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ABSTRACT
Majority respect for the political rights of minorities is an important value undergirding peace and political stability in societies. This study examines whether intolerance for minority political rights affects the likelihood that an individual has engaged in violent activities for political causes. Using public opinion data from 11 Arab countries, the study finds that Muslim residents who interpret Islam to mandate inferior political rights to their non-Muslims compatriots are more likely to have engaged in political violence in the past three years. Moreover, the effect of attitudes toward non-Muslim political rights on engagement in political violence is unaffected by subject support for Islamic government/rule, attitudes about democracy and Islamic government, interpretation of Shari’a and general intolerance of or bigotry against non-Muslims.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 There is an extensive social science literature on political tolerance. Sullivan and Transue (Citation1999) provide a comprehensive overview of this literature.
2 Codebook and data for Arab Barometer Wave V can be found online at: https://www.arabbarometer.org/survey-data/data-downloads/. The author downloaded the data on 6/1/2021.
3 Note, wave 5 also surveyed residents of Kuwait but did not include questions about respondent participation in political violence due to its sensitive nature. Therefore, Kuwaiti respondents are excluded from the analysis.
4 Around 6.8 percent of all respondents to Arab Barometer wave 5 identified themselves as non-Muslims. Limiting my analysis to only Muslim respondents resulted in the exclusion of 1,725 out of 25,380 total respondents.
5 Question 502.4. ‘Here is a set of activities that citizens may take part in. During the past three years did you [use] force or violence for a political cause.’
6 Question 607.2. ‘Today as in the past, Muslim scholars and jurist sometimes disagree about the appropriate interpretations of Islam in response to present-day issues. For each of the following statements, please indicate whether you strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree with the interpretation of Islam that is presented:’ ‘Islam requires that in a Muslim country, the political rights of non-Muslim[s] should be inferior to those of Muslims.’
7 Strongly disagree (24.1%); disagree (40.6%); agree (25.2%); strongly agree (9.9%).
8 It is important to note that there is considerable disagreement about the religious legitimacy or Qur’anic basis of traditional Hudud practices among Muslim scholars, and among Muslim individuals, as evident in responses to the AB-5 survey.
9 Question 606.2. ‘[C]ountry is better off if religious people hold public positions in the state.’
10 Question 605. ‘From your point of view, should the laws of the country be … entirely based on the sharia / mostly based on sharia.’
11 Question 516A. ‘Which of these three statements is closest to your own opinion: Democracy is always preferable to any other kind of government.’
12 Question 605b. ‘Which of these four aspects do you think [is] the most essential aspect of shari’a government?: A government that provides basic services such as health facilities, schools, garbage collection, road maintenance. A government that uses physical punishments [stoning, cutting off hands, whipping, hudoud in Islam] to make sure that people obey the law.’
13 Question 602.1 and 602.4a. ‘For each of the following types of people, please tell me how much you would like having people from this group as your neighbors: People of a different religion; People of a different sect of Islam.’ Responses: strongly like, like, neither dislike nor like, dislike, strongly dislike.
14 Question 1001 and 1001gcc. ‘In what year were you born?’ To construct this variable I subtracted the year of the survey from the birth year of the respondent.
15 Question 1002. Gender. Coded 1 for males.
16 Question 1015. ‘Is your net household income less than or greater than [median national income in local currency]?’
17 Question 1005. ‘Are you unemployed or looking for work.’ Note, this excludes respondents who are students, retired, homemakers or self-employed.
18 Question 1003. ‘What is your highest level of education?’ Responses: No formal education; elementary; preparatory/basic; secondary; mid-level diploma/professional or technical; B.A.; M.A. and above.’
19 Question 609a. ‘How often do you pray?’ Responses: never; at least once a month; once a week; several times a week; once a day; five times a day.’
20 Question 1012a. ‘What is your religious denomination?’
21 Note that I opted to use Freedom House data for the political regime type indicator because it includes data for Palestine/the Palestinian Territories. Other commonly-used indicators of regime type, such as Polity IV, do not.
22 By country, the number of terrorist attacks experience for the period 2016–2019 was: Algeria (30); Egypt (718); Iraq (7949); Jordan (25); Lebanon (79); Libya (850); Morocco (1); Palestine, including both Occupied Territories and Israel (668); Sudan (347); Tunisia (51); Yemen (2716).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
James Piazza
James Piazza is Liberal Arts Professor of Political Science at The Pennsylvania State University.