Determinants of Democracy in the Muslim World PDF

Determinants of Democracy in the Muslim World Author(s): Fatima Z. Rahman Source: Polity , October 2013, Vol. 45, No. 4, Behind the Curtain (October 2013), pp. 554- 579 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Northeastern Political Science Association Stable URL: https://www....

Determinants of Democracy in the Muslim World Author(s): Fatima Z. Rahman Source: Polity , October 2013, Vol. 45, No. 4, Behind the Curtain (October 2013), pp. 554- 579 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Northeastern Political Science Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24540320 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Northeastern Political Science Association and The University of Chicago Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Polity This content downloaded from 54.151.172.125 on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 11:57:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Polity · Volume 45, Number 4 · October 2013 © 2013 Northeastern Political Science Association 0032-3497/13 www.palgravejournals.com/polity/ Determinants of Democracy in the Muslim World Fatima Ζ. Rahman Lake Forest College This article, which examines the factors and processes that account for the negative correlation between Muslim majority states and democratization, focuses on the institutionalization of Islam in the state. I assess the effect of this factor along with other determinants on regime type from 1990 to 2002 in the population of fifty-one Muslim-majority states, using a multilevel mixed effects linear regression model and path analysis. The analysis shows that although Islam is arguably the most con spicuous factor characterizing this set of states, the institutionalization of Islam in the state is not an impediment to democratization. Instead, factors particularly associated with the Middle East and North Africa, as well as a communist legacy, delay mean ingful democratic reform. The results of various regression models suggest that the states in this region with a better propensity toward democratic change are Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, and Yemen. Polity (2013) 45,554-579. doi: 10.1057/pol.2013.18; published online 9 September 2013 Keywords Islam and politics; democratization; Muslim world; Middle East; Shari'a The recent events of the Arab Spring have reinvigorated the discussion on the prospects of democracy in the Middle East. The extent to which the protests that brought about the removal of entrenched executives in Tunisia and Egypt will also lead to structural political reform and an eventual transition to and consolidation of democracy remains uncertain, it is clear, however, that Islam's political role is once again being hotly contested in countries that have historically been characterized by an uneasy relationship between largely secular ruling regimes and popular Islamic political forces. The reincarnation of once banned Islamist parties, particularly the al-Nahda in Tunisia and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and their successes in the recent elections have ignited a debate about the role that Shari'a will play in the state and its implications for democratization and the rights of religious minorities and women. This article examines the factors and processes within the Muslim world that have impeded progress toward more democratic forms of government, and focuses on the effect of the institutionalization of Islam in the state (used This content downloaded from 54.151.172.125 on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 11:57:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Fatima Ζ. Rahman 555 interchangeably with state-institutionalized Islam, for brevity). Previous cross national studies examining determinants of regime type have found that, ceteris paribus, states with Muslim-majority populations are more autocratic than are non-Muslim majority states.1 These studies have contributed to our under standing of democratization by empirically confirming the claim that Muslim majority states are resistant to democratization. However, these studies also exhibit a limitation, which motivates this article. They employ a problematic variable (the relative size of the Muslim population within a state) when assessing the democratic implications of Islam. The problem is that the percentage of Muslims in a state does not capture the effect of the different forms of state-institutionalized Islam, which is the aspect of Islam that is thought to be consequential for democratization. I attempt to overcome this limitation by testing the effect on regime type in Muslim-majority states of three different forms of state-institutionalized Islam: (1) the adoption of Islam as the state religion, (2) the incorporation of Islamic laws and policies, and (3) the presence of religious courts.2 I do this while accounting for important cultural, regional, and economic variations, which are also