TRADITIONAL PRACTICES AND SUPPORT FOR THE STRONGMAN

Abstract

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Chinese

The new modernization theory has suggested that the pervasiveness of traditional values has a clear impact on the quality of democratic governance. In this contribution to this special issue on the political consequences of traditional beliefs, we explore whether and to what extent the pervasiveness of traditional values and beliefs has a detectable impact on authoritarian attitudes. Specifically, we analyze the relationship between the support for a “strongman” and the acceptability of traditional practices for Muslim respondents from 27 jurisdictions. The results suggest that those who believe that traditional practices, such as the use of sorcery, appealing to jinn, and to the souls of ancestors, are acceptable under Islam are more likely to prefer a strongman to democracy. Notably, we found that respondents’ religiosity does not significantly affect their support for a strongman, raising questions about how accurately traditionality has been measured so far.

Keywords

Traditional Practices Traditional Beliefs Political Preferences Modernization Cultural Change Democracy Authoritarian Rule Islam Religion and Politics Democratization Authoritarian Attitudes Voting Behavior Political Culture

Authoritarian rule, and more specifically the rule of a “strongman,” is rapidly spreading around the world (Repucci and Slipowitz 2022). Strongman rule can in fact be detected in Russia, China (Pei 2018; Baranovitch 2021), South Asia (Sud 2022), South East Asia (Morgenbesser 2016; Ramos 2021), the Pacific Island States (Fraenkel 2019), South America (Roth 2017), the Middle East and North Africa (Abadeer et al. 2022), and in Sub-Saharan Africa (Owoyemi 2022).

Given the growing popularity or success of strongmen and strongmen rule around the globe, it is not entirely unsurprising that a growing body of research has been devoted to strongmen and strongmen rule. Four streams of inquiry can be detected in the rapidly growing research area. One stream has investigated whether, how, and to what extent the weakness of the state (and institutions)—that is the lack of proper institutionalization—favors the rise of strongman rule (Croissant and Hellmann 2018; Foa 2021). A second stream of inquiry has attempted to explain the success of strongman rule as a side effect of the populist views that are rapidly spreading around the globe (Roth 2017). A third stream has attempted to understand whether, how, and to what extent elections can be instrumental in enhancing the legitimacy of strongman rule (Croissant and Hellmann 2018; Morgenbesser 2016; von Soest and Grauvogel 2018) and argues that while these elections in allegedly multiparty settings are becoming increasingly more meaningless (Repucci and Slipowitz 2022), they nonetheless change the way in which the authoritarian regime relates to the society (von Soest and Grauvogel 2018) and are associated with, and are possibly responsible for, a reduction in inequality (Teo 2021).

A fourth stream of inquiry has attempted to understand why voters/citizens have authoritarian attitudes and, more specifically, why they are supportive of what is defined as the “strongman.” Studies produced in this line of inquiry have linked the popularity of, or the support for, a strong man to a wide range of factors. In China, the support for the strongman is a function of the age of respondents, their (lack of) understanding of democracy, and of whether they reside in rural areas (Zhai 2022). Studies conducted on the Egyptian case have highlighted that the support for a strongman is positively related to the crime rate but also to the democratic system's perceived inability to maintain order and (political) stability (Abadeer et al. 2022). In the case of the Philippines, the success of a strongman was connected to his perceived ability to secure law and order (Teehankee and Thompson 2016), while in South Korea, the support for the strongman is positively tied to authoritarian distributive policies (Hong, Park, and Yang 2022).

While a sense of existential insecurity—associated to and possibly caused by a high crime rate, political instability, and poverty—may be responsible for an erosion of the legitimacy of democratic systems and for the appeal of (more) authoritarian political arrangements, the appeal of strongmen may also be ascribed to what could be called, for lack of a better phrase, cultural factors. In fact, in this respect, Lipset (1959) famously noted that the legitimacy of a democratic regime—that is, the fact that both the elite and the masses had pro-democratic values—was a more important determinant of democratic consolidation and survival than a country's socioeconomic characteristics.

