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Religious groups often rely on a registration process to receive the legal status needed to operate openly. Yet, the registration process has become a recent source of controversy. This research uses case studies, trend data from three global collections, and fixed effects models using 19 waves of data to test for the consequences of introducing registration requirements within a nation. The case studies help us to understand the controversies and to identify how registration requirements have been used to increase restrictions on religions in the past, while the trend data document the increasing use of these requirements for discriminating against religions. Finally, the fixed effects models find that introducing registration requirements within a nation was followed by increased religious restrictions, especially for minority religions.

Conceptualized as efforts to deny religious freedoms, previous research explains the presence of governmental restrictions on religion by isolating national governments, asserting that the primary determinant is a country's internal structural characteristics. These approaches overlook why the levels of governmental restriction on religion are spatially clustered and increasing in distinct patterns. Utilizing spatial analysis and data from the Religion and State Project, this article demonstrates that governmental restrictions on religion are spatially clustered, not independent from neighboring countries, and that increases in a country's level of restrictions reflect similar changes in bordering countries. Spatial clustering emerges through the diffusion of policies, where national governments mimic their neighbor's policies and practices even when accounting for internal structural characteristics. The article concludes that while a country's internal structure is clearly a predictor of policies, national governments are not isolated from neighbors where the level of restrictions are susceptible to external influence.

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