hypothesized to determine regime type and may account for the negative correlation that is observed between majority Muslim states and democratization in previous cross-national studies.3 Using data from the set of fifty-one Muslim-majority states from 1990 to 2002, I gain some traction on how changes in these factors over time affect a Muslim majority state's democratic trajectory, albeit over a very limited period of time due to data constraints.41 find that state institutionalized Islam, in the form of state laws and policies based on Islam, the adoption of Islam as the state religion, and the presence of religious courts, are not significant impediments to democratization. Rather, other factors prevalent in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region along with a communist legacy, which is possessed by the Muslim-majority states of the Balkan Peninsula and Central Asia, delay democratic reform. 1. Manus I. Midlarksy, "Democracy and Islam: Implications for Civilizational Conflict and the Democratic Peace," International Studies Quarterly 42 (1998): 485-511; Robert J. Barro, "Determinants of Democracy," Journal of Political Economy 107 (1999): 158-83; Michael L. Ross, "Does Oil Hinder Democracy?" World Politics 53 (2001): 325-61; M. Steven Fish, "Islam and Authoritarianism," World Politics 55 (2002): 4-37. 2. Regime type refers to the type of government in power. I measure regime type using Polity IV's twenty-one point measure for regime authority, with a -10 indicating fully institutionalized autocracy and 10 indicating fully institutionalized democracy. See Ted R. Gurr, Keith Jaggers, and Monty G. Marshall, "Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800-2010," Dataset version < p4v2010> http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm, accessed October 2010. 3. Midlarksy, "Democracy and Islam;" Barro, "Determinants of Democracy," Fish, "Islam and Authoritarianism." 4. At present, the data for the three major variables of interest are not available prior to 1990. This content downloaded from 54.151.172.125 on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 11:57:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 556 DEMOCRACY IN THE MUSLIM WORLD I then explore the reasons for these effects. I find that the suppression of civil society and the absence of key "coordination goods" discourage sustained popular mobilizations for regime change.5 In addition, in post-communist states, weak rule of law enables autocratic regimes to disregard important democratic institutions, constitutional checks on executive power, and open and inclusive political participation. In the remainder of the paper, I examine the mechanisms by which Islam is often hypothesized to resist democratization. This section provides the rationale for my focus on state-institutionalized Islam. I consider competing theories for the Muslim world's poor record of democratic reform, test the claims, and discuss the statistical results. Islam Western scholars often characterize Islam as an obstacle to democratization in Muslim-majority states because of its holistic quality, which entails an overt merging of religion and governance. While privatization of Islam is possible (as exhibited in Turkey), the more common legacy of Islam, which developed over a fourteen-hundred year history, is a comprehensive set of rules and injunctions that govern nearly all aspects of life. Islam provides guidelines and laws that not only govern the personal, spiritual aspects of life but also the functioning of society at large. Consequently (argue scholars), Islam can obstruct democratization if it is politically institutionalized. State institutionalization generally takes three forms. The most prominent is the incorporation of laws and policies based on Shari'a (the Islamic legal tradition) into the state legal code.6 There are three main ways by which governance by Shari'a law is considered detrimental to democracy. First, because divinely inspired rules and regulations are considered inviolate, they cannot be altered by an elected legislature. This undermines the principle of popular sovereignty.7 Second, Shari'a law reflects Islam's philosophical tradition that arguably prioritizes the common good and the community over the individual. To attain an ideal Islamic society, individuals are expected to serve different roles in society. As a 5. Bueno De Mesquita and George Downs, "Development and Democracy," Foreign Affairs 84 (2005): 77-86. 6. The term Shari'a can also be used to refer to God's laws as found within the Quran and Sunnah. When Shari'a is used in this way, it is often contrasted with the term fiqh, which refers to Islamic laws that are man-made but nonetheless based on interpretations and understanding of divine sources. However, dating back to the tenth century, formal legal literature has often used the term Shari'a to refer to all Islamic laws including man-made laws, or fiqh. See John L. Esposito, Oxford Dictionary of Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). I choose to employ the term Shari'a in accordance with the broader usage. 