The present question can be viewed in two parts, namely, the influence which religion has on the outcome of an election and the bearing which it has on the economic progression made by a country. Asking so because as per some recent studies, atheism has been associated with economic progression in some of the developed nations. Moreover, it was brought to the limelight that in countries like USA, people are increasing shunning religious beliefs thus highlighting that indeed religion and economy could very well be two sides of the coin or are they? This needs to be viewed for such countries like India, one of the most religious countries (more than 90% of the population believes in it) as well as China, one of the least religious nations (almost 70% of the population doesn't believe in any religion).
I think it is not the religiousness what has the economic impact but the freedom of choice of any religion (atheism included) and practice it freely, without legal or social consequences. The more liberal state and the more liberal economy help in the development, attract people, entrepreneurship, companies, and money. These factors are great for the economy and for the competition. The diversity and the less regulated behavior (no fear being different or belonging to a minority) together support the innovation and collaboration.
It has just happened that most of the free countries have more atheists (no fear being an atheist, nor legal neither social consequences) since they have the most developed and the most available education. There are only a few exceptions like the US and Singapore. This phenomenon also has some other factors like culture, education, and politics. In the case of the US and Singapore, there is no causal relationship between the religiousness and the economic development. The US well fit in the beforementioned of freedom results in a better economy relationship, Singapore results based on the good emperor (manager) rather than religiousness.
I agree with Robert, it is the matter of institutions, not religion. I believe that the core problem in answering your question is defining what is meant by religion, is it the number of times a normal person visits a mosque or a church, how many fastening days per year do the individual usually perform. Or is it the explicit announcement in the country's constitution like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. I personally do not think that these measures capture the true essence of religious beliefs and how they affect people choices in their lives. Rather, it is a moral and subjective measure that can hardly be captured even by personalized surveys because of many biases in answering such question. It is the matter of a conscience that guides the person and influences his decisions, his conscience may or may not be correlated with his religion. Several factors can also play a role in shaping one's conscience, such as family, community, friends, experiences, etc, all of which can hardly been controlled for to study the impact of religion alone.
1. Like Hassan said, you need to define your religion. I think you may just want to know if your target audience are christians, muslims, pagans or others. Beccause religion is diffirent from spirituality. I may belong to any religion and not be spiritual and this may or may not have any impact on the way and manner i reason. But a spiritual person in any religion may be modest, moral and good in decision making and will influence conscience.
2. Since once conscience guides the person and influences decisions. Relgion if defined in term of spirituality may be correlated to election and macro economic outlook.
3. Furrhermore, Ethical norms should be affected by once religion. The way I evaluate issues or my decision to issues of life is depended on my ethical values. Now ethical values is shaped by Religion, culture, enviroment etc. By implication, the religion of a given nation can affect the way the people behave. For example, the way a muslim leader will take a decision on an issue of child abuse may somehow be the same way with a christian leader but the approach will certainly be different. Why? religious background makes the diffirence.
4. While i agree that several factors can also play a role in shaping one's conscience, such as family, community, friends, experiences, etc, all these can use as control variable for study the impact of religion on the outcome of election and economic outlook if your religion is defined.
5. Ordinarily, a religious country (I mean a nation that loves God) should fight agaist fraud, corruption. By implication respect the rule of law. But this is not the case.....
It seems that high-profile ties between a religion and a political figure significantly enhances that politician's chance of election. Various conservative Christian theologians (like Norm Geisler), conservative Christian leaders (like James Dobson and Franklin Graham), and conservative Christian institutions (like Liberty University) publicly backed Donald Trump. Were it not for the pro-Trump vote of 81% of white evangelicals in the United States, Clinton would be the US President.
I would agree with most of the comments above, but include the examples of Sri Lanka and Indonesia. In the 2015 election, violence erupted between two hardline Buddhist groups, the BBS and the JHU, who split their support between Rajapaksa and Sirisena. Nationalist groups make up a small percentage of the electorate, but did have an impact on a rather surprise result. In Indonesia, the recent gubernatorial election highlighted religious differences between the incumbent ethnic Chinese Christian and his Muslim challenger.
All the previous answers contribute with extremely useful hints regarding your question. I will just add two brief comments:
1.- A key distinction is whether your question regards the aggregate or the individual level. "Religion in countries/regions" (for instance "main religious creed", à la Weber) or "religion" of individuals (for instance their religious ascription and the relationship with the vote for different parties, or their religious behaviour, such as the frequency with which they assist to churches and the like, and the relationship with the propensity to vote or to abstain). I guess that your approach is aggregate, but the underlying causal mechanisms may well be individual.
2.- The political importance of religion may be contingent on its being activated as a dimension of political competition, inseat of being directly and automatically related to it. It may even be the case that in some countries where religious beliefs are widespread, religion is not the most attractive locus of attention for political entrepreneurs.
Best luck with your research, I hope that my comments are useful to you,
Andrés
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