Governmental Discrimination Against Religious Minorities in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1990–2023

There have been few comprehensive empirical studies on the status of religious minorities in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). While studies on religion and politics in the region include governmental religious support (GRS) and societal religious discrimination (SRD) as potential causes of governmental religious discrimination (GRD), they do not comprehensively examine these dynamics. This study fills this gap by examining GRD against 243 religious minorities in 50 SSA countries and autonomous territories between 1990 and 2023 using round 4 of the Religion and State-Minorities dataset (RASM4). Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, we find that GRD, GRS, and SRD are all increasing in the region and that both SRD and GRS meaningfully predict GRD.