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CSIS study examines obstacles to democracy in the Muslim world:
- Islam is not an obstacle to democracy in the Muslim world
- Western-backed army rulers held back democratization
- Support for authoritarian governments continues
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
The Islamic world failed to adopt democracy and modernization not because of cultural or religious factors, but because of the excessive role of the state in the Muslim world, excessive military power, the legacy of colonialism and the impact of the Cold War, said a new study by the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
The study, entitled Modernization and Democratization in the Muslim World, based on input from more than 20 analysts from diverse backgrounds, explores the cultural, internal and external causes of slow modernization and democratization in the Muslim world.
It frequently reminds us of the imperative today to put analyses of Islam into proper historical, economic, and geographical contexts. Hence, the study makes a considerable effort to rescue history from the new experts and historians of Islam that, since 9/11, has become the subject of hundreds of books, articles, and conferences, thus providing opportunities for instant “specialists” to add their fresh “expertise” to the established knowledge of academics, travelers, and seasoned diplomats who have lived and worked with and among Muslims.
“It is important that physical, psychological, or verbal terror, whatever the source, is not minimized in this study. However, its major focus is to determine the conditions most favorable to international peace and security, and those imply economic development,” Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for West Africa wrote in the Foreword to the study.
The study says that it is largely the overwhelming power of the military in many Muslim countries that holds back democratization. It calls for "reducing the political and economic role of the military" by cutting defense spending and other changes.
“In fact, for the last 50 years the overwhelming majority of Islamic countries have lived under different forms of authoritarian and/or semi-totalitarian governments. This pattern has only occasionally been punctuated in some cases by what can best be described as electoral democracy. Even in Turkey, with the longest-functioning democratic system of government in the Muslim world, the democratic process has often been interrupted by military coups d’état. Malaysia represents a more sustained, albeit not untroubled process of democratic consolidation. In short, despite the emergence of a few encouraging spots, such as Senegal,Mali, Bangladesh, and the fledgling attempts of Indonesia within the last few years to democratize, the majority of Muslim countries are under some form of authoritarian rule. In a number of Muslim countries, such as Syria, Azerbaijan, and potentially Egypt, presidential dynasties have emerged, while in the Muslim states of Central Asia “presidents for life” have become the order of the day.”
Islam "is neither a tremendous help nor a hindrance" in promoting democracy, said Shireen T. Hunter, director of the CSIS Islam Program, who prepared the study. Many ideas in Islam support democracy rather than discourage it, she said while citing the concept of baya, or consultation, which "means giving support and acceptance to a leader. And also withdrawing that if the leader did not perform for the benefit of society."
“According to the new culturalist thesis, Islam is especially impervious to democratizing influences,” states the study. “The next runners up are Confucianism and Orthodox Christianity. It is only Protestantism that is positively correlated with democracy. The common thread running through all these non-Protestant religions is the close relationship between religion and state and the spiritual and earthly domains. However, these newly embraced cultural determinates fail to explain the democratic transformation of a host of countries that belong to religious traditions considered hostile to democracy. Paramount among these are the Catholic countries of southern Europe, Hungary, and the Czech Republic… In all these cases, considerable economic growth and a favorable external environment have played crucial roles.”
The study chronicles the changes in academic thinking regarding cultural and religious compatibility with democracy, exploring the early theories of men like Max Weber, who first tied democracy to the Protestant work ethic, to later theorists of the Cold War who believed that economic modernization would usher in democratic governance. “Neither civilizations nor religions alone can explain the nature of Muslim states’ responses to modernity,” states the study.
Previous theories have failed to pinpoint why democracy languishes in the Muslim world primarily because they have viewed the phenomenon through an ahistorical lens. Theorists like Samuel Huntington, the study argues, fail to consider the effects of colonialization, regional conflicts encouraged by the proxy wars of the Cold War, and international economic organizations on the plight of Muslim nations.
The study suggested that, in the last two centuries, external factors in the form of the nature of the international political and economic systems and the policies and actions of the great powers have played a largely hindering role in the twin processes of modernization and democratization of the Muslim world. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, colonial powers drew borders arbitrarily, without regard for religious or ethnic groups, ensuring that border disputes would increase the importance and size of militaries.
“The impetus and incentive to modernize as a result of the colonial encounter was checked by the interests and policies of colonial powers, which often saw the Muslims’ modernizing efforts as running counter to their strategic and economic interests. In other words, the colonial presence created a tension by, on the one hand, generating an impetus to modernization and in some cases even initiating it and, on the other hand, simultaneously posing obstacles for its achievement.”
Colonial powers and other foreign presences have made local populations more aware of the necessity to defend and, thus, reorganize their own religious and cultural systems. Rejection, adaptation, or integration of the colonizers’ models has often been debated, and the return to an idealized historical form of government has often been seen in the modern world as a shield against foreign or modern intrusion.
During the Cold War, Western governments encouraged the rise of Islamist militants by using Islam as a rallying cry against atheistic communism, helping to create another source of conflict, according to the study. Western and Soviet support for authoritarian governments allied with either side also "led to a strengthening of the state at the expense of society," the study said adding that:
“The collapse of the Soviet Union unleashed centrifugal tendencies in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, including the Russian Federation itself, in the form of the Bosnian, Kosova, and Chechen wars, plus intra- and interstate conflicts in the Caucasus and Central Asia, such as the Tajik civil war and the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute pitting Azerbaijan and Armenia against each other.
“The Soviet Union’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, instead of bringing peace and security, led to a bloody and devastating civil war and to the emergence of the Taliban with their reductionist reading of Islam and their xenophobic and intolerant attitudes toward the West—and a good part of the Muslims.
