Re-examining the debate on Islam and democracy, the authors look at the relationship between competitive elections and levels of economic development in both Arab Muslim majority countries and non-Arab Muslim majority countries. While the performance gap in terms of electoral competition in Arab Muslim majority countries is widely recognized, less noticed is the fact that the non-Arab Muslim majority subset includes many “greatly over-achieving” countries, vis-à-vis contested elections. The authors demonstrate this using a combination of quantitative and qualitative evidence, and set out what this implies for Middle Eastern politics and the study of democracy and religion.
About the Authors
Alfred Stepan
Alfred Stepan is the founding director of Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR), and author (with Juan J. Linz) of Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe.
Graeme Robertson, professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the author of The Politics of Protest in Hybrid Regimes: Managing Dissent in Post-Communist Russia (2011).
After the collapse of the Assad regime, Syria stands at a crossroads. Nothing is assured, but the country’s civil society is its best hope for charting a democratic future.
If they are to understand Islam authentically and to embrace the modern world freely, Muslims must take a new attitude toward their traditions of interpretation.
