Exploring Gaps Across Religions in Southeast Asia

Abstract

This chapter explores whether and how opinions of Muslims and non-Muslims differ, using the survey data collected in four countries in Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. The surveys in Indonesia and Malaysia are nationwide while those in the Philippines and Thailand focus on certain regions, namely the National Capital Region (NCR) and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) in the Philippines, and Bangkok, the proximal provinces (Songkhla and Satun) and the border provinces (Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat) in Thailand. The samples from Indonesia and Malaysia reflect the natural religious compositions of each country, while those from each location in the Philippines and Thailand are composed of the roughly equal-sized Muslim and non-Muslim populations. Detailed descriptive statistics are given in the Appendices at the end of this chapter.