Democracy, civil society, and Islam

Abstract

Particularly after the so-called Arab Spring, the relevance of the Turkish model for other Islamic societies has been the subject of intense debate. Put more directly, the question is whether or not democracy can flourish and be sustained in societies where Islam is the dominant faith. This chapter examines the issue making use of the most recent European Values Study data. Macro-level multivariate analyses demonstrate that, even after controlling for social and economic development, Muslim-majority societies score poorly on various comparative measures of democracy. It is proposed that one possible explanation for this is the absence of a vibrant civil society, a widely accepted prerequisite for democracy, in Islamic societies. It is shown that, by and large, the negative Islam effect on civil society cannot be refuted.