More recently, while Putnam (1992) famously advanced the claim that the performance of democratic institutions is significantly influenced by the political culture of the place in which they are expected to operate, the studies of Inglehart and Welzel (2009, 2010) have shown that the quality of democracy is greatly enhanced by the presence of certain values and attitudes that emerge in the course of a process of modernization. Socioeconomic development, in this tradition of scholarship, transforms the values and attitudes of the population and is responsible for the rise/emergence of emancipative, post-material, secular, rational values, which, in turn, represent a fertile soil in which democratic regimes can flourish.

An obvious corollary of Inglehart and Welzel's (2009) claim is that in countries in which traditional values are more widespread, there should be a lower level of support for democratic governance and, conversely, a considerably higher level of support for non-democratic forms of governance—including the rule of a strongman.

The purpose of the present article is to test this corollary by exploring whether and to what extent the pervasiveness of traditional values and beliefs has a detectable impact on the support for a strongman. Specifically, we do so by analyzing the relationship between the support for a strongman and the acceptability of traditional practices for Muslim respondents from 27 jurisdictions. By performing such an analysis, we find that, while the religiosity of the respondents has no significant impact on whether they support the rule of a strongman, the support for a strongman is significantly and positively influenced by respondents’ traditional mindset. More specifically, the more respondents are inclined to find it acceptable under Islam to appeal to the spirits of the deceased, to appeal to jinn for aid, and to make use of witchcraft/sorcery to protect loved ones from evil, the more likely they are to support the rule of a strongman.

In what follows, we first critically assess efforts to equate tradition with (or to reduce it to) religion because within the same religion or among the believers of the same faith there is a considerable variation of opinion regarding the acceptability of certain traditional practices and/or of attitudes toward pre-marital sex and gender relations. In light of the evidence discussed, we suggest that it is necessary to go beyond religion to develop a proper and nuanced understanding of traditional beliefs and practices. Next, we review the writings of traditional thinkers who generally agreed on a fundamental incompatibility between democracy and tradition. We then discuss the sources, data, and methodology employed in our statistical analyses before presenting the results of our investigations. Our analyses reveal that respondents with a more traditional mindset are less likely to support democracy and they are conversely more inclined to view sympathetically the rule of a strongman—a result that is in line with the work of Inglehart and Welzel (2009). In the final section, we draw some tentative conclusions.

Political Correlates of Traditional Practices and Beliefs

In 2012, the Pew Research Institute conducted a survey among the Muslim communities from around the world. These survey data were eventually used to produce the report: The World's Muslim: Religion, Politics, and Society (Lugo et al. 2013). Lugo and others (2013, 15) reported that the survey had been administered to “more than 38,000 face-to-face interviews in 80-plus languages. It covered Muslims in 39 countries, which are divided into six regions.” The report provided extensive information about respondents’ attitudes toward Sharia law; democracy, freedom, religion, and politics; morality and the role of women in society; interfaith relations; relations among Muslims; and to the religion-science-popular culture nexus.

The section on democratic governance (Lugo et al. 2013, 60) was of particular interest for the purposes of the present research as it revealed that more than 50 percent of the (Muslim) respondents in 31 of the 37 countries in which the survey had been administered prefer democratic rule to the rule of a strongman. It also showed that the support of democracy is highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, and there was significant cross-national variation both between and within regions. In Southern-eastern Europe, the percentage of Muslim respondents who favor democracy varied from a maximum of 76 percent in Kosovo to a minimum of 35 percent in Russia. In Central Asia, the percentage varied from a maximum of 76 percent recorded in Tajikistan to a minimum of 32 percent in Kyrgyzstan. In South Asia the percentage of Muslim respondents supporting democracy varied from a maximum of 70 percent in Bangladesh to a minimum of 29 percent in Pakistan. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the percentage of Muslim respondents supporting democracy varied from a maximum of 87 percent in Ghana to a minimum of 55 percent in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report did not attempt, however, to explore whether such differences in the support for democratic rule (or strongman rule) is actually a function of the traditional beliefs that Muslim respondents may have.

