Religion and Interest in Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa

Since the 1980s, sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has experienced a major wave of democratization, and concurrent expansions of independent Christianity and Reformist Islam. Scholarly narratives about the relationship between religion and politics have alternated between emphasizing religion’s inclusive and divisive political potential. Using data from thirteen countries, we evaluate competing hypotheses arising from these narratives. Focusing on the grassroots level, we analyze the effects of religious identity, active religious membership, and education on political interest. We find that active religious membership positively shapes political interest in almost all countries. Yet contrary to extant elite-focused literature, we find no tradition to be uniformly more “political.” Further, religious identity and religious minority status frequently condition the effects of education on political interest. The effects of religion on interest in politics are therefore context-dependent, exhibiting both inclusive and divisive potential.