Religiosity, Religious Parties and Support for Democracy

• In Event: Islam and Politics

Abstract

How does religion influence democracy? Specifically how does Islam influence democracy? This question has received considerable attention from various literatures. Party scholars have examined the influence of Islam on democracy by studying the characteristics and behaviors of Islamist parties and their effects on democratic outcomes (for example Schwedler 2006, Quinn and Hwang 2014, Ottoway and Hamzawy 2010, Pepinsky, Liddle and Mujani 2012). Political psychology scholars have approached this question by studying the correlation between personal religiosity, authoritarian tendencies and support for democratic values and policies (Altemeyer 2006; Stenner 2006; Canetti-Nisim and Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi 2007; Stark 2001; Lipset 1981). They have typically examined these correlations among students and ordinary citizens. Each of these fields of research have provided different insignts on how Islamist parties and religious individuals affect democracy but they have largely talked past each other. This lack of dialogue is especially crucial when it comes to understanding the behavior of political elites who are actively engaged in politics through their participation in political parties.
Elites make the key decisions which determine the design and implementation of institutions, policies and processes in countries. Yet, we known surprisingly little about the democratic inclinations of political elites in Islamist and non-Islamist parties in Muslim-majority countries. Scholarship on elite attitudes towards democracy in Muslim-majority countries has been based largely on anecdotal data and qualitative interviews for a handful of prominent parties (Ottoway and Hamzawy 2010; Wickham 2012). While this undoubtedly provides insights into the atttidues of elites in these countries, it precludes any systematic analysis of the role that interactions between personal religosity and religious party membership play is establishing these elite attutides. Thus the relative importance of personal beliefs and party influence in shaping elites attitudes towards democracy are unknown. Furthermore, scholars have paid less attention to how religion influences a vital aspect of democracy– support for internally democratic parties (Haggard and Kaufmann 2016; Hicken and Kuhonta 2015; Mainwaring and Perez-Linan 2013; Stepan 2010; Miller; Hesli and Reisinger 1997; Linz and Stepan 1986). Scholars of Islamist parties argue that Islamist parties tend to lack internal democracy but do so without comparing their levels of internal democracy to other parties in the same country. Thus, it is unclear whether the religious nature of the party or the general political environment is driving the state of party democracy in these countries.
This paper addresses these gaps by empirically examining the relative influence that (a) personal political beliefs about religion and, (b) affiliation with a religious or non-religious political party have in shaping elite support for two key dimensions of democracy: internal party democracy and a democratic regime. We use original elite-level data from a complex survey of 206 parliamentary candidates standing for the November, 2015 elections in Turkey for our analysis. Using Bayesian Item Response Theory techniques, we develop a unique measure of individual political-religiosity which measures the extent to which elites’ political views are influenced by religious beliefs. We then use a series of simultaneous equation models to examine how the personal beliefs of individuals, their candidacy from an Islamist or secular party and the interaction between individual beliefs and party affiliation influence their support for filling party positions through leader-appointments rather than elections and for a democratic regime in Turkey.
We find that membership in Islamist parties significantly reduces support for internal party democracy but personal religiosity rarely has an independent effect. Conversely, when it comes to support for a democratic regime, personal political beliefs have a very significant effect while membership in an Islamist party has a small effect. These effects are strongest among moderately religious individuals and less ambitious individuals. Importantly, secular parties are also not associated with high support for internal democracy. These results suggest that the extent to which religion affects democracy in a country and, the mechanism through which it affects democracy varies across different dimensions of democracy.

Author

• Vineeta Yadav, Pennsylvania State University