“Democracy” in Afghanistan - the Afghanistan Research and ...

AREU Synthesis Paper Series
and democracy, since this has been done at length
and by learned scholars elsewhere. 14 Nevertheless,
given the prevalence in the data of reference by
respondents to “Islamic democracy,” it is necessary
to provide a brief overview of key theoretical
arguments that have been made on the subject
before comparing these with the statements in the
data. This section considers also the role of the
state as it relates to Islam and democracy.
Theoretical considerations
Some commentators, such as Samuel Huntington,
have implied that a state cannot be Islamic and
democratic simultaneously. In 1993, Huntington
argued that while there are elements of Islamic
doctrine that both facilitate and act as a barrier to
democracy, there had never been an example of a
fully functioning democratic and Islamic state:
[i]n practice...the only Islamic country that
has sustained a fully democratic system for any
length of time is Turkey, where Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk explicitly rejected Islamic concepts of
society and politics and vigorously attempted
to create a secular, modern, Western, nationstate.
15
Assuming for the time being, however, that Tilly’s
four criteria of breadth, equality, protection and
mutually binding consultation are an appropriate
way to gauge of the level of democratisation in
a given state, this perspective begins to appear
simplistic; in theory, none of these measures
precludes a state being either conjoined with a
national religion or specifically Islamic.
14 This is a very brief introduction to some of the issues surrounding
Islam and democracy that have been referred to by researchers and
respondents during this project. It is not intended as a comprehensive
overview. For more information and analysis, see for example A.
Sourosh, Mahmoud In Sadri and Ahmad Sadri (eds.), Reason, Freedom
and Democracy in Islam: The Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Sourosh
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Khaled Abou El Fadl, Islam
and the Challenge of Democracy (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton
University Press, 2004); Mohammad Khatami, Islam, Liberty and
Development (Binghampton, NY: Institute of Global Cultural Studies,
Binghampton University, 1998); and John L. Esposito and John O. Voll,
Islam and Democracy (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press,
1996).
15 Samuel P. Huntington, “Democracy’s Third Wave” in L. Diamond
and M.F. Plattner (eds.), The Global Resurgence of Democracy (Johns
Hopkins University Press: Baltimore and London, 1993), 19.
Before briefly considering the arguments
surrounding Islam and democracy, the idea
of an Islamic state should be discussed and
differentiated. As highlighted above, the very
concept of “the state” is problematic in Afghanistan;
it could be argued that “the state” as developed
historically in Western Europe does not and has
never existed in a country where relationships
between various communities and the state being
determined by “externality and compromise,” 16
rather than a consistent or reliable contract (as
embodied in Tilly’s mutually binding consultation).
This in itself is another debate—and since it is clear
that “democratisation” in Afghanistan since 2001 has
been very much a part of “state-building” agendas,
the two concepts will be considered together here.
Olivier Roy makes a useful distinction between neofundamentalists,
such as the Taliban—who have
little interest in working through the institution of
the state—and Islamists, whose political agendas are
or can be intertwined with state policy. According
to Roy,
“Islamism” is the brand of modern political
Islamic fundamentalism which claims to recreate
a true Islamic society, not simply by imposing the
shariat, but by establishing first an Islamic state
through political action. Islamists see Islam not as
a mere religion, but as a political ideology which
should be integrated into all aspects of society
(politics, law, economy, social justice, foreign
policy, etc.)...Contrary to the Islamists, [the
neofundamentalists] do not have an economic
or social agenda. They are the heirs to the
conservative Sunni tradition of fundamentalism,
obsessed by the danger of a loss of purity within
Islam through the influence of other religions.
They stress the implementation of shariat as the
sole criterion for an Islamic State and society. 17
Since the neo-fundamentalists described here are
simply not concerned with the state—the current
focus of democratisation—in any way, shape or form,
it is thus possible to remove such groups from the
16 Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, 148.
17 Olivier Roy, “Neo-Fundamentalism,” Social Science Research
Council, http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/roy.htm (accessed 21
April 2011).
6