7. Elie Kedourie, Democracy and Arab Political Culture (London: Taylor & Francis, Inc, 1994); Bernard Lewis, "Islam and Liberal Democracy: A Historical Overview," Journal of Democracy 7 (1996): 52-63. This content downloaded from 54.151.172.125 on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 11:57:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Fatima Ζ. Rahman 557 consequence, citizens may not be subject to the same treatment under the law because Shari'a law prescribes different treatment of individuals in accordanc with their different responsibilities. As a result, social and political rights and criminal laws arguably favor Muslims over non-Muslims.8 Family laws likewis arguably treat men and women unequally based on their complementing roles in the family and society.9 The collectivist foundation of Shari'a law thus corrode equal right to democratic participation and basic individual rights for all citizens Third, the incorporation of Shari'a law into the legal code, because it requires a acceptance of religious mandates, may foster a political culture that is more likely to accept autocratic rule. According to some political-culture theorists, the beliefs values, and norms associated with Western liberalism are a prerequisite for democratization.10 Using this logic, an earlier generation of scholars contende that Catholicism impeded democratization in Latin America. Purportedly, commu nal traditions and habits of submission to authority fostered an obedience-oriente political culture that prevented the emergence of liberal democracy.11 Shari'a law some researchers contend, similarly fosters communal traditions. Most Muslim treat declarations of Islamic ulema (or scholars on matters of Shari'a) as inviolable and consider the current codification of Shari'a law, which is based on the understanding of the six medieval jurists, as sacrosanct. Habituated to followin religious figures and not subjecting their declarations to critical analysis and interpretation, many Muslims (it is said) are culturally primed to obey and tolerat autocratic regimes. A second form of state institutionalized Islam is the presence of religious courts Their presence is evidence of a state's commitment to implementing Shari'a (as opposed to simply having it on the books). This reinforces the problems posed by the incorporation of Shari'a into the legal code. In addition, religious courts subjec non-Muslims to Islamic laws, which violates religious freedom. This occurs in Iran Saudi Arabia, and most Gulf states, even though some states, such as Syria, hav parallel courts for other religious traditions. This judicial puiralism, however, problematic in its own right because it creates a classification of citizens based on 8. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: The Free Press, 1992); Rudolph Peters, Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law: Theory and Practice from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-First Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Ann Elizabeth Mayer, Islam and Human Rights (Boulder: Westview Press, 2007). 9. Valentine M. Moghadam, "Women's Economic Participation in the Middle East: What Difference has the Neoliberal Policy Turn Made?," Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 1 (2005): 110-46; Rebecc Barlow, "Women's Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran: the Contribution of Secular-Oriented Feminism in Islam and Human Rights in Practice, ed. Shahram Akbarzadeh and Benjamin MacQueen (New York Routledge, 2008), 33-51. 10. Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 11. Christian Smith, "The Spirit and Democracy: Base Communities, Protestantism and Democratiza tion in Latin America," Sociology of Religion 55 (1994): 119-43. This content downloaded from 54.151.172.125 on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 11:57:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 558 DEMOCRACY IN THE MUSLIM WORLD religious affiliation; therefore, citizens of the state are not equal under the law because they are subject to different laws and courts. The third and final form of state institutionalized Islam is the establishment of Islam as a state religion. While the simple establishment of a state religion, as in England, may not be consequential for democracy, the combination of endorse ment and subsidization may violate an ideal relationship between religion and state in a democracy, one that Alfred Stepan has termed the "twin tolerations."12 In this relationship, the state guarantees freedom of religion to all citizens, and provides all religious entities an equal opportunity to participate in the democratic process via political organizations and movements. The state, however, is not permitted to favor one religion over others either constitutionally or in policy making.13 Such violation of the twin-tolerations principle may occur in two ways. First, a