Faith in democracy: Islamization of the Iraqi polity after Saddam Hussein

Abstract

This study addresses systematically the rising phenomenon of insurgency in Iraq and concurrent democratic developments since the fall of Saddam Hussein. It demonstrates two main features of the democratization process. First, not only that democratization is taking place within an unstable post-war environment but that much emergent Islamist discourse is also stifling the rebuilding of institutions where democratic rights are protected. Second, democratic discourse is subject to a consistent tension between secular and religious interpretations which in turn inhibits the post-war reconstruction process more widely. The analysis examines the prospects for democracy in Iraq as a Muslim polity and examines the factors that both facilitate and hinder state and polity reconstruction post-war. It offers the hypothesis that the Muslim polity needs to be intimately involved in its own processes of democratization of state and society in order for the present transition to lead to an outcome that is not characterized by state authoritarianism. The final section contends that democracy in Iraq is a long way off and it is most likely to emerge, if at all, as Muslim rather than liberal in character.