-
An "Arab" More Than a "Muslim" Democracy Gap
- Journal of Democracy
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 14, Number 3, July 2003
- pp. 30-44
- 10.1353/jod.2003.0064
- Article
- Additional Information
Re-examining the debate on Islam and democracy, the authors look at the relationship between competitive elections and levels of economic development in both Arab Muslim majority countries and non-Arab Muslim majority countries. While the performance gap in terms of electoral competition in Arab Muslim majority countries is widely recognized, less noticed is the fact that the non-Arab Muslim majority subset includes many "greatly over-achieving" countries, vis-à-vis contested elections. The authors demonstrate this using a combination of quantitative and qualitative evidence, and set out what this implies for Middle Eastern politics and the study of democracy and religion.