Seeking Justice from Cairo to Istanbul: Islam, Social Justice, and Democracy

• In Event: Islam and Politics

Abstract

Understanding the relationship between religiously informed perceptions of social justice and democratic orientations matter a great deal in Muslim majority studies where democracy remains a rare commodity. The modern incarnations of Islamic statehood are either authoritarian regimes or violent entities with a claim to Islamic Caliphate. In contrast, historical models of Islamic state are built upon legitimacy contingent on the provision of social justice. In accordance with the salience of this notion, many protesters filling the squares in Arab countries, Iran, and Turkey have made ample references to social justice and egalitarianism as a panacea against economic ills, authoritarianism, and corruption. In this study, I propose to investigate the theoretical and empirical implications of religiously informed social justice views as they relate to individual preferences toward different governance models. Is Islamic belief system more conducive to social justice policies? Do favorable views of social justice according to Islamic values explain individuals’ dispositions toward democratic governance? There is no dearth of theoretical scholarship on social justice and its relation to perceptions of governance in Muslim culture. However, empirical accounts of this important relationship are rare in Muslim majority societies of the Middle East. This project attempts to close the gap between the well-developed theoretical scholarship and under-researched empirical accounts of this relationship in the Middle East. To that end, this study provides a review of the theoretical literature on social justice and governance in Muslim political thought. Furthermore, it utilizes a mixed-method approach for empirical testing. First, it runs statistical analysis of survey data (World Values Surveys and Arab Barometer Surveys) in the Middle East. Second, the study presents the insights from recent fieldwork (in-depth interviews) in Turkey for a causal assessment of the relationship between social justice views and support for democratic governance. The analysis of public opinion data and the original data consisting in-depth interviews provides leverage for understanding the synergies between social justice as a religious ideal, perceptions about the social justice policies, and individual preferences for governance principles. The study contributes to research literatures dealing with Muslim political attitudes, piety and distributive politics, as well as Islam and democracy.

Author

• Sabri Ciftci, Kansas State University