Strange but not Impossible Bedfellows: Islam and Liberal Democracy

Bernard Lewis doubts that liberal democracy “is compatible with Islam itself." Lewis argues that Islam, the cultural foundation of the Middle East, has precluded – among both elites and masses – the democratic political culture necessary for the establishment of democracy. Lewis’ argument suffers from two flaws: first, Islam is neither the sole axis of cultural identification for Middle Eastern polities nor the primary motivator of repressive behavior among political elites; second, there is no evidence that political culture is causally related to the establishment of democracy. Political culture may relate to the survival of democracy, but initial strides toward democracy do not depend on the proliferation of democratic political culture. The power to choose democracy rests in the hands of political elites who tend toward democracy only when faced with “strategic considerations” and “altered perceptions of risk,” i.e. when “costs of attempting to suppress their political opponents exceed the costs of tolerating them (and engaging them in constitutionally regulated competition)." If authoritarian elites continually opt for suppression over liberalization, and if they possess the power to maintain suppressive policies, no amount of democratic political culture among the masses or the repressed elites of the political opposition will result in regime change. It is true that the Islamic Middle East does not have a history of democracy, but Lewis misrepresents Islam’s role in shaping that history. The histories of authoritarianism and economic development present the gravest obstacles to democracy in the Middle East. Both are histories to which Islam is only tangentially related and in which the comprehensive causal power of cultural forces pales in comparison to that of economic and political structures.

Authoritarianism results from the gradual accumulation of power by a small group of elites and precludes oppositional effectiveness. Still, oppositions exist alongside authoritarianism. In recent Middle Eastern history, the strongest oppositions to authoritarian regimes have rallied around democracy and Islamic fundamentalism. The existence of democratic opposition to authoritarianism – particularly where democratic activists face violent repression – contradicts Lewis’ proposition that Islam and democracy are mutually exclusive. We must ask, at what level are Islam and democracy irreconcilable? If there are large demographics that support democracy and are Islamic, then surely democracy and Islam can coexist. If there are political elites who support democracy and are Islamic, as there are in Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran, then democracy exists as a viable regime choice in the event that “strategic considerations” and “altered perceptions of risk” in the Middle East force authoritarians to reconcile with oppositional entities. Therefore, Islam does not prevent democracy from successful institutional implementation. Rather, democracy fails to gain strength because of the persistence and power of certain political elites committed to self-preservation via suppression. Sometimes those political elites justify suppression along cultural lines. Sometimes, but not always, those cultural lines are Islamic.

Theorists of political culture place great emphasis on the reciprocal relationship between strong democratic institutions and the democratic political culture of the citizens served by them. As regime effectiveness increases, so to does investment in democratic political culture, resulting in increased support of and participation in democratic institutions. However, a positive reciprocal relationship between democratic political culture and regime legitimacy in an established democracy does not imply the a priori existence of democratic political culture. On the contrary; as Larry Diamond writes, “none of the … elements of political cultural seems necessary for the establishment of democracy." Even if the impact of Islam on democratic political culture were wholly negative – which it is not – such an impact would not preclude democracy from existing as a choice for Muslim political elites, nor would the centrality of Islam to a certain political culture necessarily eliminate influences like education, popular culture, and national affiliation from contributing to the survival of a democratic regime once established.

Muslims throughout the Middle East, across all social strata, draw on a complex network of cultural and political affiliations that complicate and often supersede Islam as axes of identification and allegiance. All Muslims under authoritarian rule depend on political elites to “lead the way in large-scale value change,” which is to say choose democracy. Presently, certain Middle Eastern authoritarians are blocking “the way,” but their motivations are not necessarily Islamic. Structural constraints and political motivations, and not cultural obligations, drive regime choices of elites. It remains to be seen whether or not Middle Eastern elites will be driven to choose democracy.