particular religion may receive exclusive access to policymaking because of its privileged position as the state-sanctioned religion.14 This is the case in Saudi Arabia, where Wahabi Islam exercises a dominant political voice in the state's policies. Second, financial subsidization may allow the state religion to monopolize the religious market by increasing the entry costs for other religious denomina tions.15 This is the case in Egypt, where the government financially subsidizes Sunni Islam, runs the religious endowment program (awqat), and provides Muslim institutions (most notably mosques) with property to cany out Islamic or charitable services, while other religious institutions such as Christian churches do not receive government funding.16 Given these mechanisms by which the three forms of state institutionalized Islam may undermine core aspects of democracy, one would expect that: HI: Muslim-majority states that institutionalize Islam are more likely to be autocratic. However, there are additional factors, some unique to the Muslim world and some globally pertinent but especially evident in the Muslim world, that could account for the autocratic nature of many Muslim-majority states. Some of these factors are economic. 12. Alfred Stepan, "Religion, Democracy, and the 'Twin Tolerations,' " Journal of Democracy 11 (2000): 37-56. 13. Stepan defines this dynamic between religion and the state as the following: "Democratic institutions must be free, within the bounds of the constitution and human rights, to generate policies. Religious institutions should not have constitutionally privileged prerogatives that allow them to mandate public policy to democratically elected governments. At the same time, individuals and religious communities, consistent with our institutional definition of democracy, must have complete freedom to worship privately." See Stepan, "Twin Tolerations," 39. 14. Brian J. Grim and Roger Finke, "Religious Persecution in Cross-National Context: Clashing Civilizations or Regulated Religious Economies?," American Sociological Review 72 (2007): 633-58. 15. See Stepan, "Twin Tolerations," 39. 16. See U.S. Department of State, Report on International Religious Freedom, 2009. This content downloaded from 54.151.172.125 on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 11:57:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Fatima Ζ. Rahman 559 Economic Development Economic development is among the most robust institutional predictor of democracy. According to one school of thought, economic development produces a set of societal changes that bring about democratization.17 These include the creation of a financially and politically independent middle clas and a private sector that can pressure autocratic regimes. A middle class moreover, renders a more even distribution of resources throughout society, which in turn enables a larger portion of the citizenry to participate in politics.18 Economic development also expands the availability of formal education which is linked to human empowerment, literacy, and the increased consump tion of scientific information. These mechanisms allow individuals to think more deeply about politics and to make decisions on the basis of analysis (rather than blindly accepting the ideas promulgated by those in positions of power). This in turn nurtures desires for self-government and makes mobiliza tion against autocracy feasible. A second school of thought is more cautious about the democratic conse quences of economic development and contends that wealthy states that are already democracies are likely to remain democracies. However, wealth alone does not necessarily cause states that previously were not democracies to become more democratic.19 Drawing on the views of the first school of thought, one would expect that: H2: Muslim-majority states with higher levels of economic development are more likely to be democratic. Oil Dependency One variation on the conventional economic-development argument involves oil. Some scholars contend that states that depend heavily on revenues from oil 17. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1960); Larry Diamond, "Economic Development and Democracy Reconsidered," in Reexamining Democracy, ed. Gary Marks and Larry Diamond (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992), 93-139; Ronald lnglehart, "Culture and Democracy" in Culture Matters, ed. Lawrence E. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 80-97; lnglehart and Welzel, Modernization. 18. Larry Diamond, "Universal Democracy?: The Prospect Has Never Looked Better," Policy Reuiew 119 (2003); Mehran Kamrava, "Development and Democracy: The Muslim World in a Comparative Perspective," in Modernization, Democracy, and Islam, ed. Shireen T. Hunter and Huma Malik (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2005), 52-64. 