Week 9: Religion and DemocracyMurat Somer © Intl 440

• Research on democracy and democratization verydiverse

Four background factors firmly linked to democracy:

1. Socio-economic development

2. (Tradition of) Rule of law

3. Experience with democracy, ‘political culture’ (suchas tolerance and value of equality)

4. Elite choices and ‘democratic civil society’

Neither is necessary or sufficient

• Different factors important at different stages

• Liberalization, erosion of autocracy, transition, democratization, consolidation

• (political) culture may be more important duringconsolidation

• Since no clear and simple explanation of democratization: choice and learning are alwayscrucial

• Direct: may make people appreciate/wantdemocracy and upohold closely related valuessuch as equality, freedom and fairness

• Indirect1: may help them to organize collectiveactions to bring down autocracy and to establishdemocracy

• Indirect2: may help them to have/developdemocratic institutions, to indigenize (localize) universal/global institutions.

• Religious values may be reinterpreted in theprocess. Religions not monolithic.

• Is Christianity compatible with democracy?

• ‘Democratic values’ versus institutions

• What/why versus how? “What are your social-political goals?” versus “how do you pursue them?” Institutions answer the latter.

• Direct and indirect ways through whichreligions affect democratization.

Retrospective Extrapolation

• The assumption that current levels of democratization (or lack thereof) reflect the disposition of particular religious ideologies

• Europe is democratic now => Christianity/Catholicism must always have been compatible with democracy

• Muslim countries are undemocratic now => Islam must always have been incompatible with democracy

• Kalyvas

Retrospective Extrapolation

• Assumes that policy is the exclusive, automatic and natural derivative of ideas

• Religious ideas fixed

• Religions monolithic entities

Kalyvas

Religious Mobilization

• Definitions

– the use of religious symbols and rituals

– Religious movements: political actors that rely on religious mobilization

Kalyvas

Four essential components of Religious mobilization (unsecular politics)

1. “Antisystem” critique

• Against secular and liberal institutions that support relegation of religion to the private sphere

– Catholic movements in the 1860’s -1870’s were strongly opposed to liberal democracy

– Belgium 1870, Catholic movement adopted a strong anti liberal position

Kalyvas

Syllabus of Errors (1864)

• Vatican (Pope Pius IX) condemned 80 theses including:

– Philosophy free from religion (supernatural)

– Separation of religion and state

– Pantheism, naturalism, absolute rationalism

– Progress, liberalism and modern civilization

2. Reconstruction of existing religious entities

• Reconstruct existing religious entities by blending religious, social, economic and political– 19th century Catholic movements, as the antidote

to liberalization and secularization

– Islamism, based on the primary role of social and political action • Example; Fatah (as well as Hamas) derived legitimacy

through action not Islamic interpretation

– Hindu-nationalist Bharatija Janata Party (BJP), transcends Hinduism through action

Kalyvas

3. Mass mobilization based on selective incentives and concomitant use of economic and social issues

• Reliance on social and political messages

• State is the main focus of criticism

• Religious parties provide incentives

– Muslim Brotherhood hospitals and food programs in Egypt

– Catholic organizations intended as a “counter society”

– BJP student organizations

Kalyvas

4. Cross-class Appeal

• Appeal to disparate segments of society

– BJP builds a broad coalition of castes

– Catholic mobilization becomes a federation a various organizations

Kalyvas

Paths out of Unsecular Politics

• Willingness to moderate

– Constraint through alliances with secular parties

– Moderation in the face of military or elite subversion

• Ability to moderate

– It is the ability to moderate rather than willingness that matters

» Ascension to power brings moderation

Kalyvas

• Religion versus religious actors

• Religious actors can play positive as well as negative roles

• Engaged Buddhism: Dalai Lama of Tibet; Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi; Indianconvert to Buddhism B. R. Ambedkar

• Nationalist version of Buddhism in Sri Lanka oppressing Hindu Tamils: Sri Lanka belongs to sangha (Buddhist religious communities)

• Can also play different roles in different stagesof democratization

• Religious actors played crucial role in founding American democracy; today, role of Moral Majority, Christian Coalition more debatable?

