Encyclopedia of Islam

democracy

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As a consequence of electoral participation, 

some of the more militant Salafi Islamists have 

formed alliances and coalitions with both Islamic 

and “secularist” parties and movements, often 

renouncing the methods of violence in ending 

the campaign for an “Islamic revolution.” Deny-

ing Islamists participation in electoral politics can 

have deleterious results, as in Algeria, when the 

Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) resorted to rebel-

lion and violence. At other times, the denial of 

participation simply compels Islamists to engage 

in the politics of 

civil

 

society

, as with the m

Us

-

lim

 b

rotherhood

 in Egypt during the 1980s and 

1990s. Islamist parties demonstrating some level 

of commitment to democratic principles and pro-

cedures are found, for example, in Tunisia, Alge-

ria, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia, 

and Indonesia, as well in most of the republics of 

the former Soviet Union.

The growth and consolidation of democracy 

in Muslim-majority countries face enormous 

obstacles: authoritarian political traditions and 

communalist orientations (including recalcitrant 

Ulama

 with medievalist responses to the condi-

tions of modernity); histories of colonialist rule 

and imperialist interference; the need to imple-

ment economic reforms by way of integration 

into the global economy; the effects of anticolo-

nial nationalist struggles that lacked democratic 

priorities; and economically bloated and ineffi-

cient states with excessive military expenditures, 

to list the more egregious difficulties. Fortunately, 

the level of economic development provides little 

information about the chances of transition to 

democracy, although per capita income does 

correlate with the sustainability of democratic 

regimes. Political economists and democratic 

theorists alike well know that rentier states, such 

as the Persian Gulf oil-producing countries, pose 

peculiar problems for democratic development. 

Of course, more substantive participatory and 

deliberative democratic theories elaborate a vari-

ety of different social and institutional conditions 

that serve as prerequisites of, or that are at least 

conducive to, full-fledged democratic consolida-

tion and flourishing. When or if the various forms 

of Islamic democracy do arise, the corresponding 

criteria of assessment will be more stringent than 

those that take into account only electoral forms 

of democracy.

See also 

constitUtionalism

; 

government

, 

i

slamic

; i

slamism

; 

politics

 

and

 i

slam

.

Patrick S. O’Donnell