RPP #8: Qualitative Data Sources
I will use Iraq as a case study, much like Atzili used the Congo in his research, to answer the question, what explains the rise in religious minority persecution following foreign intervention?[1] I will operationalize the dependent variable, the rise of persecution against religious minorities, by looking at US State Department reports on International Religious Freedom following the US invasion and observing whether there has been a change in Iraqi law that impedes religious freedom.[2] The International Religious Freedom Reports give detailed accounts of the legal policy and framework as well as restrictions on religious freedom that have been reported on within the last year.
In 2005, the State Department reported that the Transitional Administrative Law was protective of religious freedoms and that the government respected this right.[3] Up through 2016, the legal framework of the constitution still protects religious minorities, except those of Bahai Faith and the Wahhabi branch of Sunni Islam.[4] In reality, though, the ongoing insurgency in 2006 was reported to harm citizen’s ability to practice their faith freely, and the Kurdistan Regional Government was reported to have engaged in discriminatory behavior against Christians.[5] According to US State Department reports, there has been little to no change in the persecution of religious minorities at the governmental level, yet reports also acknowledge that the situation on the ground may be much different.
State Department reports highlight how there has been little to no legal change in the status of religious minorities, yet further research should be done on the grassroots level. An interesting thing to analyze would be the rhetoric of religious minority individuals before and after the invasion, though this may not be feasible for my own project. Operationalizing such rhetoric may also be more difficult than tracking changes in Iraqi domestic law.
[1] Boaz Atzili, “When Good Fences Make Bad Neighbors,” The MIT Press 31, no. 3 (Winter 2006): 139–173.
[2] “International Religious Freedom,” accessed November 8, 2017, https://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/index.htm.
[3] “Iraq,” U.S. Department of State, accessed November 9, 2017, http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2005/51600.htm.
[4] “International Religious Freedom Report for 2016,” accessed November 9, 2017, https://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/religiousfreedom/index.htm#wrapper.
[5] “Iraq,” U.S. Department of State, accessed November 9, 2017, http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2006/71422.htm.
Great job in finding relevant data sources and in thinking about the different dimensions to your DV that you would capture with those sources, Rachel. My only advice would be to also modify your research question to make it more case-specific: what is it about the persecution of religious minorities *in Iraq* that you want to explain? The point would be to use the specific question/case of Iraq to then explain something about the persecution of religious minorities more generally in comparable cases (and to understand which cases of persecution are, in fact, comparable to Iraq and which might not be).