• In Indonesia, Islamist mobilization was crucialin overthrowing the Suharto regime; but laterthey turned against religious minorities such as the Ahmadiyya

• Bulgaria, Georgia, Ukraine: Orthodox churchappointed by the Soviet largely passive in democratic transition. But later adopteddemocracy

• Poland: Church was instrumental in bringingdown communist military rule.. But today moredebatable..

• Turkey: AKP played positive role in dismantlingmilitary praetorianism.. But once it controlled the state, turned authoritarian.. Power reversedmoderation?

• Four crucial variables:

• Ideology

• Independence from state

• Organization (hierarchical vs. decentralized)

• Political relationship with secular actors(including secular states)

Islam and Democracy

• 11 electoral democracies out of 46 in 2015:

• Indonesia • Turkey• Albania• Kosovo• Macedonia• Bosnia-Herzegovina• Senegal• Mali• Mauritius• Comoros• Tunisia

ELECTORAL DEMOCRACIES IN MUSLIM MAJORITY COUNTRIES (2015):

TURKEY (Partly Free)TUNISIA (Free)

INDONESIA (Partly Free)BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA (Partly Free)

KOSOVO (Partly Free)MACEDONIA (Partly Free)

ALBANIA (Partly Free)SENEGAL (Free)

MAURITIUS (Free)MALI (Partly Free)

COMOROS (Partly Free)

• Huntington: non-western societies cannotembrace democratic values and institutionsbecause these are culture-specific to the western world.

What makes the West “western” and unique?

• The classical legacy

• Western Christianity

• European languages

• Separation of spiritual and temporal authority

• Rule of law

Social pluralism and civil society

• Huntington: “what is distinctive about the West, as Karl Deutsch noted, ‘is the rise and persistence of diverse autonomous groups not based on blood relationship and marriage.”

– Monastries, guilds etc.

Representative bodies

• “estates, parliaments, other institutions” representing the interests of the aristocracy, clergy, merchants, and other groups…evolvedinto the institutions of modern democracy.”

Form vs. substance

• Are these really unique?

– Historically

– categorically

• Huntington does not distinguish between the form, justification and substance of institutions.

• Muslim countries can democratize by either producing the same institutions or by producing indigenous institutions fulfilling the same functions!

• Secular civil law (e.g. Turkish civil law) vs.

• Mecelle (1878, late-Ottoman)

• Earlier attempts to codify (Hanefi-Sunni) Islamic law

– Minkarizade Dede Efendi (Dede Congi Efendi) (d.1565); Ebussuud Efendi (1490-1576)

• citizen associations vs.

• waqfs

• Parliament vs. Shura

• Secular-democratic state state vs. civil state

• Tariq Ramadan:

It was not long before several Islamist movements replaced "Islamic" with "civil" in describing themselves.. all the while avoiding terms like secularisation, secularism.. as such concepts continue to carry a negative connotation in the broad Arab and Muslim conscience (Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan's remarks about secularism during his 13 September 2011 visit to Egypt were badly received by the Muslim Brotherhood and by Islamists in general).

• Western (universal?) forms:

– Advantages: have already been tried; best practices

– Disadvantages: legitimacy

• Indigenous forms

- Advantages: legitimacy, historical basis

- Disadvantages: takes time to develop, constrained by religious tradition

• Why do “western” institutions seen as western, rather than universal?

• Filali-Ansary:

– Islam should be the religion that can most easily accommodate secularization

– “secularization has been taking place in Muslim societies for decades.”

Tenacious misunderstanding

• According to Al-Ansary, why do many Muslimsoppose secularization and Islam seems to be hostile to secularization and modernity?