While not discussed in the report, the survey administered by the Pew Research Center also asked respondents to answer a wide range of questions on traditional beliefs and practices, some of which concerned the acceptability under Islam of appealing to (dead) ancestors for aid, of making offers to jinn, and of making use of sorcery to protect one's family and/or neighbors. These data were collected to explore the boundaries of religious practices, to develop a better understanding of the variety of opinion in the world of Islam, and to assess, among other things, the popularity of traditional beliefs and practices—which are part and parcel of a country's (political) culture.

Scholars working on political culture have shown empirically that political culture matters, that it affects the performance of democratic institutions (Putnam 1992), the quality of democracy, and, ultimately, its survival. Lipset (1959), for instance, noted that the collapse of the Weimar republic was due to the fact that political elites did not have pro-democratic attitudes and values and that democracy could not survive in Catholic countries because Catholics were (or were believed to be) inherently authoritarian. Inglehart and Welzel (2009, 34) suggested that modernization is responsible for a transformation of values and attitudes but also, and, from their point of view more importantly, for the emergence of conditions (values, attitudes) that can facilitate transitions to democracy, the performance of democratic systems, the quality of such systems, and their consolidation. Specifically, Inglehart and Welzel (2009) noted that socioeconomic development is responsible for the development of emancipative, post-material, rational (as opposed to secular) values that are crucial for the proper functioning and survival of democracy. And, while Inglehart (1997, 7) famously noted that “economic, cultural and political change go together in coherent patterns that are changing the world in predictable ways,” Inglehart and Welzel (2009, 37–38) also noted that modernization is not a linear process, that social and cultural change is path-dependent, and that “a society's value system reflects an interaction between the driving forces of modernization and the persisting influence of tradition.” Democracy is shaped not only by socioeconomic development and the emergence of emancipative, post-material, non-traditional values but also by “religiosity, religious denomination, and a society's religious demography” (Welzel and Inglehart 2009, 141)—whose importance “persists most strongly among vulnerable populations” (Norris and Inglehart 2011, 4).

Yet, while one may not wish to dispute the importance of religiosity, religious denomination, and religious demography, it is nonetheless essential to qualify any statement concerning the importance of religion, religiosity, and religious demography in shaping the culture of its followers. Culture and religion relate to one another in complex, non-univocal, and at times conflicting ways. As Saroglou and Cohen (2011) noted, the relationship between culture and religion can take a variety of forms because religion can be part of culture, may constitute culture, may include and transcend culture, may be influenced by culture, may shape culture, and may interact with culture in shaping people's attitudes—not to mention that, in some instances, religion and culture may be at odds with one another. Furthermore, any effort to equate culture with religion implicitly assumes that culture (and/or religion) is sufficiently homogeneous and internally consistent, to provide a meaningful minimum common denominator to those belonging to that culture or religion. Yet, we know that this is not always or necessarily the case.

If anthropologists are to be believed, in the Islamic world there is a great diversity of opinion, for example, as to how acceptable premarital sex is or as to how acceptable certain traditional practices/beliefs are considered to be. This diversity of opinion can be detected not only between Muslim communities living in different regions, but also between Muslim communities living in close proximity to one another.

Let us review, briefly, the attitudes toward pre-marital sex. Islam's position on sex and sexual promiscuity is very clear. The Quran, after stating that “successful indeed are the believers” (23:1), goes on to say that successful are “those who guard their chastity except with their wives or those ‘bondwomen' in their possession for then they are free from blame” (23:5–6). But while this principle is very clear, there is considerable variation in the way in which it is enforced by different Muslim communities.

Marguerite Dupire (1973, 301), in her analysis of women in pastoral societies from Tropical Africa, in addition to documenting which practices are taboo in Fulani society (“brothers and sisters… are sexually taboo to each other”), went on to note that in Fulani society “no value is attached to virginity, and it is understood that girls will have had plenty of experience before marrying” (Dupire 1973, 302), and that a girl has “complete sexual freedom at this period of her life” (Dupire 1973, 302).¹

Similarly, for the Tuareg of Mali, “virginity is not a particularly sought after virtue in Tuareg society” (Randall 2005, 312), while monogamy is an important feature of Tuareg identity. More recent studies have, however, revealed that the Tuareg society has undergone significant changes in recent years. The words of Rasmussen (2010, 475), in this respect, are unequivocal:
many youths now skip traditional rites of passage supervised by elders and bring back alien ideas of gender and age constructs from abroad. Some, for example, wish to marry virgins; women’s virginity upon marriage was not previously important among Tuareg. Some also wish to restrict their wives – for example, not allowing them to travel or visit as freely as Tuareg women usually have done.