19. Adam Przeworksi and Fernando Papaterra Limongi, "Modernization: Theories and Facts," World Politics 49 (1997): 155-83. This content downloaded from 54.151.172.125 on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 11:57:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 560 DEMOCRACY IN THE MUSLIM WORLD and other natural resources are likely to be autocratic.20 Michael Ross, for example, explicates three mechanisms by which natural-resource wealth sustains autocracies.21 First, oil wealth allows autocratic governments to impose low taxes while maintaining high levels of spending, which in turn diminishes the public's demand for democracy22 Second, oil revenues allow regimes to spend lavishly on internal security and use armed forces to suppress demands for democracy. Third, although oil in one sense contributes to a nation's wealth, it also inhibits industrialization and thereby the sorts of social changes—for example, the development of a middle class and expansion of public education—that make democratization more likely.23 However, more recently, a number of scholars have questioned the persuasive ness of the oil-autocracy link. Thad Dunning, for example, argues that oil extraction and production have both autocratic and democratic effects, which are contingent on the level of income inequality in the remaining non-natural resource sector of the national economy and on the degree of natural-resource dependency. Oil can contribute to democratization in states with high levels of income inequality and low natural-resource dependence.24 Stephen Haber and Victor Menaldo likewise argue that the apparent correlation between oil and autocracy disappears after country specific conditions are controlled for.25 Jorgen Anderson and Michael Ross, however, disagree with Haber and Menaldo. Anderson and Ross contend that the autocratic effects of oil are evident once a longer time perspective is adopted and if one focuses on events after 1979, when many states began to nationalize their oil industries.26 20. Theda Skocpol, "Rentier State and Shi'a Islam in the Iranian Revolution," Theory and Society 11 (1982): 265-83; Hazem Beblawi and Giacoma Luciani, "Introduction" in The Rentier State, ed. Hazem Beblawi and Giacomo Luciani (London: Croom Helm, 1987) 1-21; Afsaneh Najmabadi, "Depoliticisation of a Rentier State: The Case of Pahlavi Iran," in The Rentier State, ed. Beblawi and Luciani, 211-27; Jill Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Kiren Chaudhry, "Economic Liberalization and the Lineages of the Rentier State," Comparative Politics 27 (1994): 1-25; Terty Lynn Karl, The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997); Ross, "Does Oil Hinder Democracy;" Eva Bellin, "The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective," Comparative Politics 36 (2004): 139-57; Benjamin Smith, "Oil Wealth and Regime Survival in the Developing World, 1960-1999," American Journal of Political Science 48 (2004): 232-46. 21. Ross, "Does Oil Hinder Democracy." 22. Ibid, 332. 23. Ibid, 336-37. 24. Thad Dunning, Crude Democracy: Natural Resource Wealth and Political Regimes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 25. Stephen Haber and Victor Menaldo, "Do Natural Resources Fuel Authoritarianism? A Reappraisal of the Resource Curse," American Political Science Review 105 (2011): 1-26. 26. Jorgen J. Anderson and Michael Ross, "Making the Resource Curse Disappear: A Re-Examination of Haber and Menaldo's 'Do Natural Resources Fuel Authoritarianism,' " Unpublished Manuscript (2011), at http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/ross/Making%20the%20Resource%20Curse%20Disappear% 20-%20Andersen%20&%20Ross%20final.pdf, accessed June 30,2012. This content downloaded from 54.151.172.125 on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 11:57:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Fatima Ζ. Rahman 561 Even though there is an ongoing scholarly debate on the link between oil and autocracy, let us assume in this study that the causal link is plausible. Then, one would expect that: H3: Muslim-majority states with oil dependent economies are more likely to be autocratic. Communist Legacy According to some scholars, communist-party states leave anti-democratic legacies that impede later transitions to democracy. Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan point out that among the obstacles is a weak civil society.27 During communist rule, all organizations, unions, collectives, and associations are extensions of the state rather than parts of a politically autonomous civil society. State subsidies deter organizations from disconnecting themselves from the state because doing so would entail forfeiting monetary benefits. Meanwhile, the severe repression of religious organizations reduces their capacity to mobilize interests and foster democratic norms.28 Linz and Stepan also note that unlike in the authoritarian states of south Europe and Latin America, where political parties developed underground, there was no comparable development of clandestine political parties in post-communist states because of the aversion to the principle of the party state.29 This problem is currently evident in Afghanistan, where suspicions about political parties seem to have originated from the country's experience with communism in the 1980s.30 Finally, several scholars have contended that the communist regimes' dismis sive attitude toward rule of law (and constitutionalism more generally) tends to persist.31 This is problematic because without the rule of law, regimes in power are less likely to accept the people's right to sovereignty.32 Meanwhile, sham elections will provide autocrats with a façade of legitimacy.33 Manipulated and irregular 27. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). 28. Ibid., 245-46. 29. Ibid., 247. 30. Andrew Reynolds, Designing Democracy in a Dangerous World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 168. 31. Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition, 248-49; Thomas Henry Rigby, "A Conceptual Approach to Authority, Power, and Policy in the USSR" in Authority, Power, and Policy in the USSR, ed. Thomas Henty Rigby, Leonard Schapiro, Archie Brown, and Peter Reddaway (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980), 12. 32. Thomas Carothers, "The Rule of Law Revival," Foreign Affairs 77 (1998): 95-106. 33. Fareed Zakaria, "The Rise of Illiberal Democracy," Foreign Affairs 76 (1997): 22-43; Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2003). This content downloaded from 54.151.172.125 on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 11:57:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 562 DEMOCRACY IN THE MUSLIM WORLD elections serve the needs of those in power, instead of being methods to hold rulers accountable.34 Despite this legacy, some post-communist states have democratized, including the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia.35 Scholars have attributed these successes in democratization to such factors as proximity to the West,36 rulers' desires to join the European Union,37 new constitutional designs that emphasize a strong legislature rather than a strong executive office,38 and experiences with rule of law and a functioning civil society prior to the communist era.39 Such conditions have been largely absent in the former communist-party states of Central Asia and the Southern Balkans. As a result, transitions to democracy did not occur (e.g., in Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan). Given the anti-democratic features of the communist legacy and that the post-communist states of the Muslim world by and large do not possess the factors that arguably mitigate the anti-democratic inheritance, one would expect that: H4: Former communist states are more likely to be autocratic. Middle Eastern and North African States Some scholars contend that countries in the MENA40 region share features that make it especially difficult to remove entrenched autocratic regimes. This 34. Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder, "Democratization and the Danger of War," International Security 20 (1995): 5-38; Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder, Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005), 273; Guillermo O'Donnell, "Why the Rule of Law Matters," Journal of Democracy 15 (2004): 32^16; Zakaria, "The Rise of Illiberal Democracy." 35. David R. Cameron, "Post-Communist Democracy: The Impact of the European Union," Post-Soviet Affairs 23 (2007): 185-217; Steven Fish, "The Dynamics of Democratic Erosion," in Postcommunism and the Theory of Democracy, ed. Richard D. Anderson Jr., M. Steven Fish, Stephen E. Flanson, and Philip G. Roeder (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). 36. Jeffrey S. Kopstein and David A. Reilly, "Geographic Diffusion and the Transformation of the Postcommunist World," World Politics 53 (2000): 1-37. 37. Milada Vachudova, Europe Undivided: Democracy, Leverage, and Integration after Communism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Cameron, "Post-Communist Democracy." 38. M. Steven Fish, "The Dynamics of Democratic Erosion;" M. Steven Fish, "Stronger Legislatures, Stronger Democracies," Journal of Democracy 17 (2006): 5-20. 39. Herbert Kitschelt, Zdenka Mansfeldova, Radoslaw Markowski, and Gabor Toka, Post-Communist Party Systems: Competition, Representation, and Inter-Party Competition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Herert Kitschelt, "Accounting for Outcomes of Post-Communist Regime Change: Causal Depth or Shallowness in Rival Explanations," Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, Georgia, September 1-5, 1999. 