Despite the Arab Spring and subsequent revolutions, which grabbed the world's attention and temporarily shook up the Middle East, democracy has not taken hold in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Professor Bo Rothstein, August Rohss Chair in Political Science at the University of Gothenburg, explained his research into the lack of democracy in this region at an October 16 lecture at CEU. The event was part of CEU's Frontiers of Democracy initiative.
“One standard explanation that you hear in the media is that Islam as a religion is inhospitable to democracy,” Rothstein said. “That is not true. Two-thirds of the planet's Muslims live under some form of democratic rule.” It is also not the result of the “oil curse” either, he said, as countries like Morocco, Tunisia, and Jordan are lacking in huge natural resources while other oil-rich countries like Norway and Botswana are democracies. In fact, surveys show that an overwhelming majority of Muslims support democracy. One survey result showed that 80-93 percent of those surveyed in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Yemen think democracy, although flawed, is the best system of governance.

So what is the missing piece of the puzzle? Rothstein and his colleagues believe it lies in the way religious institutions were established and are run. “Institutions serve as templates for behavior – they are not just 'rules of the game' changing rational calculations, but [they] create a normative 'logic of appropriateness.'”
Maintaining an active religion “is a costly operation,” Rothstein said. Churches and mosques must be built, religious leaders must be educated, schools must be run, and burial grounds secured. This is in addition to social responsibility that some religions take on like caring for the poor, the orphaned, and the widowed, and contributing to local infrastructure.
Rothstein and his co-researchers compared the Islamic Waqf system that is in place in MENA to how parish communalism developed in Northwest Europe. The differences are quite stark. Waqf is a private religious foundation, meant to last for eternity and was established to secure family/clan wealth over many generations. The parishes, on the other hand, were established as public organizations responsible not only for religion but also for other public goods and were administered by an elected churchwarden and councils, positions which rotated between ordinary people.
In the Waqf system, the founders' stipulations are to be followed by the letter and are difficult to change. The system is administered by an appointee, often and inherited position and the financing of the religion and public goods/charity are “steered from above.” In the parish structure, detailed financial records are audited annually and open for the public and there is a strict separation of private and public money. The charitable arm that administers the public goods is semi-democratic.

So the outcome of these two different systems is different. In areas under the Waqf system, there is little need for municipal taxation which seems ideal for its citizens. However, there is a lack of accountability and transparency and a “lasting legacy of personalistic rule.” Rothstein and his colleagues had a research team interview middle-class people in MENA countries about rampant corruption and why there is no real backlash from society. The people often responded, “Because it's not our money.” Rothstein said that middle-class citizens' understanding of corruption and morals in corrupt countries is the same as other countries, “they just think that they have no choice.”
On the contrary, the communal parishes of Northwest Europe enjoyed self-rule by election and their loyalty was with the community, not the church itself. The “co-operative,” as Rothstein described it, was set up to protect itself from the larger feudal hierarchy.
In conclusion, Rothstein warned the audience to avoid “blaming” ideology, values, culture for the lack of democracy in MENA and to look more deeply at the historically established frameworks. “It is neither religion as such, nor culture that explains the lack of democracy in MENA region, but how religion is financed,” Rothstein said. “If you want to understand something, follow the money.”
For further information, visit: http://politicalscience.ceu.hu/events/2014-10-16/public-lecture-why-there-no-democracy-middle-east-north-africa-mena-region-bo.





