Secular-Islamist Cleavage, Values, and Support for Democracy and Shari’a in the Arab World

Abstract

Public opinion polls demonstrate that Arab citizens support both democracy and shari’a. I argue that individual values related to the secular-Islamist cleavage are instrumental in explaining this joint support. The analysis of the Arab Barometer Survey shows that individuals holding Islamic values are more favorable of shari’a, whereas those with secularist values tend to support democracy. However, the bivariate probit estimations also confirm that Arab opinion about these governing principles is more complementary and less divergent. The results imply that constitutional models combining Islam and democracy, rather than strictly secular institutions, may be more acceptable to Arab citizens.

Vote for Your Family! Particularism, Support for Democracy and Support for Shari’a in the Arab World

“…The answers are given from a scale from 1 to 4 and were recoded such as "Absolutely inappropriate = 1" and "Very appropriate = 4". As such, this variable differentiates weak from ardent supporters of Shari'a (Ciftci 2012).…”

“…Following Ciftci (2012), in this paper we have also studied how particularism affects support for Shari'a, another side of support for democracy in the Arab world. Our summary statistics show that several supporters of democracy also favor Shari'a in the Arab world.…”

“…The second group of studies refers to social capital theory according to which social trust, by providing a basis for cooperation among the members of a society, is a fundamental ingredient of democracy (Jamal 2007a(Jamal , 2007bAlmond and Verba 1963;Putnam, Leonardi, and Nanetti 1994). The third group of studies focuses on religiosity and on cultural traits and, as far as the Muslim world is concerned, finds no incompatibility between Islamic values and support for democracy (Ciftci 2012).…”

“…As suggested by Ciftci (2012), in the Muslim world Shari'a and democracy are two sides of the same coin and the analysis of individual attitudes toward democracy will be incomplete without considering support for Shari'a. In fact, the historical legacy and the so-called secular-Islamist cleavage have penetrated almost all political issues and actions in the Muslim world (Hunter 1996) by shaping also individual attitudes (Ciftci 2012). This does not mean that in the Arab world Islam is incompatible with democracy.…”

Happiness is the Wrong Metric

“…Polling data from the Arab Barometer Surveys found that, across seven different Arab countries, 34% of respondents said they preferred Sharia without democracy, and 41% said they supported both. Only a small minority (14%) said they supported democracy without Sharia (Ciftci 2012). 6 The role of Islam is growing significantly in countries where it was once thought to be weakening, such as in Turkey and Tunisia (see Hirschl 2011).…”