Closing the Arab Democratic Gap: A Re-Assessment of the Tunisian Democratic Transition

Tunisia is often described as the outlier of the Arab Spring, the one case in which a form of political transition decidedly happened. The fact that this transition first led to the rule of the Islamist party Ennahda has reignited long-standing debates on the role of Islam in politics, the relationship between religion and democracy, and the consequences of their potential incompatibility for the future of Tunisian democracy. A sizeable literature has attempted to address these topics over the years, but it is of little help when trying to understand the events of the Arab Spring and the Tunisian transition, especially when it comes to their impact on the Islamist parties themselves. Borrowing from Villalón’s study of Islam and politics in sub-Saharan Africa, this paper argues that, instead of considering whether Tunisian actors fit within a preconceived notion of democracy, we should consider the process of political bargaining itself as democratic; focusing on the substance of democracy rather than its form sheds new light on the Tunisian case and helps explain various outcomes including the progressive liberalization of Islamist parties and the gradual but distinctive flourishing of democracy in the Tunisian context.

States, Religion, and Democracy in Southeast Asia: Comparative Religious Regime Formation

This chapter seeks to account for the political origins of “religious regimes”—institutional relations between political authority (a secular state) and clerical authority (organized religion)—through a comparative historical analysis of three Muslim-majority Southeast Asian nations: Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei. Despite relatively similar historical, geopolitical, and sociocultural conditions—and against their original intentions—these three nations have established distinctive types of religious regimes since independence: secular-dominant (Indonesia), established-religion (Malaysia), and religious monarchy (Brunei). The chapter argues that the varying pathways adopted by these three nations are the result of state formation, specifically the ways in which secular political elites pursued and consolidated their state powers and domination during post-independence institution-building. Moreover, the chapter’s comparative analysis suggests that the type of—and timing of—religious regime formation is essential to account for the ability and willingness of late-developing democracies such as Indonesia and Malaysia to protect basic civil rights and freedom of religious (and nonreligious) communities and people. In contrast to Christian-dominant Europe, where mostly secular regimes were formed concomitantly to facilitate democratic transition and consolidation, late-developing Muslim democracies have seen the consolidation of religious regimes prior to the formation of modern state and popular democratic movements and consolidation. As a result, late-developing Muslim democracies have tended to see more aggressive religious authorities contesting and complicating the trajectories of democratic consolidation.

Religion & Transitional Justice

Transitional justice refers to the process of dealing with human rights abuses committed during the course of ongoing conflict or repression, where such processes are established as a society aims to move toward a better state, and where a constitutive element of that better state includes democracy. A philosophical theory of transitional justice articulates what the moral criteria or standards are that processes of transitional justice must satisfy to qualify as just responses to past wrongdoing. This essay focuses on the roles of religion in transitional justice. I first consider the multiple and conflicting roles of religion during periods of conflict and repression. I then argue against conceptualizing transitional justice in a theologically grounded manner that emphasizes the importance of forgiveness. Finally, I discuss the prominent role that religious actors often play in processes of transitional justice. I close with the theoretical questions about authority and standing in transitional contexts that warrant further examination, questions that the roles of religious actors highlight. Thinking through the relationship between religion and democracy from the perspective of transitional justice is theoretically fruitful because it sheds more light on additional dimensions to the issue of authority than those scholars of liberal democracy have traditionally taken up.