Assessing Support for International Religious Freedom, International Journal of Religious Freedom, 2019.
The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA) provides the U.S. government with additional tools and information in order to promote the rights of religious minorities around the world. In addition to mandating annual reporting from the State Department, the law created an independent watchdog agency to monitor religious freedom around the world and provides the executive with additional sanction powers for states which abuse religious minorities. Little is known, however, about the scope and intensity of American knowledge and support for these policies. Most studies to date have focused on the influence of religious affiliation (using the tri-partite schema of “believing,” “belonging,” and “behaving”) on respondent preferences for discrete US policies.
This paper investigates the contours of American public opinion on international religious freedom. It relies on original data from the 2018 CCES survey and attempts to identify the level of support for international religious freedom among the American electorate. The data suggest that many respondents are unaware of the law. But among those who are knowledgeable about the scope of IRFA, support for international religious freedom remains strong. The data also suggest that US respondents who believe US-China competition is among the most important national security concerns are among the most likely to believe that IRFA policies strengthen US national security.
note bene. Although the publication year is 2019, the article only appeared in print at the end of 2021. It was a special issue that was delayed in late 2019 and then, well, the pandemic.