Among Berber people in Morocco, virginity is important and should be preserved until marriage (Ilahiane 2019; Venema and Bakker 2004) but, in this respect, one should distinguish the theoretical importance of virginity from the practical one, or, to put it in slightly different terms, one should distinguish the nominal or theoretical value from whether it actually provides behavioral guidance and provides individuals with an incentive not to engage in sexual activities. The odd but interesting finding reported by Venema and Bakker (2004) is that while virginity holds a great deal of (nominal) value for nearly all the respondents, the appreciation of virginity's value does not stop or prevent respondents from having sex. Venema and Bakker (2004, 52) in fact reported that “90 percent [of their respondents] said virginity is indispensable for marriage” but they also noted that “two-thirds of unmarried women had sexual experience before marriage and 39 percent stated that they had lost their virginity before marrying” (Venema and Bakker 2004, 52–53).

A similar picture emerges from the data collected among the Nupe of Nigeria. A survey conducted among the Nupes of Bida revealed that, in spite of the nominal value attached to virginity, the Nupe population had sexual experiences before marriage and that “the mean age at first intercourse was 17 years for males and 15.3 years for females, an indication that female adolescents in Bida experienced sexual relations early” (Odimegwu, Bola Solanke and Adedokun 2002, 99). Interestingly, while they engaged in it, respondents reportedly disapproved of premarital sex (Odimegwu, Bola Solanke and Adedokun 2002, 99).

While the Fulani, like the Korongo, attach no value to virginity, the Nupe as well as the Berber people from Morocco attach (some) value to it in theory but not in practice, the Bambara attach a great deal of value to virginity. Bouju (2014, 45) notes in this regard that “[t]he Bambara of Djennè place the virginity of girls when they marry among the most valued family virtues. As a consequence, the loss of a girl's virginity before marriage brings shame and disgrace to her family and herself.” So the value of a girl's virginity varies from virtually no value among the Fulani or the Tuareg to a maximum of a great deal of value among the Bambara.² This diversity of attitudes toward pre-marital sex and more generally to gender relations may be viewed as the result of the combination of Islam with pre-existing traditions (Rasmussen 2010, 463).

Attitudes toward traditional practices and beliefs also display a great deal of diversity. Muslim respondents from 26 countries were asked to indicate how acceptable it is to appeal to the spirits of the dead for aid, to make offerings to jinn, and to use witchcraft. The analysis of the survey data (see Table 1) reveals that there is considerable cross-national variation in the extent to which these traditional practices are deemed to be acceptable. For instance, the percentage of respondents reporting that appealing to the spirits of the dead is acceptable under Islam varies from 1.5 percent in Egypt to 38.34 percent in Uzbekistan. The percentage of respondents reporting that making offerings to jinn is acceptable under Islam varied from a minimum of 0.2 percent in Azerbaijan to a maximum of 27.95 percent in Bangladesh. The percentage of respondents reporting that using witchcraft is acceptable under Islam varies from a minimum of 1 percent in Azerbaijan to a maximum of 22 percent in Thailand.

Table 1.
Respondents who Consider Traditional Practices to be Acceptable Under Islam, by Country.

