The Return of Religious Antisemitism? The Evidence from World Values Survey Data (original) (raw)

Posted: 9 Dec 2018

Arno Tausch

University of the Free State, Department of Political Studies and Governance; University of Innsbruck - Department of Political Science

Date Written: November 17, 2018

Abstract

Background: This paper addresses the return of religious Antisemitism by a multivariate analysis of global opinion data from 28 countries.

Methods: For the lack of any available alternative we used the World Values Survey (WVS) Antisemitism study item: rejection of Jewish neighbors. It is closely correlated with the recent ADL-100 Index of Antisemitism for more than 100 countries. To test the combined effects of religion and background variables like gender, age, education, income and life satisfaction on Antisemitism, we applied the full range of multivariate analysis including promax factor analysis and multiple OLS regression.

Results: Although religion as such still seems to be connected with the phenomenon of Antisemitism, intervening variables such as restrictive attitudes on gender and the religion-state relationship play an important role. Western Evangelical and Oriental Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism are performing badly on this account, and there is also a clear global North-South divide for these phenomena.

Conclusions: Challenging patriarchic gender ideologies and fundamentalist conceptions of the relationship between religion and state, which are important drivers of Antisemitism, will be an important task in the future. Multiculturalism must be aware of prejudice, patriarchy and religious fundamentalism in the global South.

Keywords: Relation of Economics to Social Values; Index Numbers and Aggregation; Labor; Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants • Non-labor Discrimination; Economics of Gender • Non-labor Discrimination; Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth

JEL Classification: A13; C43; F66; J15; J16; N30; Z12

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation