Keywords

Piece by piece, we now want to work out the scientific background to our own empirical study. First of all, we need to clarify the role of “political Islam” in the global flagship of Arab opinion research.

The following studies on “political Islam” have been cited more than 50 times in the international literature recorded in the Scopus database:

Baswedan (2004), Blaydes and Linzer (2010, 2012), de Soysa and Nordås (2007), Fleischmann and et al. (2011), Gülalp (2001), Gumuscu (2010), Mecham (2004), Öniş (2001), Özbudun (2006).

3.1 Political Islam: The Information Potential of Fox’s et al. (2016) and Achilov’s (2016) Studies on Political Islam Based on the Arab Barometer

Fox et al. (2016), in an excellent, and much-cited paper, analysed Arab Barometer data to find out the relationship between gender attitudes and overall political attitudes. Using available data from successive rounds of the Arab Barometer survey, Fox et al. (2016), examined changes in attitudes in nine countries with two rounds of Arab Barometer data during and after the Arab Spring (Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, Algeria, Lebanon, Sudan, Jordan, Iraq, West Bank and Gaza). Support for “Muslim feminism” (an interpretation of gender equality grounded in Islam) over the period and especially in Arab Spring countries has increased, while support for “secular feminism” has decreased.

In one of the most promising international studies using Arab Barometer data, Dilshod Achilov (Achilov, 2016) used the following variables to distinguish between politically moderate and politically radical Islam. We use here—for interested readers who want to recalculate Akhilov’s analysis—the direct references to the Arab Barometer Project questionnaire:

  1. (1)

    Support for political pluralism

(Q246.1)—Parliamentary system in which all political parties (left, right, Islamic) can compete with each other

(Q225.1)—Competition and disagreement between political groups are not bad

(Q255.2)—National leaders should be open to different political ideas.

  1. (2)

    Support for individual civil liberties and political rights

(Q245.1)—Support for a democratic political system (public freedom, equal political rights, balance of power, accountability and transparency)

(Q402.1)—Government and parliament should legislate according to the wishes of the people.

  1. (3)

    Accommodative (inclusive) support for both Shariah and secular law

(Q402.3)—Government and parliament should legislate according to the wishes of the people in some areas and implement Sharia law in others.

  1. (4)

    (In-) Tolerance towards political pluralism

(Q246.2)—A parliamentary system in which only Islamic political parties and factions participate in elections.

Political radical Islam is defined by

  1. (1)

    Neglect of democratic elections and competition

(Q246.4)—A system governed by Islamic law in which there are no political parties or elections

  1. (2)

    Exclusive support for the rule of Sharia law and the political influence of the clergy.

(Q402.2)—The government should only implement Sharia laws

(Q401.1)—Religious dignitaries should have an influence on how people vote in elections

(Q401.3)—Religious dignitaries should have influence over government decisions.

Achilov (2016) conducted a multivariate principal component analysis (i.e. a variant of “factor analysis”, cf. below) to empirically examine political Islam. In order to control for the “Islamist” aspect of the conceptualisation (hence distinguishing it from more general support for pluralist democracy), only respondents who (1) practise Islam (pray and read the Qur’an) and who (2) believe “religious practice is not a private matter and should not be separated from sociopolitical life” were included in the factor analysis. Achilov (2016), conceptualised two different forms of support for political Islamic ideology: politically moderate and politically radical Islam. Based on multivariate regression analysis, Achilov (2016) concluded that religiosity is important, but its main effects on collective political action are small and highly context dependent. The impact of religiosity on political activism varies across states. Nevertheless, personal piety remains an important factor in explaining collective protests in the MENA region. Muslims with higher levels of ideological support for politically moderate Islam are more likely to participate in non-violent, collective political protests. The collective voice of politically moderate Muslims will be crucial in future. Muslims with higher levels of ideological support for politically radical Islam seem less likely to participate in elite-challenging collective protests.

3.2 The Studies by Falco and Rotondi

Falco and Rotondi (2016a), examined the relationship between political Islam, willingness to migrate and Internet use by exploiting the second (2010–2011) and third (2012–2014) waves of the Arab Barometer. Here, we investigated whether the Internet may act as a vehicle of political Islam and willingness to migrate. The results show that there is a positive relationship between Internet use and willingness to migrate at the individual level, while there is a negative relationship between political Islam and willingness to migrate at the individual level. The results also show that Internet use does not have a significant impact on political Islam. Falco and Rotondi (2016b), examine radical Islam as a determinant of individuals’ willingness to migrate. Falco and Rotondi (2016b), quite rightly say that surprisingly, this topic has not been empirically investigated in the literature despite its relevance to the political debate. To fill this gap, Falco and Rotondi (2016b), develop a model of the decision to migrate, focusing in particular on the role of cultural characteristics. In particular, the study focuses on radical Islam as a potential deterrent to migration. It defines radical Islam as a set of ideologies, also referred to as political Islam. Islam should guide not only personal life but also social and political life. In the model, more radical values mean higher psychological migration costs. These costs arise from the fact that connections to socio-religious friends and neighbours are generally not maintained after migration, discouraging individuals from migrating. The study then empirically tests the predictions of the model using individual-level data from the second (2010–11) and third (2012–14) waves of the Arab Barometer. The results suggest that more radical individuals are less likely to migrate, ceteris paribus. This finding is robust to alternative specifications of the model and to the use of instrumental variables and propensity score matching to shed mathematical and statistical light on the potential endogeneity of radical Islam. The result also remains qualitatively unchanged when aggregate data on actual migrant outflows are used.

3.3 The Studies Whose Design Was Important for Our Own Empirical Investigation

3.3.1 The Cammett et al. (2020) Study

Harvard Professor Cammett makes extensive use of the Arab Barometer toolkit in Cammett et al. (2020). First, Cammett argues that preference for democracy is positively associated with national average levels of economic security, as well as with perceptions of economic security and personal security at the individual level. However, the national level of personal security does not play a significant role in shaping preference for democracy. One of the main hypotheses examined here concerns preference for democracy and trust in government in relation to national support for political Islam. To test the impact of attitudes towards political Islam in the data set, Cammett et al. (2020), did so by using two questions in the Arab Barometer: “Is your country better off if religious people hold public positions in the state?” and “Religious clerics should have influence over government decisions”. However, Cammett et al. (2020), found no relationship between any of the measures of preference for democracy used and attitudes towards political Islam at the national level. However, according to Cammett, support for political Islam at the individual level and support for democracy were weakly correlated (and within different countries, the results would show weak statistical significance and changing signs).

Cammett et al. (2020), also makes interesting observations about developments in individual countries, although these are beyond the horizon of our own study. In any case, it is essential that such a high-profile international study uses two questions in the Arab Barometer: “Is your country better off when religious people hold public positions in the state?” and “Religious clerics should have influence on government decisions” to measure political Islam.

3.3.2 The Cesari Study, 2021

Political Islam and Islamism, according to Cesari, in her article 2021, published in the journal Religions, are terms used interchangeably to describe Islamic parties and movements that have gained prominence since the 1960s in opposition to “secular” states. Most scholarship discusses the democratic dimension of these parties, their ability to fit into the mainstream political system, and their propensity for violence for political purposes, both nationally and internationally. The rich literature on the Muslim Brotherhood in different national contexts is paradigmatic of this dominant perception of Islamism, according to Cesari (2021). Interestingly, there are also studies on the interactions between the state and Islam (Cesari refers here to the important studies by Fox (2019), Driessen (2014), Henne (2012).

According to Cesari (2021), Islamism emerged as a reaction to the decline of “Muslim civilisation” and was supplemented by a political theory of a just society based on Islamic authenticity and criticism of secularism. It was, according to Cesari (2021), an opposition movement to the “secular” state and was therefore able to maintain the moral upper hand. But in the last four decades, Islamism had become part of political power, from Iran to Morocco and Tunisia. This has eroded its political credibility, he says, especially where state power has been won by force (as in Iran, Sudan and Afghanistan), not to mention the odious reputation that the claim of an “Islamic state” has received from ISIS. Overall, according to Cesari (2021), Islamist parties show a poor record of gaining state power, a situation discussed at length by scholars who look for structural obstacles to explain such failure from the persistence of deep state power or the degree of corruption and dysfunctionality of state institutions. Human rights violations and authoritarianism in countries such as Iran, Sudan and Afghanistan have further undermined the reputation of Islamists.

In contrast, Islamists who have come to power through elections have greater legitimacy but, according to Cesari (2021), face similar structural challenges and are seeing an erosion of their popular support, as evidenced by the situations in Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt. The academic consensus, according to Cesari (2021), is that popular support for Islamism has currently peaked and is unlikely to rise further, as opinion polls show a significant decline in support for religious parties and leaders, most of them in Arab countries.

Cesari (2021), identifies the question of whether “political Islam” is a “gateway drug” to political violence (cf. also the study by Hashemi, 2021, referred to here) as the crucial question in the context. The gateway drug thesis postulates that the Muslim Brotherhood acts as a gateway to radical fundamentalism, although, as Cesari (2021) says, the organisation has rejected violence as a means of political power. Because this so-called thesis is politically influential, it forces scholars to mobilise their expertise to refute it. This explicit or implicit struggle with an “ideological opponent” is, according to Cesari (2021), a serious limitation for all scholarship on Islamism/political Islam, as it often turns into apologetics or hostility towards the topics or subjects under study. The empirical reality, he said, is that Islamism is multifaceted and can be a gateway to a more democratic and pluralistic worldview, just as it can be a gateway to radicalism. The main aim in Cesari’s study (Cesari, 2021) is to distinguish political Islam from Islamism and to consider the former as more comprehensive and long term than the latter. Political Islam, he argues, is better defined as a political culture that is the result of the dual process of nationalisation and reformation of the Islamic tradition. We are therefore better advised, says Cesari, 2021, to consider political Islam as governmentalityFootnote 1 and Islamism as the religiously based form of political mobilisation that is one of the many outcomes of that governmentality. Incidentally, Cesari (2021), is harsh in her judgement of Turkey under Erdogan: according to Cesari, the AKP promoted the idea of a “Muslim democracy” (as opposed to the Islamic State claimed by most Islamist movements). In doing so, it fuelled the hope that Islam could harbour and even forge a new kind of democracy, independent of the Western model. This hope has been undermined in recent years, Cesari argues, by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s turn towards authoritarianism, not to mention his attempts to combine Islam and nationalism by legitimising the headscarf in public spaces or tightening presidential control over the religious authority Diyanet. According to Cesari (2021), such a development contradicts the historically grown perception of Turkey as a country with a “westernised” political power. Turkey had entered into competition with other Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia or Iran for the leadership of the Ummah. Global political Islam, especially in its radical forms, is, according to Cesari (2021), the result of the spread and transformation of the aforementioned hegemonic political cultures.

3.3.3 The Driessen (2018) Study

Scholars of political Islam (sic), according to Mihael D. Driessen, Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Affairs, John Cabot University, in Rome, have observed how a new generation of Muslim political actors have combined religious ideals and democratic institutions in their evolving political visions, platforms and policies. Driessen’s study documented in its findings the pronounced and widespread demand that exists in the Muslim-majority world for a combination of Sharia law and democratic politics. To this end, Driessen (2018), used regression analyses to analyse the relationship between religious regulation measures and religious favouritism (on the two terms, below) with World Values Survey Wave 4 data (1999–2004) and Arab Barometer survey data from Wave 2 (2010–2011) and Wave 3 (2012–2014). Driessen paid attention in order to capture the difference between religious regulation and religious favouritism. Religious favouritism happens […] when a state identifies with and subsidises certain religious symbols, values, schools and holy days. However, religious regulation that enforces certain individual religious beliefs, suppresses religious minorities and does not consensually interfere with the institutional or theological structures of religious organisations violates these procedural democratic rights. While social scientists have found a strong and negative relationship between religious regulation and democracy, there is no systematic relationship between religious favouritism and democracy. Once religious regulation is controlled for, there is little statistical evidence of a relationship between religious favouritism and democracy, and many democracies institutionalise moderate to high levels of religious favouritism (Driessen, 2018).

Religious regulation corresponds to the later questions about “political Islam” used in the Arab Barometer. The Driessen study, 2018, argues that the strong support of most Muslim populations for both democracy and Sharia law has led to a common, clear pattern of support for indirect channels of religious influence in a democratic context. Most Muslim individuals in Muslim-majority countries appear to simultaneously desire a continued public presence of religion in the state, but also want policy-making to be in the hands of elected individuals (whom Muslim citizens hope is personally pious) as opposed to unelected religious authorities (whom they want to keep out of government business).

With this argument, Driessen (2018), adds his study to a growing number of scholars who recognise the emergence of a version of Muslim democracy as a key feature of contemporary Muslim politics.

3.3.4 The Kucinskas and Van Der Does (2017) Study

Using Arab Barometer data (2011), Kucinskas and Van Der Does (2017), examine the gender attitudes of Muslim men in four predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen) during the Arab Spring. They investigated whether living in insecurity—which can threaten men’s ability to achieve masculine ideals—is linked to male overcompensation, as evidenced by strong support for patriarchal gender ideology. They also investigated whether Islamic religiosity influences this relationship. The results show that political Islam—as defined by the Arab Barometer—is strongly linked to patriarchal gender attitudes among Muslim MENA men across the region. The impact of living in insecurity and other facets of Islamic religiosity on men’s gender ideology varies by country. The findings on the multiple impacts of insecurity and Islam on men’s gender ideology challenge stereotypical portrayals of the region as uniformly Islamic and patriarchal. Ultimately, according to Kucinskas and Van Der Does (2017), findings point to the pervasive influence of political Islam on men’s gender ideology in MENA in relation to women. During a period of heightened civil unrest in the four countries studied, Kucinskas and Van Der Does (2017), also see different relationships between insecurity, Islam and male gender ideology depending on the country.

To measure political Islam according to Arab Barometer, the study used four questions on opinion about the country’s laws and regulations (on a four-point Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”):

“The government and parliament should enact the following laws:

  1. (1)

    Laws

  2. (2)

    Criminal laws

  3. (3)

    Personal status laws and

  4. (4)

    Inheritance laws in accordance with Islamic laws”.

Kucinskas and Van Der Does (2017), supplemented these measures with six additional questions (on the same Likert scale) recoded so that larger scores represent a belief in a greater role for religion in politics:

  • “Religious leaders should not interfere in voters’ decisions in elections”

  • “Your country is better off when religious people hold public positions in the state”

  • “Religious leaders should have influence on government decisions”

  • “Religious practices are private and should be separated from social and political life”

  • “Religious associations and institutions should not influence voters’ decisions in elections” and

  • “Mosques should not be used for election campaign purposes”.

Finally, Kucinskas and Van Der Does (2017), used two questions on the belief that the following political systems are appropriate for one’s country, with responses on a four-point Likert scale (from absolutely inappropriate to very appropriate):

  • “A parliamentary system in which only Islamist parties contest elections” and

  • “A system governed by Islamic law, without elections or political parties”.

These twelve questions were standardised before a summated scale with an alpha of 0.75 was created.

A summed scale had a more accurate result than a measure from a factor analysis.

The Arab Barometer questionnaire contained more variables on religious practices, including measures of fasting, reading/watching religious materials, attending religious classes, participating in Friday prayers and reading religious books. These variables attenuate each other due to high collinearity.

Kucinskas and Van Der Does (2017), added control variables that have been shown to influence men’s gender ideology

  • Age (in years)

  • University education (1 = has a B.A. or M.A. or higher, 0 = has no university education) and

  • Marital status (1 = not married, 0 = married).

Kucinskas and Van Der Does (2017), also take into account whether the respondent lives in a rural (1) or urban (0) area. Finally, to control for country-specific differences in development and economic conditions, Kucinskas and Van Der Does (2017), added to the models the Human Development Index (HDI) values for each country from the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Report (2011).

Kucinskas and Van Der Does (2017), found support for the expectation that religious men would be more supportive of patriarchal gender ideology. Some facets of Islam in certain contexts, such as, according to Kucinskas and Van Der Does (2017), the self-identified religiosity of Egyptian men, the self-identified frequent reading of the Qur’an by Yemeni men and the daily prayer of Algerian men, are associated with stronger patriarchal attitudes. In Egypt, according to Kucinskas and Van Der Does (2017), men who read the Quran weekly have less patriarchal attitudes than others. The only consistent finding by country is the positive impact of political Islam on patriarchal gender ideology. In all countries, men’s belief that Islam should influence politics and governance was associated with patriarchal attitudes. This finding shows the importance of not only considering standard measures of religious affiliation, belief and behaviour, but also the influence of politically shaped religious beliefs.

The impact of political Islam on gender ideology in Egypt is significantly lower than in the other countries. The impact of political Islam in Tunisia was, according to Kucinskas and Van Der Does (2017), lower than in Yemen and Algeria. Political Islam plays a role in shaping gender ideology in different countries, but not to the same extent. The findings of Kucinskas and Van Der Does (2017), lead to as Kucinskas and Van Der Does (2017), themselves say—losing their own confidence in most of their findings presented. The only robust, consistent finding across countries, according to Kucinskas and Van Der Does (2017), shows the strong relationship between political Islam and men’s patriarchal gender ideology.

3.3.5 The Rahbarqazi and Mahmoudoghli (2020) Study

The following study, which also interprets Arab Barometer data in an exemplary manner, is another example of the use of multivariate analysis to study political Islam. The study in itself is an event because of its very good theoretical and statistical-empirical treatment of the subject, which has also found its way into the renowned “Revista Espanola de Sociología”, but it deserves to be published in Western Europe, where, as we noted in great detail in our introduction and background chapter, there is a great deal of scepticism about a discourse on “political Islam”, it deserves special attention, since the authors are not doing research at any of the Anglo-American universities, but at the University of Isfahan, and at the University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, in Iran. When these authors talk explicitly about political Islam in their region, i.e. a system of rule that has been in power in Iran since 1979, it simply has a different quality than the scholarly essay by academics who live in relative safety. With an almost merciless precision, they already say what they are about in the title of their paper published in a renowned Spanish sociology journal: “Corruption Perceptions, Political Distrust, and the Weakening of Political Islam in Iraq”.

The study used the Arab Barometer Wave V data from 2018 to 2019. By examining the data of 2461 Iraqi citizens, Rahbarqazi and Mahmoudoghli (2020), results show that corruption perceptions, on the one hand, increase citizens’ perceptions of poor government performance and wrong direction of the country and, on the other hand, decrease the tendency for a democratic political system. The results also show, according to our two Iranian authors, that citizens’ perceptions of corruption indirectly, through the above three mediating variables, increase political distrust in society and negatively influence political Islamisation. Therefore, citizens’ perceptions of corruption seem to be one of the important reasons that challenge the public’s trust in institutions and the prevailing political ideology.

The ideology that governs Iraq, our quoted Iranian authors say, seems to be political Islamism. And this is without inverted commas and without further detours. The authors go on to say that paragraph 1 of Article 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of Iraq (2005) states that “Islam is the official religion of the state”. As a result, the study says, immediately in Part A of this constitutional article, “No laws shall be enacted that are contrary to the established provisions of Islam”. Probably, according to Rahbarqazi and Mahmoudoghli (2020), this is the reason why Ayatollah Sistani and other religious authorities would easily comment on political matters and can interfere. In many cases, the leadership of political parties and groups in Iraq is also the responsibility of ayatollahs and religious clerics. Given that most political structures in Iraq are held by Islamist political groups or parties close to this ideology, the research hypothesis of Rahbarqazi and Mahmoudoghli (2020), is therefore perceptions of corruption indirectly reduce citizens’ support for political Islam in Iraq by increasing political distrust.

In the study by Rahbarqazi and Mahmoudoghli (2020), which was conducted with the very advanced statistical software package AMOS, multiple regression equations were used. So how does Rahbarqazi and Mahmoudoghli (2020), address the question of how to measure “support for political Islam”? According to the Iranian authors Rahbarqazi and Mahmoudoghli (2020), the term refers to a variety of forms of social and political activity that claim that public and political life should be guided by Islamic principles. Respondents’ acceptance or rejection of political Islam was measured using 4 items on a four-point Likert scale. In this context, respondents were asked to what extent they agreed or disagreed with the following statements:

  • Religious leaders should not interfere in voters’ decisions in elections (1 = I strongly agree, 4 = I strongly disagree, mean = 1.88; Corrected item-total correlation = 0.22)

  • Your country is better off when religious people hold public positions in the state (1 = I strongly agree, 4 = I strongly disagree, mean = 2.89; Corrected item-total correlation = 0. 34) [reversed]

  • Religious practice is a private matter and should be separated from socio-economic life (1 = I strongly agree, 4 = I strongly disagree, mean = 1.87; Corrected item-total correlation = 0.28) and

  • Religious leaders today are just as likely to be corrupt as non-religious leaders (1 = I strongly agree, 4 = I strongly disagree, mean = 1.97; Corrected item-total correlation = 0.26.

While democracy showed a negative relationship with political distrust, the relationship between education level, income status, perception of corruption, poor government performance and a negative impression of the country’s future was positive with positive political distrust. Women were also found to be more inclined to “political Islamism”, according to the study, than men. But the relationship between education level, perception of corruption, poor government performance, negative perception of the country’s future and political distrust was negatively correlated with “political Islamism”.

Since “political Islamism”, according to the study, has a high influence on the historical, social and political contexts of Middle Eastern societies, religious fundamentalism is presented as a strong alternative to the ruling regimes in the countries of the region. People are increasingly turning to “political Islamism”.

3.3.6 The Tessler (2010), Study

As the last of the alphabetically listed studies on political Islam based on the Arab Barometer, we refer here to the study by Mark Tessler, which is very frequently cited in the literature.

Tessler (2010), stresses that public opinion in the Arab world is characterised by a clear and sharp disagreement on whether Islam should play a role in public affairs or not. Many ordinary men and women favour a separation of religion and politics. This could reflect a desire to protect the political process from religious influence and authority. Alternatively, it could reflect, at least in part, a belief that religion would be corrupted by politics and possibly pressured to make compromises that do not sufficiently respect Islamic codes and traditions. Whatever the reason, the Arab public is divided on this issue. And as this public gains a greater say in the governance of their countries, the place of Islam in political life will surely be one of the most hotly contested issues. Calls for political reform and democratisation are widespread in the Arab world. Significantly, however, the disagreement on the issue of political Islam has not had as much impact on democratisation as might be expected. On the one hand, Tessler says in his famous study, an overwhelming majority of citizens who favour a political role for Islam, like the vast majority of those who favour a separation of religion and politics, believe that democracy, whatever its flaws and limitations, is the best form of government and the one they would most like to see established in their own country. In other words, there is, according to Tessler, broad support for democracy across the Arab world, and this is the case among those who do not believe, but also and equally among those who believe that Islam should play a role in political affairs. Tessler shows this empirically with very simple comparisons across the batteries of questions in the Arab Barometer, first comparing support for or rejection of democracy in a cross-tabulation with the four classic indicators of “political Islam” according to Arab Barometer used in the other studies mentioned and also used by us in our own empirical research (see below).

Tessler then shows, also in very simple cross-tabulations, how individuals in the Arab world differ in their opinions on the item “Religious representatives should have an influence on government decisions” (agree (strongly) versus disagree (strongly)).

Gender Equality

  • A married woman can work outside the home if she wants to

  • Men are generally better political leaders than women

  • Men and women should receive equal wages and salaries.

Tolerance

Factors that qualify a person for national leadership:

  • Openness to different political ideas

  • Islam requires that in a Muslim country, the political rights of non-Muslims are subordinate to those of Muslims

  • Which of the following groups would you like to have as neighbours?

  • People of a different race or skin colour.

Interpersonal Trust

  • Would you say that, in general, most people can be trusted?

  • Are you a member of any organisations or formal groups?

  • Did you vote in the last national election?

  • Did you attend a campaign event or rally during the last national election?

  • Have you ever joined with others to draw attention to an issue or sign a petition?

Political Interest

  • How interested are you in politics in general?

  • How often do you follow news about politics and government?

Political Knowledge

  • Can name the Foreign Minister

  • Can name the Speaker of the House.

Tessler says very crucially for his approach, there is the critical division in terms of governance not between those who advocate political Islam and those who advocate secular democracy, but between those who advocate secular democracy and those who believe that the political system should be both democratic and Islamic.

On the other hand, there are very few differences in the political culture orientation of Arabs who prefer democracy with Islam and those who prefer secular democracy. According to Tessler, the importance of political culture in developing countries in 2010 is largely due to its relevance for democratisation. With only a few exceptions, notably in Kuwait, there is little difference between the political culture orientations of citizens who prefer democracy with Islam and those who prefer a democratic system that does not assign an important role to Islam.

Even if neither support for democracy nor orientation towards political culture differs as a function of attitudes towards political Islam, Tessler’s famous study argues that it is important to understand the factors that incline ordinary men and women towards one position or another on the question of how their country should be governed. Personal religiosity is clearly the most consistent of these factors. Among the large proportion of Muslim Arabs who support democracy, those with a stronger attachment to their religion, as measured by the frequency of Quran reading and the importance of a child marrying someone who is religious, are disproportionately likely to favour a political system that is Islamic. Beyond this, however, there is little consistency in the factors that lead an individual to support political Islam, or in the countries where certain factors play a role in shaping the preferences of the political system. Interpretations of Islamic law, political and economic assessments and personal characteristics and experiences have explanatory power in some cases. The findings, according to Tessler (2010), suggest that one-size-fits-all explanations should be avoided and that it is impossible to answer the question of why some Muslim Arabs prefer democracy with religion, while others favour secular democracy without constructing explanatory models that take into account country-level circumstances and experiences.

Although there is still much to learn, says Tessler (2010), it is possible to conclude with two broad observations that emerge from the findings presented above. Both challenge popular stereotypes and, according to Tessler, may have implications for the way policymakers and others in the West think about political Islam. One conclusion is that there is little or no public incompatibility between Islam and democracy. Support for democracy and democratic values is no less present among citizens with a positive attitude towards political Islam than among others. The other conclusion, according to Tessler (2010), is that there is no one-dimensional determinism in the Arab world.