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CHAPTER 2 ISLAM AND DEMOCRACY IN PAKISTAN T here are few nations where the rise of extremist political groups is of greater international significance than Pakistan. Poised with a fully loaded nuclear arsenal at the crossroads of religious extremists, nationalist fervor, and the war on terrorism, Pakistan’s importance to global geopolitical stability and international peace is inescapable. While Pakistan’s Islamic parties still depend on military patronage, its current democratic transition will depend on how Islamic parties contribute to civilian rule and mobilize support for political reform. Islamic Confessional Parties Political scientist Stathis Kalyvas has defined ‘‘confessional’’ political parties as organizations that leverage aspects of religious ideology and culture to mobilize, recruit, and campaign in electoral contests.1 Confessional movements have developed out of many religious traditions in many countries. Jews in Israel, Christians in Brazil, and Hindus in India have all formed political parties whose platforms draw from and focus on religious tradition. Islamic confessional movements, however , are of particular interest in the post-9/11 world. The recent ascendancy of Islamic parties in Turkey, the Gaza Strip, Indonesia, and Egypt poses opportunities and challenges for international relations in an era of international terrorism and division between the Islamic and Western worlds. A common perception among Western populations, and even policymakers, is that Islamic parties affiliate with, support, or fund militant Islamist terrorist groups. Although little empirical evidence supports this claim, the perception remains. This notion creates a generalized fear of Islamic party electoral successes on the grounds that terrorist groups will be afforded safe haven, patronage, and encouragement. It is widely believed that Islamic governments will be reluctant to support, and might even undermine, Western antiterrorism efforts that target organizations within their borders. Policymakers and activists in the West are also concerned that democratic rule itself will be irrevocably compromised as strongly religious Islamic parties gain 7 8 CHAPTER 2 power. Even if these groups rise to power through democratic means, so the argument goes, they may be driven to impose theocratic rule to block future elections and revoke democratic rights. This concern is greater regarding Muslim nations than for other nations with a similarly dominant and politically active religious majority, because Hindu, Jewish, and Christian states have a much longer history with, and demonstrated commitment to, democratic rule and greater experience with explicitly confessional parties that are also entirely committed to the democratic process. For the populations of most Muslim-majority nations, democracy is a relative novelty, and they do not necessarily regard it as the only option. Moreover, while democracy itself is not widely perceived as contrary to the precepts of Hinduism, Judaism, or Christianity, and while the majority of Muslims support democracy, a prominent strain of Islamic thought still argues that true religious piety and democracy are incompatible.2 The idea that democracy and Islam are in conflict is based partly on the belief that democracy must necessarily be both liberal and secular.3 The conflation of democratic process, liberalism, and secularism is problematic. Secularism is, of course, a deeply contested concept, and its definition varies widely. Western secular liberal thinking emphasizes the importance of the separation of church and state; proponents of ‘‘Indian secularism,’’ such as Rajeev Bhargava, speak of a ‘‘principled distance’’ between religion and state rather than an impenetrable wall; and some theorists, such as Talal Asad, question the very possibility of division, arguing that the secular state is not walled off from religion but instead seeks to control it.4 Yet each of these conceptions of the secular approach is often described as incompatible with orthodox Islam, which advances the principle of tawhid, or the ‘‘oneness of God,’’ and recognizes the presence of the spiritual in all things, including affairs of state. The removal of divinity from the affairs of state (as opposed to the removal of the state from the affairs of divinity) is thus seen as an invitation to amoral rule.5 This perceived ‘‘slippery slope’’ is expressed in Humeira Iqtidar’s interviews with members of Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Islamist militant group, who used the terms ladiniyat (‘‘a state of being without religion’’) and dahriyat (a ‘‘refusal of religion’’) when discussing what English speakers would call secularism.6 The perceived conflict between Islam and democracy is also based on the fact that some historical Islamic constructs are at odds with democratic governance. The most notable of these is a belief in the caliphate, or the rule by an Islamic leader ordained by God...

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