The Other Legitimate Game in Town? Understanding Public Support for the Caliphate in the Islamic World
Main Article Content
Keywords
Caliphate, Public Opinion, Good Governance, islam, Democracy, Pakistan
Abstract
In recent years, essentialist claims about the incompatibility of democracy and Islam have been swept away by public opinion research revealing that democracy is widely supported in the Islamic world. However, while this literature has demonstrated the popularity of democracy over authoritarianism, we argue that it misses a key piece of the puzzle by not examining Muslim public support for an alternative model of government: the Caliphate system. After outlining three different visions of the Caliphate in Islamic political thought – an autocratic view, a democratic view, and an instrumentalist or “good governance” view – we analyze how it is conceptualized today by its supporters with existing and original surveys conducted in several Islamic countries. We first engage with an existing cross-national survey conducted in several Muslim-majority countries that include Egypt, Indonesia, and Pakistan in order to investigate the sources of public support for the Caliphate, broadly speaking. We then move on to our own original, nationally representative survey conducted in Pakistan to analyze more deeply the political institutions and dimensions most associated with the Caliphate and democracy. Our results suggest that, like democracy, the Caliphate is understood by its supporters primarily in instrumental terms, as a vehicle for effective systems of welfare and justice rather than as a specific institutional configuration or simply as a means for policing public modesty and morality.
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Mujtaba Ali Isani, German Center for Integration and Migration Research
Mujtaba is a Research Scientist, National Discrimination and Racism Monitor (NaDiRa), German Center for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM) and his general research interests lie at the intersection of public opinion, politics and religion, immigrant integration, as well as conflict and extremism, with a particular focus on research methodology.
Daniel Silverman, Carnegie Mellon University
Daniel Silverman is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University. His research focuses on the dynamics of violent conflict, especially in the Middle East and the wider Islamic world. He is particularly interested in the psychological factors – including the biases and misperceptions – that drive conflicts, and how they can be mitigated or leveraged to promote peace.
Joseph J. Kaminski, International University of Sarajevo
Joseph J. Kaminski is an Associate Professor affiliated with both the Political Science and International Relations Departments at the International University of Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is also a Research Associate and Symposium Coordinator at the Ummatics Institute. His current research interests include religion and politics, comparative political theory, and new approaches to Islamic public reason.
