Changing Religious Intensity and Growth in Human Development in Post-Communist Countries

In the years immediately preceding and certainly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union there was a widespread increase in the practice of religious faith traditions. Multiple studies document the post-communist religious revival (Evans & Northmore-Ball, 2012; Müller, 2011; Sarkissian, 2009; Tomka, 2011). By the beginning of the twenty-first century, a general movement back toward the historical faith tradition is noticeable in the majority of the Warsaw Pact countries in 2000 and 2020 relative to 1970 (Saunders, 2021). In addition to a resurgence of religious practices, the collapse of the Soviet Union signaled the beginning of the transition of the Communist economies of Eastern Europe toward more market-oriented economic systems. In a study of post-Communist countries that made up the Warsaw Pact, Saunders (2021) found that Christian religious adherence had a positive and statistically significant effect on growth in the Human Development Index. This study will review the literature on growth theory and religion, discuss the use of the World Values Surveys to measure religious intensity, and examine if the degree of religious intensity in Warsaw Pact countries with a Christian faith tradition has an impact on growth as measured by the Human Development Index