40. The Middle Eastern and North African states refer to the seventeen states located in the Middle East and North Africa. It excludes the Palestinian territories, Djibouti, Comoros, Mauritania, Somalia, and Sudan. I also have not included Turkey, which is excluded from both the World Bank and Freedom House definitions of the region. This content downloaded from 54.151.172.125 on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 11:57:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Fatima Ζ. Rahman 563 argument is corroborated by prior research that finds that Arab Muslim-majorit states, as opposed to non-Arab Muslim majority states, are "electoral under achieves" given their level of economic development.41 Four conditions allegedl make democratic change especially challenging. The fist are the states' remarkably powerful coercive apparatuses, which are used to repress movements for political reform.42 According to Eva Bellin, th MENA states are especially effective in suppressing demands for democratization because of their extensive coercive apparatuses funded partly through Western aid (due to the West's strategic interest in oil and security in restraining the Islamis threat).43 The security forces are fiercely loyal to their regimes because of patrimonial hiring and appointment of military elites and personnel, so that clos relatives and friends of the regime permeate the officer ranks.44 The governmen reinforces kinship loyalty by showering security forces, especially the military, with wealth and other institutional benefits so that officers see their own career development and economic well-being as dependent on the longevity to the existing political order. A second condition that allegedly fosters autocracy in the MENA region is a weak civil society. Indeed, some scholars argue that the creation of a vibrant civil society is necessary for the emergence of democracy in the Middle East.45 This claim is at least partially based on the past experiences of Latin America and Eastern Europe, where the development of a civil society empowered everyday people, fostered democratic norms, and created an environment in which social movements could develop and demand socio-political reform. In contrast, civil society associations in the Middle East are underdeveloped and lack sufficient resources to prompt political change.46 Social organizations, instead, serve as an additional arm of the state.47 States closely regulate and monitor social groups, making democratization from below both risky and costly.48 Recent research indicates that civic organizations and associations also buttress the existing regime by providing clientelist networks that sustain the regime.49 Now and then, Middle 41. Alfred Stepan and Graeme Β. Robertson, "An 'Arab' More Than a 'Muslim' Electoral Gap," Journal of Democracy 14 (2003): 30-44, at 33. 42. Bellin, "The Robustness of Authoritariansim." 43. Ibid., 143-44, 14349. 44. Ibid, 149. 45. Augustus Richard Norton, "The Future of Civil Society in the Middle East," Middle East Journal 47 (1993): 205-16. 46. Bellin, "The Robustness of Authoritarianism." 47. Quintan Wiktorowicz, "Civil Society as Social Control: State Power in Jordan," Comparative Politics 32 (2000): 43-61; Daniel Brumberg, "The Trap of Liberalized Autocracy," Journal of Democracy 13 (2002): 56-67. 48. Wiktorowicz, "Civil Society as Social Control," 43. 49. Amaney Jamal, Barriers to Democracy: The Other Side of Social Capital in Palestine and the Arab World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007). This content downloaded from 54.151.172.125 on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 11:57:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  564 DEMOCRACY IN THE MUSLIM WORLD East regimes may strategically allow social groups to act independently; however, if government leaders sense a challenge, they proceed to repeal those social organizational freedoms, as was the case in Syria after the 2000-2001 Damascus Spring.50 Related to an extensive security apparatus and a weak civil society is the explicit restriction by the government of "coordination goods," such as free media, the legal right to organize and peacefully protest, and higher education opportunities, which are essential for political and social mobilization.51 Without free media and the right to peacefully demonstrate, the costs of demonstrating rise, and the possibility of exacting change through demonstrations decreases. The initial crackdowns in Tunisia and Egypt during the Arab Spring, as well as the ongoing attacks on anti government forces in Syria, exhibit the use of this strategy in the region. The fourth condition that allegedly fosters autocracy in the MENA region is the patriarchical kinship structure that predates Islam and that is used by autocratic political elites in a variety of ways to sustain and legitimize their power.52 Public offices are filled by relatives of existing political elites, and state resources are dispensed in accordance with kinship ties rather than neutral criteria.53 In addition, to appease already mobilized, opposition factions, such as the Islamists and Tribalists, the state perpetuates patriarchal traditions that often suppress the rights of women.54 Together, these four conditions within the MENA region could explain the inverse relationship between Muslim-majority states and democracy. One therefore would expect that: H5: MENA states are more likely to be autocratic. Methodology To assess the influence of state-institutionalized Islam along with the effects of the other hypothesized determinants on regime type in the Muslim world, I have 50. Joshua Landis and Joe Pace, "The Syrian Opposition," The Washington Quarterly 30 (2007): 45-68; Reynolds, Designing Democracy, 176. 