Sharīʻa, Islamism and Arab support for democracy

ABSTRACT

The Arab Spring and its aftermath reignited the debate over the relationship between Islamism and democracy. This analysis improves upon previous research by demonstrating the crucial contribution which a more precise understanding of the multiple meanings of the concept of Sharīʻa can have on our assessment of the future of democracy in the Arab world. While support for the Sharīʻa-conformity of laws has a positive impact on the preference for democracy, the insistence that Sharīʻa represents the word of God as opposed to the human attempt to interpret it reduces support for democracy. These findings are of considerable significance for academics and policy-makers interested in the future of democracy in the Arab world as it suggests that generic expressions of support for Sharīʻa are less relevant in explaining support for democracy than what Arab women and men consider to be its essence.

KEYWORDS:

• Sharīʻa
• Islamism
• democracy
• Arab Spring
• gender equality
• religious freedom
• public opinion

Acknowledgements

A previous version of this article was presented at the Secularism and Religious Differences workshop at the 2017 ECPR Joint Sessions in Nottingham as well as 2017 conference of the German Middle East Studies for Contemporary Research and Documentation (DAVO) in Jena/Germany. I also gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of the two anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Lars Berger http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7846-804X

Notes

1 Cavatorta and Dalmasso, “Democracy, Civil Liberties”; Kirdiş, “Wolves in Sheep Clothing”; Schwedler, “Can Islamists become Moderates”; Somer, “Conquering versus Democratizing the State”; Stepan and Linz, “Democratization Theory and the Arab Spring”; Volpi and Stein, “Islamism and the State.”

2 Inglehart and Welzel, “Changing Mass Priorities”; Welzel, “Are Levels of Democracy”; Welzel and Inglehart, “The Role of Ordinary People in Democratization.”

3 Linz and Stepan, “Problems of Democratic Transition”; Przeworski and Limongi, “Modernization: Theories and Facts.”

4 Braizat, “Muslims and Democracy”; Ciftci, “Modernization”; Ciftci, “Secular-Islamist Cleavage”; Hofman, “Islam and Democracy”; Hoffman and Jamal, “Religion in the Arab Spring”; Jamal, “Reassessing Support for Islam and Democracy”; Jamal and Tessler, “Attitudes in the Arab World”; Moaddel, “The Saudi Public Speaks”; Rose, “How Muslims View Democracy”; Rowley and Smith, “Islam’s Democracy Paradox”; Tessler, “Islam and Democracy”, “Do Islamic Orientations Influence”; Tessler and Gao, “Gauging Arab Support”; Tessler, Jamal and Robbins, “New Findings on Arabs and Democracy”; Yuchtman-Ya’ar and Alkalay, “Political Attitudes in the Muslim World.”

5 An-Na’im, “Islam, Sharia”; Kraemer, “Modern but not Secular.”

6 Ciftci, “Secular-Islamist Cleavage”; Davis and Robinson, “Egalitarian Face”; Fair, Littman and Nugent, Pakistani Conceptualization of Sharia.

7 Feldman, “The Fall and Rise”; Kraemer, “Modern but not Secular”; Shepard, “The Application of Shari’a in Egypt.”

8 Stepan and Linz, “Democratization Theory and the Arab Spring,” 18.

9 Stepan and Linz, “Democratization Theory and the Arab Spring.”

10 Netterstrøm, “The Islamists’ Compromise in Tunisia.”

11 Ciftci, “Secular-Islamist Cleavage.”

12 Driessen, “Sources of Muslim Democracy”; Davis and Robinson, “The Egalitarian Face”; Pew Research Center, The World’s Muslims.

13 Sonbol, “A Response to Muslim Countries’ Reservations.”

14 Hefner, Shari’a Politics; Khan, “Islam, Democracy, and Islamism”; Lombardi, “Designing Islamic Constitutions.”

15 Otto, “Introduction.”

16 Ibid, 25.

17 Otto, “Introduction”; see also Rehman, “Accommodating Religious Identities in an Islamic State.”

18 Otto, “Introduction”; see also Sonbol, “A Response to Muslim Countries’ Reservations.”

19 Ayubi, “Political Islam.”

20 Soage, “Ḥasan al-Bannā and Sayyid Quṭb,” 297.

21 Al-Azmeh, Islams and Modernities, 12.

22 Hallaq, “What is Sharia,” 152.

23 Hallaq, “What is Sharia,” 169. See also Dalacoura, “Islamism, secularization, secularity” for the specific case of the Muslim Brotherhood.

