Clash of Civilizations or Clash of Perceptions?

2002 Report (Continued) Background Paper


5. Governance and Acountability

According to the U.N. Human Development Index (which measures life expectancy, adult literacy, and per capita GDP), progress in Arab states was lower than the global average from 1980 to 1999.91 This was due to three key deficits: the freedom deficit; the women's-empowerment deficit; and the deficit of human capabilities/knowledge relative to income. 92

According to some observers, Muslim states themselves may present the single greatest obstacle to development. Over the past centuries, the ability of the state to dominate and terrorize its people has been sharpened and strengthened by imported totalitarian ideologies, which have served a double purpose--to sanctify rulers and leaders and to fanaticize their subjects and followers. 93 Modernization, however, has had some positive effects as well. Economic and social progress, despite its limitations, has created a literate middle class of commercial, managerial, and professional workers who differ vastly from the military, bureaucratic, and religious elites that dominated early postcolonial Muslim polities. The new groups are forming their own associations and organizations, and modifying the law to accommodate their aspirations. They are an indispensable component of civil society--previously lacking, yet essential to any kind of pluralistic political system. 94

Concepts of good governance, moreover, are present in the culture and values of Islam. The Islamic normative system includes ideas like shura (consultation), ijma' (consensus), and ijtihad (independent judgment), which, although not a fully realized democratic theory, are nevertheless the building blocks on which Muslim liberals hope to construct pluralist, participatory political orders. On the other hand, many Muslims argue that the classical Islamic concept of supreme divine sovereignty is of the highest importance and is incompatible with the idea of popular sovereignty. Indeed, the Islamic thinker Sayyid Qutb, among others, stressed that anything that deviates from the supremacy of God's will and law is unacceptable; even Qutb, though, believed that basic liberty was ensured as long it was consistent with a fundamental contract ('ahd) with God. 95 Other writers have gone much further, claiming that the Qur'anic references to Adam and David as khalifah (2:30, 38:26) can, in our period, be interpreted as conveying leadership to the "people." 96 Although this reading is disputed, the view that political rule is an elective, contractual, in a sense even consensual and revocable institution is gaining acceptance in some Muslim intellectual quarters. 97 The Iranian constitution, while reaffirming the ultimate sovereignty of God, expresses the idea of popular sovereignty in regularly scheduled elections for the president and national assembly (Majlis), as well as in periodic referenda. 98

Despite a pronounced historical mistrust of the Western concept of democracy in parts of the Muslim world, the characteristic practices of democratic politics and civil society have been increasingly visible in recent times. Newer, emerging political practices in the Muslim world are navigating through the various forms of Western-style democracy, which, it must be recognized, have demonstrated many shortcomings in the way that they are carried out in the West as well. These Muslim societies most importantly need to define and strengthen democratic good governance within the parameters of Islam.

Incumbent political and economic interests pose numerous challenges, however. As a result, within many contemporary Muslim societies, representative government on the basis of popular consensus is infrequently practiced. Furthermore, the exceptions to this rule are not always acknowledged; in Egypt and Iran, for example, elections have occurred regularly for years and have included the participation of women and minorities. Elections have also occurred with regularity in Morocco, Jordan, and Turkey, and, outside the Middle East, in Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. No one would claim that these elections have been consistently fair and free, but Islamists have by and large accepted that they must participate in them if they are to advance their goals. Some observers, such as historian and Arab political philosopher Bassam Tibi, believe that this may result in "one person, one vote, one time." 99 It is sometimes asserted that Islamists would, like the Nazi Party in Weimar Germany, use the ballot box to attain absolute power, inevitably destroying democracy. But there is another view, which holds that while there may well be a tactical advantage in electioneering, over time socialization may occur whereby Islamists come to appreciate and internalize the value of civic participation for its own sake. 100

Implications for Policy
It is important to underscore that the Islamic world's interactions with modern Europe have been an experience both of education and subjugation. European modernity has inspired some Muslim states to reorganize according to principles derived from the European experience, and it was thus that the concept of nationalism made its entry into the Muslim world. 101 While the breakup of the Ottoman Empire led to the formation of the current Middle Eastern states, the boundaries of these states, especially in the eastern end of the Mediterranean, were drawn to serve the interests of the colonial powers.

Although Islamic political groups are viewed by the West as reactionary and violent, there are also powerful modernizing forces at work within these very movements. The pressures for an effective response to contemporary challenges are considerable. In this sense, modern Islamic movements may be the main vehicle for bringing about change in the Muslim world and the breakup of corrupt, old regimes. What will come to replace these fallen states is less clear still.

Today, Muslim societies certainly face major tests and obstacles. The UNDP's Arab Development Report makes for sober reading as it outlines entrenched difficulties facing the Arab world--most of which apply to the wider Muslim world as well. The developed West bears responsibility for its trade practices and for the management of Third World debt. But the governments of the Muslim world also have an acute responsibility when it comes to skewed economic development, endemic corruption, and pronounced social inequalities. To the extent that they fail to address these problems, they weaken themselves and stimulate virulent opposition, some of it expressed in the name of Islam. Repression, though it may seem like the most effective weapon to combat these trends, is bound to work as a short-term strategy only. In the longer run, good governance and the accountability of rulers to the ruled will likely be seen as both pragmatic and normative--necessary as well as morally sanctioned. Two implications follow from this. First, corrupt and narrowly based regimes are likely to fail over time. In this regard, Western support for these governments would eventually prove counterproductive, neither saving repressive regimes from their inevitable fall, nor saving the reputation of the West from accusations of hypocrisy. Second, whatever the image of Islamists in the West, some--though not all, of course--have successfully forwarded the virtues of incorruptibility and reform. In Turkey, for instance, the Refah Party developed a reputation for clean government after capturing control of Ankara and Istanbul in the elections of 1994.

While Islamists' success in this regard may well undermine regimes with which Western states have been allied, a long-term convergence of goals between Western democratic states and Islamists intent on accountability and serious political and social transformation is not impossible. If such a convergence did occur, the critical follow-up task, from the perspective of the West, would be to encourage those Islamists to make an uncompromising commitment to principles of mutual tolerance and pluralism.

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© 2006, The Center for Dialogues: Islamic World - U.S. - The West

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