State-Supported Religions and the State’s Propensity for Violence

Abstract

A trend in recent literature is the argument that the government can influence religious organizations through state-sponsorship, elite control, distribution of economic goods, toleration, and suppression. The opposite is also true; religious organizations can influence control over government through social mobilization, collective action, belief structures, alternative powers structure, and dictating public morals. Moreover, some authors have posited there is a strong link between the stability of one and the stability of other (Kay et. Al, 2010), (Barro and McCleary, 2005). But, does the instability between competing organizations lead to violence as reality? And can state structures be strongly correlated with such measures? I argue that states with state-supported religions are more likely to have occurrences of battle-related violence than states without state-supported religions.