Islamic Constitutions and Democracy

• Author: Moamen Gouda,Shimaa Hanafy
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1065912921991241
• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Date: 01 December 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912921991241

Political Research Quarterly

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912921991241

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Introduction

So far, democracy has been failing to find a foothold in

the Middle East, a region that has historically been charac-

terized by long-lasting authoritarian regimes (Elbadawi

and Makdisi 2010; Elsayyad and Hanafy 2014).

Theoretical explanations of democracy gap in the Middle

East, and in Muslim-majority countries in general, are

sought in “history, geography, economics, culture, and

religion” (Springborg 2007, 239). A considerable body of

literature focuses on the latter cause and shows that the

real culprit for the lack of democratic institutions in the

Middle East is Islam and its deep institutional factors that

historically precede the importance of oil (Fish 2002,

2011; Kuran 2016; Lust 2011; Norris 2013). In fact, sev-

eral studies point out that oil rich Islamic countries were

largely autocratic long before the discovery of oil (Chaney

2012; Kuran 2013; Rørbæk 2016). While some have

argued that Islam has many resources to accommodate

a successful democratic state (Esposito and Voll 1996;

Salame 1994), other studies argue that Islam is inherently

incompatible with democracy, judging from the (usual)

low scores of democracy recorded by Muslim-majority

countries (Fukuyama 1992; Huntington 1996; Lewis

1993; Zakaria 2004, 4) claims, “certainly the Koranic

model of leadership is authoritarian.”

Institutions constitute the social, political, legal, and

economic system of a state. According to North (1990),

“Institutions are the rules of the game in a society. [. . .]

they structure incentives in human exchange, whether

political, social or economic” (p. 1). Generally, rules that

constitute the political, legal, economic, and social envi-

ronment and are formally written down, be it for exam-

ple a legal text or a constitution, are called formal

institutions. Formal institutions indicate an official for-

mal enforcement mechanism in case the rules are vio-

lated. Morals, norms, values, traditions, and codes of

conduct also influence human behavior. These societal

and cultural factors, that are usually unwritten, are called

informal institutions (Dobler 2011; Greif 2006; North

2005).

It has been a common practice in empirical research

examining Islam and democracy to measure Islam by

Muslim population share (Barro 1999; Fish 2002; Hanusch

2013; Potrafke 2012, 2013; Rød, Knutsen, and Hegre

2020). Some authors control for the level of religiosity of

Muslim population (Ciftci, Wuthrich and Shamaileh 2019;

Collins and Owen 2012; Tessler 2002). From an institu-

tional perspective, religious belief is usually considered

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1241PRQXXX10.1177/1065912921991241Political Research QuarterlyGouda and Hanafy

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1Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, South Korea

Corresponding Author:

Moamen Gouda, Graduate School of International and Area Studies,

Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, 107, Imun-ro, Dongdaemun-gu,

Seoul 02450, South Korea.

Email: moamengouda@hufs.ac.kr

Islamic Constitutions and Democracy

Moamen Gouda1 and Shimaa Hanafy1

Abstract

There is an ongoing debate on the relationship between Islam and (lack of) democracy. Considerable literature shows

that Islam, represented as an informal institution by Muslim population share, has a negative effect on democracy.

This study examines the effects of formal institutions, specifically constitutions that prescribe Islamic law (Shari’a) as a

source of legislation, on democracy. We use a newly developed coding of the degree to which Islam is incorporated

in constitutions. Our empirical results show that the constitutional entrenchment of Islamic law has a negative and

significant effect on democracy. Our findings are robust to using different estimators and instrumental variable

regressions, employing alternative measures of democracy and controlling for Muslim population, natural resource

wealth, and additional control variables. While we show that Islamic constitutionalism is a reason for a democracy

deficit in Muslim-majority countries, we find no evidence that Islam is inimical to democracy when not entrenched in

the constitution.

Keywords

Islam, democracy, Islamic constitutions, institutions, supreme values

2022, Vol. 75(4) 994–1005

Article