November 5th, 2010 by Anna

In an article for the Boston Review, Jan-Werner Muller of Princeton University details the history of the Christian democratic movement and asks whether “the historical analogy between Christian and potential Muslim democracy…perhaps suggest[s] promising alternatives to the authoritarian rule that dominates the Middle East.” He asserts that “institutional structures are what matters, not political ideas or programs” – as such, he concludes that “calls for liberalizing Islam and arcane disputes about the Qur’an’s compatibility with democracy are largely beside the point. Programmatic moderation, if it happens at all, will be a result of democratic political practice, not its precondition.” In the case of Christian Democracy, Muller writes, leaders drew in voters by basing their platforms on a particular body of thought, while simultaneously “reassuring nonbelievers that those of faith had accepted pluralism.” By delicately balancing various principles, Christian Democrats made themselves appealing to both Christians and non-Christians. Whether this is possible for Islamist politicians, Muller writes, remains unclear. He points out that “the political mobilization of believers does not necessarily result in a one-to-one translation of private religious identities into public political identities,” and that identities are reconstructed in pluralist arenas where compromise is key. Thus, he concludes, “blanket condemnations of Islam as incompatible with Democracy overlook the fact that religious doctrines do not strictly determine politics.”

Posted in Islam and Democracy, Islamist movements, Political Islam |