People who live in middle income countries are more likely than people in high-income countries to be “religious nationalists,” but religious nationalists do not make up a majority of the population in any of the countries surveyed, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center, a Washington DC-based fact tank.

The report is based on nationally representative surveys conducted during January to May 2024 across 36 countries, covering 55,000 people and a variety of historically predominant religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism.

Noting that the belief that “a country’s historically predominant religion should be a central part of its national identity and drive policymaking is sometimes described as “religious nationalism,” the study classifies as ‘religious nationalists’ all those respondents who identified with the historically predominant religion and took a “strongly religious position” on four key questions: How important is belonging to the historically predominant religion to being truly part of your national identity? (For example, how important is being a Hindu to being truly Indian?); how important is it that your national leader shares your religious beliefs; how much influence should the predominant religion’s sacred text/teachings have on the laws of your country; and when the sacred text/teachings clashes with the will of the people, which should have more influence on the laws of the country.

By these criteria, less than 1% of the adults surveyed were religious nationalists in Germany and Sweden, compared with 46% in Indonesia and 45% in Bangladesh, while the corresponding figure for the US was 6%. In India, 24% of Hindus met the criteria of ‘religious nationalist’.

Overall, views of religion’s impact on society were broadly positive. A 36-country median of 77% said religion mostly helps society, while a median of 19% said it mostly hurts.

However, the survey found marked differences in how people viewed the role of religion in society, depending on whether they belonged to a middle-income or rich country. For instance, people in middle-income countries were more likely than people in richer countries to say that “religion does more good than harm for Society” (87% vs 56%), “religion encourages tolerance rather than intolerance” (81% vs 55%), and “that religion does not encourage superstitious thinking” (59% vs 43%).

Countries where more people followed a religion also tended have more people who saw religion as a positive influence on society. For instance, in Bangladesh, where nine-in-ten adults are Muslim, 94% said religion mostly helps society whereas in Sweden, where less than half the adults surveyed had a religious affiliation (47%), only 42% said religion was helpful.

There was also a divergence between middle-income and high-income countries on the influence of sacred texts over national laws. In India, Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, the Philippines and Peru, half of adults or more said the texts they were asked about should have a great deal of influence on the laws of their country. In contrast, half or more people in high-income countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK said the Bible should have no influence at all on their laws.

The study also found that in many countries, people with lower levels of education were more likely to be religious nationalists than those with higher levels of education. In a few countries, people with lower incomes were more likely than those with higher incomes to be religious nationalists. Lastly, in many countries, people who placed themselves on the ideological right were more likely to be religious nationalists than those in the centre or on the left.