“Meanwhile, the Bosnian and Chechen wars, both involving Muslims, became breeding grounds for new generations of Muslim militants. They also generated widespread resentment among Muslims because of the international community’s perceived inaction toward these conflicts. Meanwhile, the prospects for Arab-Israeli peace dimmed after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel in 1994 and later resulted in renewed Arab-Israeli tensions.
“Modernization and democratization in large swaths of the Islamic world and beyond in the developing world were casual-ties of these inauspicious post-Soviet developments; instead of greater aid and other efforts to help the developing world, much of the international community’s attention in the 1990s was absorbed by events in Russia and the Balkans and the state of Russo-Western relations. With the Soviet threat eliminated, most of the developing world was further marginalized.
“The fact that history did not end after all with the Soviet Union’s demise also led to a search for new and overarching paradigms to explain the future shape and direction of international relations. This search resulted in the promulgation of the “clash of civilizations” thesis by Samuel Huntington.”
Today, the value of Muslim countries' resources, especially oil, "puts a further premium on stability" over possibly disruptive democratic reform, according to the study. The fear that democratic elections might give rise to Islamist governments is another reason for Western nations to support the status quo. The CSIS study says that although a lack of democratic reforms is "potentially more threatening to these interests," Western support for authoritarian governments continues in many cases.
The governments of many Muslim countries remain removed from and independent from the societies they rule through oil revenues. These governments, according CSIS, follow a policy of "no representation without taxation," and because they levy few taxes on their citizens, "they do not feel obliged to make any political concessions," said Hunter.
The domination of the military, along with other factors, also holds back Muslim states economically. Seventeen Muslim countries are categorized as "least-developed nations" by the United Nations. "Large-scale poverty, illiteracy, poor health conditions, and large income disparities" hold back democracy and modernization in most Muslim nations, according to CSIS.
On Islam and modernity, the study said that there is a strong rationalist tradition in Islam, as it considers reason as an important if not dominant value in human life. “While radical Islamists reject rationalism because they equate it with the rejection of religion, other Muslim leaders and intellectuals embrace rationalism and modernity as being fully compatible with Islam. These Muslims call for a restoration of the Islamic rationalist tradition. Some go as far as claiming that Muslims, even before Europeans, had experienced their own phase of modernity and modernization, as evidenced by the methodology and rationalist discourse of Muslim scientists and philosophers, such as Al-Biruni, Ibn-Sina, and Ibn Rushd. But later Muslims largely forgot this tradition, thus making it possible for reductionist Islamists to consider rationalism as anti-faith and hence un-Islamic. Yet, even the Islamists do not reject science and technology and the material benefits accruing from them. Quite the contrary, they believe that Muslims should acquire scientific and technological know-how, in order to protect Islam and Muslims. It is mostly in the social, cultural, and political arenas that they are averse to the use of the rationalist approach.
“Although a large number of Muslims reject secularism as a comprehensive system of thought and guide to the organization of society because of its supposed opposition to religion, they support pluralism, which opens the way for democratic rule. A number of discussants pointed out that the root of the opposition to modernity among some Muslims should be looked for in the Muslims’ first experience with modernity, which coincided with colonialism. Thus in the eyes of many Muslims, modernity became more-or-less equated with colonialism and Western domination of the Islamic world. This phenomenon has led to a rejection of modernity by a segment of Muslim populations, as an emotional and defensive response to colonialism and Western domination.”
On Islam and democracy, the study pointed out that in comparing Islam and democracy and assessing the degree of their compatibility, it is important to be clear which Islam and which democracy are being compared. “This is so because the verdict of compatibility or incompatibility depends on the definition. Depending on what definitions of Islam and democracy are used, competing theses are advanced in
support of either compatibility or incompatibility. Yet, neither democracy nor Islam can be easily defined in monolithic forms. Democracy has evolved from its beginnings in the eighteenth century, and present Western liberal democracy bears little resemblance to those earlier forms of democracy, which have some requirements of democracy but lack others. Therefore, it was stressed that democracy is an evolving and multifaceted concept, and in comparing it with Islam, one must be clear what form of democracy one has in mind.
“Islam also provides a wide spectrum of principles and symbols that can be used to construct either an authoritarian system or a democratic order. Moreover, Islam is interpreted differently by Muslims. Clearly, the radical Islamists view Islam as incompatible with democracy, while others see no incompatibility, and some even believe democracy is essential for a true Islamic society. Historically, however, Muslim
societies, like their counterparts in pre-modern Europe, were ruled according to an authoritarian model. It is this historical legacy of authoritarianism coupled with a reductionist reading of Islam by some Muslims, rather than Islam as a faith, that have contributed to the slow progress of democracy in the Muslim world.”
The study concludes that economic development does not necessarily lead to democratization, but argues that certain economic models can create “a more propitious environment for transition to democracy” by fostering the emergence of new economic and social groups, which challenge the authoritarian privileges of the state.
Steps the study recommends to encourage democratic reform include:
- Improving education, including technical and scientific, and improving health conditions;
- Reducing income disparities through a process of development geared to job creation;
- Reducing the political and economic role of the military;
- Closing the gender gap;
- Encouraging the development of civil society;
- Integration into the global economy;
- Resolving regional conflicts or, at least, preventing the outbreak of armed confrontation;
- Encouraging regional economic cooperation;
- Taking large strides to combat pandemics such as HIV/AIDS and other debilitating diseases; and
- Rewarding countries that show a commitment to reform, notably democratization.
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