Democratic Transition In The Muslim World

Contributors to this book are particularly interested in expanding our understanding of what helps, or hurts, successful democratic transition attempts in countries with large Muslim populations. Crafting pro-democratic coalitions among secularists and Islamists presents a special obstacle that must be addressed by theorists and practitioners. The argument throughout the book is that such coalitions will not happen if potentially democratic secularists are part of what Al Stepan terms the authoritarian regime's "constituency of coercion" because they (the secularists) are afraid that free elections will be won by Islamists who threaten them even more than the existing secular authoritarian regime. Tunisia allows us to do analysis on this topic by comparing two "least similar" recent case outcomes: democratic success in Tunisia and democratic failure in Egypt. Tunisia also allows us to do an analysis of four "most similar" case outcomes by comparing the successful democratic transitions in Tunisia, Indonesia, Senegal, and the country with the second or third largest Muslim population in the world, India. Did these countries face some common challenges concerning democratization? Did all four of these successful cases in fact use some common policies that while democratic, had not normally been used in transitions in countries without significant numbers of Muslims? If so, did these policies help the transitions in Tunisia, Indonesia, Senegal and India? If they did, we should incorporate them in some way into our comparative theories about successful democratic transitions.

This book examines the role that political Islam plays in processes of democratization in the Muslim world, detailing the political processes that facilitate the collective learning of democratic ways of solving the practical problems of those polities. Democratization in the Muslim World represents an important contribution to the debate on democratization and political Islam that emphasises the synergetic effects and global reach of both Islamist and democratic politics. It comes to terms with the problematic relationship between Islam and democracy in the uncertain post-Cold War, post-9/11 world order by highlighting the malleability of Islamic discourses and of its institutional resources, as well as the diversity of the political strategies of incumbent regimes to remain in power. It combines key theoretical issues and country-specific studies of some of the most relevant Muslim polities of the post-Cold War and post-9/11 era. This text was previously published as a special issue of Democratization and will be of interest to students of Middle East politics, governance, democracy, and human rights.

In early 2011, widespread protests ousted dictatorial regimes in both Tunisia and Egypt. Within a few years, Tunisia successfully held parliamentary and presidential elections and witnessed a peaceful transition of power, while the Egyptian military went on to seize power and institute authoritarian control. What explains the success and failure of transitions to democracy in these two countries, and how might they speak to democratic transition attempts in other Muslim-majority countries? Democratic Transition in the Muslim World convenes leading scholars to consider the implications of democratic success in Tunisia and failure in Egypt in comparative perspective. Alongside case studies of Indonesia, Senegal, and India, contributors analyze similarities and differences among democratizing countries with large Muslim populations, considering universal challenges as well as each nation’s particular obstacles. A central theme is the need to understand the conditions under which it becomes possible to craft pro-democratic coalitions among secularists and Islamists. Essays discuss the dynamics of secularist fears of Islamist electoral success, the role of secular constituencies in authoritarian regimes’ resilience, and the prospects for moderation among both secularist and Islamist political actors. They delve into topics such as the role of the army and foreign military aid, Middle Eastern constitutions, and the role of the Muslim Brotherhood. The book also includes an essay by the founder and president of Tunisia’s Ennadha Party, Rachid Ghannouchi, who discusses the political strategies his party chose to pursue.

This book explores the character of the political transformation and democratic transition in the Asian Muslim world. It asks whether democracy is appropriate and desirable as a political system for non-Western societies, and assesses the extent of actual democratization in each of the countries studied, namely, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan and Turkey. The book questions the widely held view that the socio-political ethos of Islam as a religion, and/or of Muslim countries as societal units, prevents Muslims from adopting democracy as a form of government. The contributors argue that this perception comes from post-9/11 studies of Arab states and that non-Arab Muslim populations in Asia and Africa do not fit the same mould. At the same time, it is clear that a single model of democracy cannot work across these six countries because each country has a different history and treaded on a different path in the quest for democracy. Ultimately, this book concludes that there is no fundamental incompatibility between Islam and democracy in the Asian Muslim world.

A sweeping examination of Muslim public opinion about governance and democracy.

The landscape of the Middle East has changed dramatically since 2011, as have the political arena and the discourse around democracy. In Islam and Democracy after the Arab Spring, John L. Esposito, John Voll, and Tamara Sonn examine the state of democracy in Muslim-majority societies today. Applying a twenty-first century perspective to the question of whether Islam is compatible with democracy, they redirect the conversation toward a new politics of democracy that transcends both secular authoritarianism and Political Islam. While the opposition movements of the Arab Spring vary from country to country, each has raised questions regarding equality, economic justice, democratic participation, and the relationship between Islam and democracy in their respective countries. Does democracy require a secular political regime? Are religious movements the most effective opponents of authoritarian secularist regimes? Esposito, Voll, and Sonn examine these questions and shed light on how these opposition movements reflect the new global realities of media communication and sources of influence and power. Positioned for a broad readership of scholars and students, policy-makers, and media experts, Islam and Democracy after the Arab Spring will quickly become a go-to for all who watch the Middle East, inside and outside of academia.

In 1998, Indonesia's military government collapsed, creating a crisis that many believed would derail its democratic transition. Yet the world's most populous Muslim country continues to receive high marks from democracy-ranking organizations. In this volume, political scientists, religious scholars, legal theorists, and anthropologists examine Indonesia's transition compared to Chile, Spain, India, and potentially Tunisia, and democratic failures in Yugoslavia, Egypt, and Iran. Chapters explore religion and politics and Muslims' support for democracy before change.

This book provides a new theory for how democracy can materialize in the Middle East, and the broader Muslim world. It shows that one pathway to democratization lays not in resolving important, but often irreconcilable, debates about the role of religion in politics. Rather, it requires that Islamists and their secular opponents focus on the concerns of pragmatic survival—that is, compromise through pacting, rather than battling through difficult philosophical issues about faith. This is the only book-length treatment of this topic, and one that aims to redefine the boundaries of an urgent problem that continues to haunt struggles for democracy in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.