Country Appeals to spirits Appeals to jinn Use of sorcery

Acceptable % Acceptable % Acceptable %

1 Afghanistan 184 12.19% 155 10.27% 113 7.49%

2 Albania 124 15.74% 70 8.88% 90 11.42%

3 Algeria 60 5.08% 33 2.79% 54 4.57%

4 Azerbaijan 143 14.36% 2 0.20% 10 1.00%

5 Bangladesh 181 9.44% 536 27.95% 130 6.78%

6 Bosnia and Herzegovina 382 37.93% 121 12.02% 75 7.45%

7 Egypt 27 1.50% 9 0.50% 33 1.84%

8 Indonesia 82 4.36% 43 2.29% 66 3.51%

9 Iran 99 6.52% 100 6.58% 84 5.53%

10 Iraq 386 27.26% — — 81 5.72%

11 Jordan 25 2.59% 15 1.55% 33 3.42%

12 Kazakhstan 493 49.40% 154 15.43% 110 11.02%

13 Kosovo 79 6.24% 83 6.56% 115 9.08%

14 Kyrgyzstan 419 32.43% 64 4.95% 85 6.58%

15 Lebanon 125 22.69% 37 6.72% 41 7.44%

16 Malaysia 11 0.88% 14 1.13% 15 1.21%

17 Morocco 31 2.11% 47 3.19% 45 3.06%

18 Niger 201 21.25% 116 12.26% 36 3.81%

19 Pakistan 244 16.83% 57 3.93% 82 5.66%

20 Palestinian Territories 30 3.02% 21 2.11% 14 1.41%

21 Russia 384 36.57% 222 21.14% 119 11.33%

22 Tajikistan 462 31.80% 73 5.02% 39 2.68%

23 Thailand 92 9.11% 33 3.27% 223 22.08%

24 Tunisia 45 3.10% 68 4.69% 64 4.41%

25 Turkey 341 22.96% 128 8.62% 134 9.02%

26 Uzbekistan 370 38.34% 55 5.70% 34 3.52%

Total 5,020 15.40% 2,256 7.23% 1,925 5.90%

Source: The Pew Research Center (2012).

Note: Percentages are calculated from the ratio of the number of respondents who answered positively to the total number of respondents interviewed (i.e., including those who answered “Unacceptable,” “Islam does not have anything to say about this,” “Don’t know,” and those who refused to answer).

This evidence, along with the attitudes toward premarital sex mentioned above, sustain the claim that in the world of Islam there is a considerable level of heterogeneity of opinion—which means that religion does not necessarily provide cognitive and behavioral guidance to its followers in various countries and regions.

This diversity of opinion among the followers of a religion probably explains why, as Pasquino and Pelizzo (2022) reported recently, there are other aspects of a (political) culture that have a greater impact on the functioning of a political system than religion.

The new modernization theory proposed by Inglehart and his collaborators, in this respect, has suggested that tradition—or rather the persistence and the pervasiveness of traditional values—has a clear impact on the quality of democratic governance. Traditional values were inferred from respondents’ assessment of the justifiability of abortion, of the importance of God, of the importance of learning obedience and faith, of the respect for authority and national pride. While one may not wish to question whether these items actually relate to tradition and/or traditional values, the way in which Inglehart and Baker (2000, 24) attempted to capture, conceptualize, and operationalize traditional values overlooks the fact that tradition, just like (political) culture, has considerably more facets than the ones identified by Inglehart and Baker. Tradition has also to do with traditional beliefs, traditional practices, and superstition. A second limitation of conceptualizing tradition as, among other things, a function of the belief in the importance of God in one's life is that it makes tradition and religion overlap. This approach is obviously appropriate in some (possibly many) cases, but it is neither always nor necessarily appropriate because, to paraphrase Saroglou and Cohen (2011), there are instances in which tradition and religion are at odds with one another—and it is probably such a discrepancy between tradition and religion which accounts for the diversity of opinion that one can detect in the world of Islam. In some cases, the traditional belief systems that existed prior to a society's mass conversion to Islam have disappeared. In other cases, they may have survived in fairly small pockets of the population. In a third group of cases, however, they were instrumental in reshaping, adjusting, and adapting the prescriptions of a religion to the environment in which it was expected to thrive.

The case of traditional beliefs and practices included in the survey administered by the Pew Research Center is emblematic in this regard. The belief in the acceptability of the appeals to the spirits of the deceased, of the offerings to jinn and of using witchcraft—practices unequivocally rejected by Islam—reflects the persistence of traditional values, beliefs, and practices that pre-existed the religious conversion of the masses; beliefs and practices that Islam, no matter how popular and prescriptive, has not been able to eradicate.

