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Under what conditions does democratization erode religious political engagement? The dramatic democratic transitions in the Catholic world during the last quarter of the twentieth century have been accompanied by the widespread decline of Catholic political parties, but the interaction between democratizing reforms and the development of religious parties in the Catholic world remains poorly understood. This article analyses the crucial case of Mexico to explore if, how, and under what conditions electoral participation encourages the differentiation of religious and partisan activism. Relying on archival research and an original data set describing the religious linkages of 302 historic and contemporary leading members of the PAN, Mexico's largest Catholic-inspired party, this article shows that democratization is only indirectly linked to the secularization of religious parties, and its effects are conditional on the resources and opportunities available to religious activists. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, we propose a new approach to an old question: How does development affect religion-state relations? We argue that because development increases states' ability to effectively formulate and implement policy, it will be associated with greater state regulation of religion. This stands in contrast to predominant theories that examine development's negative impact on individual religiosity while largely overlooking the impact that development may have on state institutions. We test our theory using data drawn from over 160 countries, and demonstrate that the effect of economic development on state regulation of religion is consistently positive, substantively significant, and robust to alternative measurements and the inclusion of a broad range of controls. Statistical analysis also demonstrates that the correlation between development and state regulation of religion is primarily a result of economic development's impact on state capacity, rather than social dislocation or improved coordination by religious communities. Incorporating state capacity recasts the study of religious regulation-and suggests that economic growth is unlikely to take religion off the political agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]