24 Feldman, “The Fall and Rise,” 81.

25 Feldman, “The Fall and Rise,” 79.

26 Kraemer, “Modern but not Secular,” 641.

27 Davis and Robinson, “The Egalitarian Face”; Fair, Malhotra and Shapiro, “Islam, Militancy”; Kendhammer, “The Sharia Controversy in Northern Nigeria.”

28 Kendhammer, “The Sharia Controversy in Northern Nigeria.”

29 Driessen “Sources of Muslim Democracy”; Feldman, “The Fall and Rise.”

30 Moaddel, “The Saudi Public Speaks.”

31 Hoffman and Jamal, “Religion in the Arab Spring.”

32 Fair, Littmann, and Nugent, Pakistani Conceptualization of Sharia.

33 Cofman Wittes, “Three Kinds of Movements”; Schwedler, “Can Islamists Become Moderates”; Rehman, “Accommodating Religious Identities in an Islamic State”; Pew Research Center, Arab Spring Adds to Global Restrictions on Religion.

34 Hamid, Temptations of Power.

35 Furman, “Minorities.”

36 Kumaraswamy, “Islam and Minorities,” 100.

37 Kraemer, “Modern but not Secular.”

38 Kraemer, “Modern but not Secular.”

39 Shepard, “The Application of Sharia.”

40 Kraemer, “Modern but not Secular.”

41 Otto, “Introduction.”

42 An-Na’im, “Islam, Sharia.”

43 Mernissi, The Veil and the Male Elite; Sonbol, “A Response to Muslim Countries’ Reservations.”

44 An-Na’im, “Islam, Sharia.”

45 Tessler and Gao, “Gauging Arab Support.”

46 Welzel and Inglehart, “The Role of Ordinary People in Democratization.”

47 Milligan, Andersen, Brym, “Assessing Variation in Tolerance,” 242, emphasis in original.

48 Rowley and Smith, “Islam’s Democracy Paradox.”

49 Inglehart, Norris, and Welzel, “Gender Equality and Democracy.”

50 Inglehart and Norris, “The True Clash of Civilizations.”

51 Rizzo, Abdellatif, Meyer, “The Relationship between Gender Equality and Democracy.”

52 Ibid.

53 Kostenko, Kuzmuchev, and Ponarin, “Attitudes towards Gender Equality.”

54 Ciftci, “Modernization, Islam.”

55 Ciftci, “Secular-Islamist Cleavage”; Hoffman and Jamal, “Religion in the Arab Spring”; Tessler, Jamal and Robbins, “New Findings on Arabs and Democracy.”

56 Hofman, “Islam and Democracy.”

57 Esmer, “Islamic Civilization”; Moaddel, “The Saudi Public Speaks.”

58 Ciftci, “Secular-Islamist Cleavage”; Davis and Robinson, “The Egalitarian Face.”

59 Fair, Littman and Nugent, Pakistani Conceptualization.

60 Cavatorta and Dalmasso, “Democracy, Civil Liberties”; Khan, “Islam, Democracy”; Pack and Cook, “The July 2012 Libyan Elections.”

61 Ciftci, “Secular-Islamist Cleavage”; Jamal, “Reassessing Support for Islam and Democracy.”

62 Ciftci, “Secular-Islamist Cleavage”; Jamal, “Reassessing Support for Islam and Democracy”; Moaddel, “The Saudi Public Speaks”; Rose, “How Muslims view Democracy”; Yuchtman-Ya’ar and Alkalay, “Political Attitudes in the Muslim World.”

63 Esmer, “Islamic Civilization”; Inglehart and Welzel, “Political Culture and Democracy.”

64 Inglehart and Welzel, “Political Culture and Democracy,” 61–62.

65 Welzel, “Are Levels of Democracy.”

66 Ibid.

67 Norris and Inglehart, “Islamic Culture and Democracy.”

68 Ibid.

69 Inglehart and Welzel, “Political Culture and Democracy.”

70 Inglehart and Norris, “The True Clash of Civilizations.”

71 Ciftci, “Secular-Islamist Cleavage”; Hoffman and Jamal, “Religion and Politics”; Hofman, “Islam and Democracy”; Jamal, “Reassessing Support for Islam and Democracy”; Rizzo, “The Relationship between Gender Equality and Democracy.”

72 Norris and Inglehart, “Islamic Culture and Democracy.”

73 Inglehart and Welzel, “Political Culture and Democracy,” 74.

74 Esmer, “Islamic Civilization.”

75 Ciftci, “Modernization, Islam.”

76 Ibid.

77 Esmer, “Islamic Civilization.”

78 The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure verified the sampling adequacy for the analysis, KMO = .780.