In recent years some efforts have been made to uncover the causes, the consequences, and more generally the correlates of traditional beliefs and practices. These studies have attempted to assess whether and to what extent the process of socioeconomic development has been effective in reshaping the cultural values and in eradicating traditional beliefs. The evidence presented by Pelizzo, Turganov, and Kuzenbayev (2023) in this special issue of World Affairs sustains the claim that socioeconomic development transforms values and attitudes, but it also shows that some values/attitudes are more sensitive to socioeconomic development than others. Also in this special issue, Harakan, Pelizzo, and Kuzenbayev (2023) show that the presence/pervasiveness of traditional beliefs and practices shapes the electoral behavior and choices of Indonesian voters. Muslim voters with a more traditional mindset are more likely to vote for secular government parties—a finding that does not simply illustrate the electoral consequences of traditional beliefs, but that also substantiates the claim that at times traditional beliefs and religion are at odds with one another. Pelizzo and others (2023), in their analysis of the electoral behavior of Togolese voters in this special issue, are able to show that in Togo voters with a more traditional mindset are more inclined to vote for the ruling party—although the aspects of a traditional mindset that shape the electoral choices of the Togolese voters are in some ways different from the ones that are significant in the Indonesian case. Since these studies have been able to document that the pervasiveness of traditional beliefs explains electoral behavior and the (in)stability of party systems, it is certainly worth exploring whether and to what extent holding on to traditional values and practices affects voters’ attitudes toward democratic rule—which is what we wish to explore in the remainder of this article.

Traditional Practices and the Quality of Democracy

The notion of tradition or traditionalism has generally been used to denote analytically distinguishable phenomena. In one sense, tradition has been used to denote a conservative religious doctrine. Traditionalists, in this sense, are the believers of such a doctrine. In another sense, however, the term “tradition” has been used to denote a set of ancient doctrines, the traditional sciences, that were an expression of the traditional spirit. Traditionalist thinkers from the first half of the 20th century, from Guenon to Evola, understood tradition in this second way³ (Dickson 2021, 594).

These thinkers were anti-modernist as they advocated a revolt against the modern world, and they were essentially anti-democratic as they believed that democratic politics, with its emphasis on equality and the principle of “one head, one vote,” were incompatible with authority, with the proper order of things, and with a life lived according to proper principle. Guenon (2001, 11) was adamant in this respect when he remarked that the “revolt against the traditional spirit, amounting to a denial of all authority and resulting· in a veritable anarchy, in the etymological sense, of “absence of principle” both in the intellectual and in the social realms.”

Tradition had to do with “the true, traditional, supra-rational, and ‘non-human’ wisdom” (Guenon 2001, 13) whose existence was “proven primarily by the persistence of the ‘mysteries,’ whose essentially initiatic character is beyond dispute” (Guenon 2001, 13). More importantly, for the purposes of the present analysis, is that fact that Guenon “saw in Islam a more recent and accessible expression of the Primordial Tradition” (Dickson 2021, 589)—a tradition that is primordial, initiatic, concerned with mysteries, and fundamentally esoteric.

The incompatibility between tradition and democracy is spelled out with great clarity by Guenon (2001, 73) who noted that:
It is abundantly clear that the people cannot confer a power that they do not themselves possess; true power can only come from above, and this is why-be it said in passing-it can be legitimized only by the sanction of something standing above the social order, that is to say by a spiritual authority, for otherwise it is a mere counterfeit of power, unjustifiable through lack of any principle, and in which there can be nothing but disorder and confusion.
If Guenon is correct in his characterization of what tradition is, and if he is correct in claiming that the traditional world was able to manifest and be guided by a genuine (hierarchical, top down) authority, then it is not too difficult to understand why, even in the post-modern world, societies in which traditional beliefs and practices have a wider currency should be less inclined to be democratic or should be less democratic.

