict, polarization, fractionalization, democracy, and public perception, combining quantitative and qualitative data for assessment. The author of this paper hypothesizes that religious polarization negatively affects levels of religious conflict, while religious fractionalization will have a positive effect. The findings of this paper support the hypothesis, indicating Nigeria's higher level of religious conflict is correlated with its large degree of religious polarization and decreased religious fractionalization. This correlation is also observed in Tanzania, which experiences lower levels of religious conflict, having a lesser degree of religious polarization and increased religious fractionalization. This paper concludes religious polarization, negatively impacts levels of democracy, resulting in higher rates of religious conflict, while religious fractionalization positively impacts democracy levels, resulting in decreased levels of religious conflict. Additional research is necessary to substantiate this conclusion further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]