79 Ciftci, “Modernization, Islam.”

80 Esmer, “Islamic Civilization.”

81 For a similar approach, see Ciftci, “Modernization, Islam”; Norris and Inglehart, “Islamic Culture and Democracy.”

82 Hofman, “Islam and Democracy,” 659.

83 Benstead, “Why do some Arab citizens”, Ciftci, “Secular-Islamist Cleavage”; Driessen “Sources of Muslim Democracy”; Moaddel, “The Saudi Public Speaks.”

84 Davis and Robinson, “The Egalitarian Face.”

85 Tessler, “Islam and Democracy.”

86 Tessler, Jamal, Robbins, “New Findings on Arabs and Democracy.”

87 Stepan and Linz, “Democratization Theory and the Arab Spring.”

88 Stepan and Linz, “Democratization Theory and the Arab Spring,” 17.

89 Djerejian, “One Man, One Vote.” For more recent assessments, see Kirdiş, “Wolves in Sheep Clothing” and Somer, “Conquering versus Democratizing the State.”

90 Jamal, “Reassessing Support for Islam and Democracy”; Tessler and Gao, “Gauging Arab Support.”

91 Tessler, “Islam and Democracy.”

92 Ciftci, “Modernization, Islam.”

93 Ciftci, “Secular-Islamist Cleavage.”

94 Ibid.

95 Tessler, Jamal, Robbins, “New Findings on Arabs and Democracy.”

96 Tessler and Gao, “Gauging Arab Support.”

97 Stepan and Linz, “Democratization Theory and the Arab Spring.”

98 For a similar approach, see Tessler, “Islam and Democracy.”

99 The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure verified the sampling adequacy for the analysis, KMO = .753.

100 Ciftci, “Modernization, Islam”; Ciftci, “Secular-Islamist Cleavage”, Jamal, “Reassessing Support for Islam and Democracy.”

101 Multicollinearity statistics are well within acceptable parameters.

102 Kraemer, “Modern, but not Secular.”

103 Davis and Robinson, “The Egalitarian Face”; Driessen “Sources of Muslim Democracy”; Fair, Littman and Nugent, Pakistani Conceptualization.

104 Kendhammer, “The Sharia Controversy in Northern Nigeria.”

105 Feldman, “The Fall and Rise.”

106 See Jamal and Tessler, “Attitudes”, for a similar finding on 2nd wave Arab Barometer data. Multinomial regression analysis confirmed that correlations of theoretically important variables detected here remain the same irrespective of whether respondents followed an instrumentalist or procedural understanding of democracy.

107 Ciftci, “Modernization, Islam”; Inglehart, Norris and Welzel, “Gender Equality and Democracy”; Rowley and Smith, “Islam’s Democracy Paradox.”

108 Mernissi, The Veil and the Male Elite; Sonbol, “A Response to Muslim Countries’ Reservations.”

109 Jamal, “Reassessing Support for Islam and Democracy.”

110 Stepan and Linz, “Democratization Theory and the Arab Spring.”

111 See also the post-Arab Spring study of Egyptian public opinion by Hassan, Kendall, and Whitefield, “Between Scylla and Charybdis.” Kostenko, Kuzmuchev, and Ponarin’s analysis of the link between age and support for democracy in first wave Arab Barometer data suggests that this is not a new phenomenon.

112 Faqir, “Engendering Democracy and Islam.”

113 For a similar finding, see Kostenko, Kuzmuchev, and Ponarin, “Attitudes towards Gender Equality.”

114 Rose, “How Muslims View Democracy.”

115 Bratton, “Briefing.”

116 Chong and Gradstein, “On Education.”

117 McCarthy, “How Tunisia’s An-Nahda party turned from its Islamist roots.”

118 Esmer, “Islamic Civilization”; Norris and Inglehart, “Islamic Culture and Democracy”; Welzel, “Are Levels of Democracy.”

119 Stepan and Linz, “Democratization Theory and the Arab Spring.”

120 Lombardi, “Designing Islamic Constitutions.”

121 Inglehart and Welzel, “Changing Mass Priorities”; Welzel, Inglehart and Klingemann, “A Theory of Human Development.”

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Lars Berger

Lars Berger is Associate Professor in International Security at the University of Leeds/UK. He earned his Dr Phil in Political Science at Friedrich-Schiller University Jena/Germany. His research focuses on the domestic and international politics of the Arab world, Islamism, terrorism and counterterrorism.