The analysis of aggregate data nevertheless presents a puzzling picture. If one equates traditional beliefs with the reported acceptability of appealing to the spirit of the dead for aid, then it is clear that the quality of democracy is lower in countries in which a larger portion of the Muslim population finds it acceptable to appeal to the spirit of the dead (see Figures 1–3)—where we scatterplot the percentage of Muslim respondents who find it acceptable to appeal to the spirits of the dead in the whole sample for which data were collected (Figure 1), in countries whose Polity 2 score is higher than 0 (Figure 2) and in countries whose Polity 2 score is below 0 (Figure 3).

Figure 1.
Quality of democracy and percentage of respondents, who find it acceptable to appeal to spirits.

Figure 2.
Quality of democracy and percentage of respondents, who find it acceptable to appeal to spirits (Polity 2 score above zero).

Figure 3.
Quality of democracy and percentage of respondents, who find it acceptable to appeal to spirits (Polity 2 score below zero).

If one equates traditional beliefs with the reported acceptability of making offerings to jinn, the evidence presented in scatterplots 4–6 sustains the claim that the quality of democracy in the whole sample (Figure 4), in countries with a Polity 2 score above 0 (Figure 5), and in countries with a Polity 2 score below 0 (Figure 6), is negatively related to the percentage of respondents who believe in the acceptability of making offerings to jinn.

Figure 4.
Quality of democracy and the acceptability of offerings to jinn.

Figure 5.
Quality of democracy and the acceptability of offerings to jinn (Polity 2 score above zero).

Figure 6.
Quality of democracy and the acceptability of offerings to jinn (Polity 2 score below zero).

If one equates traditional beliefs with the reported acceptability of using witchcraft to protect one's family and neighbors, then we find that the relationship between the quality of democracy and the pervasiveness of traditional beliefs is positive. In other words, in countries where a larger portion of the Muslim population believes in the acceptability of using witchcraft the quality of democracy is higher than in those countries in which a smaller share of the Muslim population finds it acceptable to use witchcraft (Figures 7–9).

Figure 7.
Quality of democracy and the acceptability of using witchcraft.

Figure 8.
Quality of democracy and the acceptability of using witchcraft (Polity 2 score below zero).

Figure 9.
Quality of democracy and the acceptability of using witchcraft (Polity 2 score above zero).

These analyses at the aggregate level provide a rather inconsistent picture of the way in which traditional beliefs and the quality of democracy relate to one another. There are three possible explanations as to why there are such inconsistencies. One possible explanation is that the quality of democracy responds differently to different types of traditional beliefs and practices. A second explanation is that these inconsistencies could be due to the fact that these country-level analyses are not carried out at the proper level of analysis. A third possible explanation is that the size of the Muslim community is not homogenous in the various countries included in the sample for which the Pew Research Center collected data. To test the merits of these three hypotheses, avoiding the problems of aggregation and to develop a more nuanced understanding of how holding on to traditional beliefs shapes a respondent's attitude toward democracy or, conversely, toward the rule of a strongman, we proceed to explore how individuals’ beliefs relate to and possibly influence attitudes toward the rule of a strongman at the micro-level.

Micro-Level Data and Methodology

To perform such micro-level analyses, we use cross-sectional survey data collected by the Pew Research Center (2012) between October 2011 and November 2012 in 27 countries (Table 1). This public opinion survey (nationally representative in most countries) was conducted to compare the beliefs and attitudes of Muslims, so the dataset only contains responses from people who self-identified as Muslims. In total, the dataset includes 32,604 observations. The average age of the respondents was 37.2 years, and 50.8 percent of the respondents were female.

The dependent variable of our study is strongleader, which is a dummy variable based on the following survey question: “Some feel that we should rely on a democratic form of government to solve our country’s problems. Others feel that we should rely on a leader with a strong hand to solve our country’s problems. Which comes closer to your opinion?” The dependent variable (strongleader) takes on a value of 1 if the respondent prefers a strong leader, and 0 if she prefers a democratic form of government. Overall, 39.24 percent (or 10,479 respondents out of 26,702) of those surveyed believe that a leader with a strong hand is needed to solve the problems of their countries.

