Is it Really God’s Century? An Evaluation of Religious Support and Discrimination from 1990 to 2008 Jonathan Fox Bar Ilan University Abstract: This study uses data from the Religion and State Round 2 dataset to examine the trends in religious discrimination and religious support between 1990 and 2008, finding a statistically significant increase in both variables. These findings are based on a longer time span and more comprehensive variables than previous studies, remain constant when controlling for world region and majority religion, and predate the events of September 11, 2001. This undermines the aspects of secularization theory which predict a decline in religion’s public influence. Furthermore, economic development, one of the processes predicted by secularization theory decrease religion’s public influence, is correlated with increased religious discrimination and support. INTRODUCTION In their recent book, God’s Century, Monica D. Toft, Daniel Philpott, and Timothy S. Shah (2011, 2) argue that “over the past four decades, reli- gion’s influence on politics has reversed its decline and become more powerful on every continent and across every world religion.” This is not an isolated claim. This type of claim has been present in the literature for at least two decades. However, to date, few studies have examined it using a significant amount of data from the 21st century. This study uses new data from the Religion and State Round 2 (RAS2) dataset to examine the patterns of religious support and discrimination between 1990 and 2008. These aspects of state religion policy signifi- cantly influence the daily lives of the inhabitants of the 177 countries included in the dataset and provide a test of whether religion’s influence Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Jonathan Fox, Department of Political Studies, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. E-mail: jonathan.fox@biu.ac.il 4 Politics and Religion, 7 (2014), 4–27 © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association, 2013 doi:10.1017/S1755048313000230 1755-0483/13 $25.00