Islam, Democracy and Development. The Limits to Explanation in Religious Terms

Arabs are often seen solely in terms of their Islamic identity and the religious argument is used too often to explain the misdevelopment of the Arab countries. Yet, as Pierre Blanc stresses here, to equate the Arabs with their religion is to short-circuit the analysis. In the areas of demographic trends, economic development and democratic progress, the limitations of such reasoning can be seen from the figures and from a range of counter-examples. More and more Arab countries have begun, or have even completed, their demographic transition and many of them have rates of economic growth that are the envy of their European neighbours. Admittedly, where governance is concerned there is ground still to be made up, but even some movements of political Islam (in Palestine, Lebanon and Turkey) are returning to democratic ways. Ultimately, concludes Pierre Blanc, there are no reasons for regarding Islam as the key determinant of the developments in – or the difficulties of – the Arab region.