51. de Mesquita and Downs, "Development and Democracy." 52. Hisham Sharabi, Neopatriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Haya Al-Mughni and Maty Ann Tétreault, "Citizenship, Gender and the Politics of Quasi States," in Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East, ed. Suad Joseph (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 237-60; Soraya Altorki, "The Concept and Practice of Citizenship in Saudi Arabia," in Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East, ed. Joseph, 215-36; Valentine M. Moghadam, "Engendering Citizenship, Feminizing Civil Society: The Case of the Middle East and North Africa," Women and Politics 25 (2003): 63-87. 53. Suad Joseph, "Civic Myths, Citizenship, and Gender in Lebanon," in Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East, ed. Joseph, 107-136. 54. Al-Mughni and Tétreault, "Citizenship, Gender, and the Politics of Quasi States," 238-39. This content downloaded from 54.151.172.125 on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 11:57:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Fatima Ζ. Rahman 565 employed a multilevel mixed-effects linear regression model to test various hypotheses seeking to explain the Muslim world's limited experience with democracy. The model can be thought of as working at two levels simultaneously to generate results. First, it estimates changes in regime type within states, using generalized least-squares estimation. At the same time, the model estimates changes in regime type between states, using restricted maximum-likelihood estimation. The composite model thus estimates population-level effects of the independent variables on regime type as well as a random intercept for each state, which captures a state's unique regime trajectory that is not captured by the independent variables. The model thereby distinguishes between the effect of the independent variables in the model and the effect of omitted explanatory variables that affect the regime trajectories of different states. To use this method, there must be statistically significant within-state variation of regime type and between-state variation of regime type. A likelihood-ratio test was performed to make sure that the two variance components are significantly different from zero. The tests revealed significant variation in both components. Thus, although Muslim-majority states on the whole have resisted democratization compared to other parts of the world, there is nonetheless sufficient variation between these states and over time (see Table 1 for a categorization of Muslim majority states by region). To measure a state's Regime Type, which is the dependent variable, I used Polity IV's twenty-one point measure for regime authority, with a -10 indicating a fully institutionalized autocracy and a 10 indicating a fully institutionalized democ racy.55 1 used three independent variables to measure the three forms of state institutionalized Islam. The variable, Islamic Laws and Policies measures the extent to which a state incorporates Islamic tenets into state policies and laws by counting the total number of state laws and policies which are based on religious law.56 This variable ranges from zero to thirty-two and is measured yearly.571 used this variable to test the claim that the incorporation of Shari'a law in the state may inhibit democratization. The second independent variable, Religious Courts,58 measures the state's establishment of religious courts in its judicial system to exercise jurisdiction over religious law. It captures the extent to which the state enforces Islamic law and also permits an evaluation of the potential tension between 55. See Gurr, Jaggers, and Marshall "Polity IV Project." 56. I used The Religion and State Project's composite variable for "Specific Types of Religious Legislation." See Jonathan Fox, "The Religion and State Project," version RAS_vl.2.2, http://www. religionandstate.org, accessed October 2010. 57. Although about half of the states in the sample do not have within-state variation of religious law over time, a likelihood-ratio test was performed to see if the within-state variation over time was statistically significant from 0. The test's results indicate that the use of longitudinal analysis is still appropriate. 58. I used The Religion and State Project's dummy variable for the "presence of religious courts which have jurisdiction over some matters of law." See Fox, "The Religion and State Project." This content downloaded from 54.151.172.125 on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 11:57:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 566 DEMOCRACY IN THE MUSLIM WORLD. c§ ΛC φ -S ·§ Ο èCOJ§^t jj 2=, nη Dα; ï ίk. »