Contentious Politics

This paper serves to analyze the impact of democratic freedom on religious conflicts in postcolonial countries. To do this, democratic freedom is viewed as the political opportunity structures available to citizens in a country. Additionally, this paper views religious conflict as a form of political contention produced through identity politics in Ireland, India, and Nigeria. By using both historical and data analyses, this paper explores the continuity and change between each country regarding colonialism, democracy, and conflict to draw conclusions on the impact of democratic freedom in each country. The main findings in this paper are meant to address the various democratic principles that may or may not exist in each country of study. This paper finds that religious conflict tends to decrease in countries with higher levels of democratic freedom because of the increased trust in the government, lower levels of corruption, decreased partisanship and discrimination, and the decrease in violence used against citizens associated with democratic freedom.