• Dahriyin:temporalist (used in the Koran to describe atheists)

• Ladini: areligious or non-religious

• Ilmani: this-worldly

Saad Eddin İbrahim

• Two-thirds of Muslims live under electedgovernments in countries like Turkey, Indonesia, Senegal, and India.

• The remaining one-third is concentrated in Arab Middle East.

• The first democratization wave in Arab worldin nineteenth century was aborted by colonialpowers such as France and Britain.

• Israeli-Palestinian conflict undermined the other one.

Empirical Disproof

• Both Catholicism and Islam have been used to back a variety of regimes

• Ideology is not a static variable, interpretations chance over

time

– See Khomeini revising Shiite

– avoidance of religious leaders

in government

Muslims and Democracyencounters with the modernizing west

• Jamal-Eddin Al-Afghani

– Refuted the notion that religion is responsible for backwardness

– Equates secularists with seventh

century opponents of

the Prophet

– Secularism becomes equated

with atheism

Ansary

Misconception

• Western imperialism becomes conflated with Christian proselytism and secularism

• Widespread hostility toward secularism and modernity becomes endemic to Islamic societies

• However, there is nothing about Islam that makes it inherently antithetical to these ideas

Ansary

Islam versus Islamdom

• Islam as a religion– See the Koran and Sunna

• Islam as a society– See the Golden Age of Islam

• “a social and political order built in the norms adopted from Islamic sources but specifically adapted to the conditions of the time.”

• See Christianity and Christendom

• Obeying non-legitimate rulers is better than Fitna, or anarchy

Ansary

Transformation of Society• Secularization has been taking place in Muslim

Societies in the face of strong opposition

• Society built on religion no longer provides the basis for social and political order

• disenchantment with ‘progress’ Ansary

Attitudes towards Democracy

• Even fundamentalists accept democratization

– As long as it is Sharia compliant

• Growing acceptance and adoption

• Mohammed Abed Jabri, democracy is the only acceptable principle of political legitimacy

Ansary

Conditions for Real Democracy in Muslim Societies

• Updating of religious conceptions

– General evolution of religious attitudes

• Rule of Law

– A clear modern concept of rule of law where individuals have a voice

• Economic Growth

– Continuous progress replacing messianic hope

Ansary

Paradox of secularism:

Secularism needs/claims to be neutral. But, thiscreates a paradox because it cannot tellreligious people “why” they should acceptsecularism.

Therefore:

• Secularism alone is insufficient to realise itsown aims (political stability, politicalautonomy and peaceful coexistence).

• Secularism should be justified within religioustradition.

• “Secularism is necessary for democracy.”

– True or false?

• There is a Muslim democratic deficit in the world?

– True or false?

• “Religious politics always underminesdemocracy.” True or false?

• Religious mobilization can helpdemocratization if it opposes tyranny, oppression, military tutelage, corruption

• It can undermine democratization if it allieswith oppressive rulers and states

– Examples Poland

– Latin America

– Russia before and after Putin

– Turkey before and after 2007? 2010?

Also major difference between:

• religious mobilization that makes among otherthings religious demands in the name of humanrights etc.

– versus

• Religious mobilization that makes religiousdemands in the name of religion

• Religious people, not religions support oroppose democracy. Most religions includeteachings that can support as well as undermine democracy.

– Examples?

– Lack of hierarchy, shura

– fitna

• Religion can also help democracy and secularism by producing indigenous forms of secularism and democracy

• E.g. “Civil state” (secularists, Islamists, and different İslamists understand very differentthings). Time will show if it will evolve into a form that fulfills the role of secularism in Muslim societies

• But insofar as religions have well-establishedtraditions and rulings, it may take time to produce indigenous forms of democracy and secularism

– Tradition of Sharia cuts both ways. On one handtradition of rule of law. On the other hand archaicrules hard to change about women’s rights etc.

• Historical baggage (e.g. Tenaciousmisunderstanding)