Islam and Democracy

Using the POLITY IV and Freedom House indices, Rowley and Smith (2009) found that countries with Muslim majorities enjoy less freedom and are less democratic than countries in which Muslims are a minority. Because the POLITY IV and Freedom House indices have been criticized on several grounds, I reinvestigate Rowley and Smith’s finding using the new Democracy-Dictatorship data from Cheibub et al. (2010). The empirical results confirm that countries with Muslim majorities are indeed less likely to be democratic.