Does God matter, and if so whose God? religion and democratization

Abstract The question of whether some religions are more 'suitable' for democracy than others has excited considerable debate in recent years. This survey reviews the debate and, focusing largely on Christianity and Islam, suggests that whilst no religious tradition is inherently incompatible with democratic governance, at particular points in time the dominant voices and practices in specific religious traditions may be more or less supportive of democratic development. Less clear, given the centrality of non-religious factors to most transitions, is whether this matters very much. Keywords: democratizationreligionProtestantismreligious orthodoxyCatholic churchIslam Acknowledgments The author is grateful for the critical comments on an earlier draft offered by Ian Hall, Jeff Haynes and Ray Hinnebusch, though responsibility for ignoring any of their more sceptical comments rests with the author alone. Notes J. Linz and A. Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp.4523. F. Halliday, Islam and the Myth of Confrontation (London: Tauris, 1996), p.116. S. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991); idem, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon London: George Allen and Unwin, 1930), esp, chs 4 and 5. Ibid., p.91. For a general survey of Luther's thinking on politics see W. Cargill Thompson, The Political Thought of Martin Luther (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1984). See R. Kingdom and R. Linder, (eds), Calvin and Calvinism: Sources of Democracy (Lexington: D.C. Heath, 1970); R. Wuthnow, Communities of Discourse: Ideology and Social Structure in the Reformation, the Enlightenment and European Socialism (London: Harvard University Press, 1989), pp.126–8. R. Kingdom, 'Calvinism and Resistance Theory', in J.H. Burns (ed.), The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450–1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp.193–218; G. Maddox, Religion and the Rise of Democracy (London: Routledge, 1996), ch.5. P. Benedict, 'Un roi, une loi, deux fois: Parameters for the History of Catholic-Reformed Co-existence in France, 1555–1685', in O.P. Grell and B.Scribner (eds), Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp.69–93. S. Bruce, Politics and Religion (Cambridge: Polity, 2003), pp.244–54. P. Sigmund, 'The Catholic Tradition and Modern Democracy', Review of Politics, Vol.49, No.4 (1987), pp.530–48. Ibid., p.531. G. Dealy, 'The Tradition of Monistic Democracy in Latin America', in H. Wiarda (ed.), Politics and Social Change in Latin America : Still a Distinct Tradition? (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), pp.40–60. cf. P. Vatikiotis, Islam and the State (London: Routledge, 1987); E. Kedourie, Politics in the Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). On Confucianism see L. Pye, Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985). For a more nuanced view see D. Koyziz, 'Imaging God and His Kingdom: Eastern Orthodoxy's Iconic Political Ethic', Review of Politics, Vol.55 (1993), pp.267–89. For a general discussion of the rise of Hindu nationalism see T. Hansen, The Saffron Wave – Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999); or C. Batt, Hindu Nationalism – Origins, Ideologies and Modern Myths (Oxford: Berg, 2001). Huntington, The Third Wave (note 3) pp.73–4. As suggested in David Martin, Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990). Ibid., pp.76–85. J. Haynes, Religion and Politics in Africa (London: Zed Books, 1996), pp.104–33. On the shift in the Church's position there is a huge literature, but see P. Sigmund, 'Christian Democracy, Liberation Theology and Political Culture in Latin America', in L. Diamond (ed.), Political Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994), pp.211–28; J. Kleiber, The Church, Dictatorship and Democracy in Latin America (New York: Orbis Books, 1998); the rational choice analysis is ably set out in A. Gill, Rendering unto Caesar: The Catholic Church and the State in Latin America (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998). Linz and Stepan (note 1) pp.260–61. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations (note 3) p.105. R. Inglehart and M. Carballo, 'Does Latin America exist? (And Is There a Confucian Culture?): A Global Analysis of Cross-cultural Differences', in L. Crothers and C. Lockhart (eds), Culture and Politics: A Reader (New York: St Martin's Press, 2000), p.341. For an introductory summary see D. Potter, 'Explaining Democratization', in D. Potter et al., Democratization (Cambridge: Polity, 1997), pp.1–40. Ibid., p.29. Stepan, 'The World's Religious System' (note 4) pp.213–53. Huntington, Clash of Civilizations (note 3); F. Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (London: Penguin Books, 1992), pp.44–5. F. Halliday, Islam and the Myth of Confrontation (London: Tauris, 1996), p.116. R. Hinnebusch, 'Liberalization without Democratization in "Post-populist" Authoritarian States', in N. Butenschon, U. Davis and M. Hassassian (eds), Citizenship and the State in the Middle East (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2000), pp.123–45. Abdou Filali-Ansary, 'Muslims and Democracy', Journal of Democracy, Vol.10, No.3 (1999), pp.18–32. Quoted in S.Bromley, 'Middle East Exceptionalism: Myth or Reality', in Potter et al. (note 28) p.233. J. Esposito and J. Voll, Islam and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p.17. Ibid., pp.27–32; Stepan, 'The World's Religious System' (note 4), pp.233–6. D. Menashri, Post-Revolutionary Politics in Iran: Religion, Society and Power (London: Frank Cass, 2001), esp. ch.1. Stepan, 'The World's Religious System' (note 4) pp.236–7. Bromley (note 35) pp.321–44. A. Przeworski, 'Some problems in the study of transitions to democracy', in G. O'Donnell et al., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives (London: John Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 48. During the Cold War there were those who argued that Marxism had never been tried properly, which may or may not have been true, but the bottom line was that virtually all of the functioning 'Marxist' systems had ended in authoritarianism of one form or another. What was important was not whether these were false applications of the theory but the fact that these were the type of political orders that had actually emerged in these societies. Bruce (note 12) pp.216–18. R. Sakwa, 'Christian Democracy and Civil Society in Russia', Religion, State and Society, Vol.22, No.3 (1994), pp.273–304. For a general survey of the Orthodox Church's dealing with the state in the late Soviet and early post-communist period see J. Anderson, Religion, State and Society in the Soviet Union and the Successor States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). On a visit to America in the late 1990s the Ecumenical Patriarch suggested that the difference between Western and Eastern Christianity was growing and that the 'manner in which we exist has become ontologically different'. Quoted in J. Witte, 'Introduction', in J. Witte and M. Bourdeaux (eds), Proselytism and Orthodoxy in Russia: The New War for Souls (New York: Orbis, 1999), pp.19–20. Stepan, 'The World's Religious System' (note 4) pp.247–50. J. Anderson, Religious Liberty in Transitional Societies: The Politics of Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp.182–4. N. Ayubi, Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World (London: Routledge, 1991), p.32. Bruce (note 12) pp.234–8; something similar is argued in Bassam Tibi, Islam Between Culture and Politics (Palgrave: Basingstoke, 2001), pp.64–5, though Tibi perhaps disagrees about the necessary consequences of this emphasis on law. A. Mayer, Islam and Human Rights (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995). For a general discussion see A. Norton (ed.), Civil Society in the Middle East, 2 vols (Leiden and New York: E.J. Brill, 1995, 1996). G. Fuller, The Future of Political Islam (New York: Palgrave, 2003), pp.193–213; see also A. Saikal, Islam and the West (London: Palgrave, 2003), pp.127–8. Cf. S. White, I. McAllister and O. Kryshtanovskaya, 'Religion and Politics in Post-communist Russia', Religion, State and Society, Vol.22, No.1 (1994), pp.73–88; and L. Vorontsova and S. Filatov, 'The Changing Pattern of Religious Belief: Perestroika and Beyond', Religion, State and Society, Vol.22, No.1 (1994), pp.89–96; on Muslim attitudes see J. Fletcher and B. Sergeyev, 'Islam and Intolerance in Central Asia: the case of Kyrgyzstan', Europe–Asia Studies, Vol.54, No.2 (2002), pp.251–76; R. Inglehart and P. Norris, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). Chapters from this book are available at . Here they explore Huntington's hypothesis on the basis of data from the World Values Survey and conclude that yes culture does matter, but reject the view that the core clash is over political values. They suggest that there is a remarkable coincidence of views about democracy across the religious divide and that the real difference is over issues relating to gender and sexuality, or Eros rather than Demos. However, one might suggest that these very differences may also have implications for attempts to create democratic orders, in particular on questions of tolerance or acceptance of difference. As summarized in S. Brouwer, P. Gifford and S. Rose, Exporting the American Gospel: Global Christian Fundamentalism (New York and London: Routledge, 1996), p.230; for Martin's argument see Tongues of Fire (note 21). Brouwer and Gifford (note 58) pp.231–8.