The explanatory variable of interest is traditional_practices, which is obtained from the principal component factor analysis (PCFA) of three survey items (Table 2). The respondents were asked if they thought certain practices were acceptable under Islam (see Table 1). Although the Quran condemns witchcraft (Quran 2:102) and states that prayers and sacrifices should only be made to God (Quran 108:2), 15.4 percent of the respondents believe that appeals to the deceased are acceptable, 7.23 percent consider it acceptable to make offerings to jinn, and 5.9 percent consider it acceptable to use witchcraft to protect family or neighbors. The PCFA based on a polychoric correlation matrix yields one factor, which explains 73.24 percent of the total variation among the three variables.

Table 2.
PCFA of the Survey Items for Traditional Practices.

Items Factor 1 Uniqueness

1) Respondent believes that appealing for aid from the souls of deceased relatives or ancestors is acceptable under Islam. 0.80 0.35

2) Respondent believes that appealing for aid from jinn (making offerings to them) is acceptable under Islam. 0.90 0.20

3) Respondent believes that the use of sorcery to protect the family or neighbors from evil forces is acceptable under Islam. 0.87 0.25

Source: The Pew Research Center (2012).

Note: High loadings are in bold. N = 26,416.

To test the relationship between traditional_practices and strongleader, we estimate one linear probability model (LPM) with country fixed-effects and one logit model with country fixed-effects. The descriptions and summary statistics of control variables are presented in Table 3.

Table 3.
Descriptive Statistics of Control Variables.

Variable Description Obs. Mean Std. Dev. Min. Max.

female A dummy for respondent's gender 32,604 0.508 0.500 0 1

age Respondent's age in years 32,384 37.22 14.02 18 97

married A dummy for respondent's marital status 31,255 0.690 0.463 0 1

education Level of respondent's education rescaled to a range from 1 to 10 31,064 4.84 2.54 1 10

income Level of respondent's income rescaled to a range from 1 to 10 28,888 4.55 2.44 1 10

i.relimportant A set of dummies for the level of importance of religion in respondent's life: 1) Not at all important (base category), 2) Not too important, 3) Somewhat important, 4) Very important. 32,308 3.60 0.68 1 4

country_satisfied A dummy for respondent's satisfaction with the way things are going in her country. 31,514 0.498 0.500 0 1

confidence_in_future The level of respondent's assessment of her future. The respondents were asked at what step (from 0 to 10) they would place themselves on the so-called “ladder of life” (10 representing the best possible life) now and five years from now. confidence_in_future is the difference between the future step and the present step of the ladder. 28,739 1.18 1.89 −10 10

Source: The Pew Research Center (2012).

Results

The estimation results are presented in Table 4. The results suggest that the relationship between traditional_practices and strongleader is positive and statistically significant. Hence, Muslims who believe that traditional practices, such as the use of sorcery, appealing to jinn, and to the souls of ancestors, are acceptable in Islam are more likely to prefer a strong leader to democracy. Women are also more likely to believe that a leader with a strong hand is needed to solve the problems of their countries.

Table 4.
Estimation Results.

(1) (2)

LPM Logit

female 0.0141* 0.0650*

(0.00709) (0.0324)

age 0.000312 0.00140

(0.000289) (0.00132)

married 0.00170 0.00876

(0.00854) (0.0391)

education −0.00253 −0.0114

(0.00179) (0.00813)

income 0.000218 0.00118

(0.00202) (0.00924)

i.relimportant:

1. Not at all important (base category) 0 0

(.) (.)

2. Not too important 0.0159 0.0708

(0.0389) (0.178)

3. Somewhat important 0.0183 0.0804

(0.0363) (0.166)

4. Very important 0.00238 0.00431

(0.0359) (0.165)

country_satisfied −0.0350* −0.160*

(0.00763) (0.0349)

confidence_in_future −0.00674* −0.0308*

(0.00204) (0.00934)

traditional_practices 0.0867* 0.396*

(0.0155) (0.0704)

N 17,756 17,756

Note: Standard errors in parentheses.

^*
p < .05.

^
p < .01.

^*
p < .001.

On the other hand, respondents who are optimistic about their future (believing that their lives will improve in the next five years) are less likely to prefer a strong leader to a democratic form of government, which is consistent with the recent findings of Kuzenbayev and Pelizzo (2023), who report that people’s confidence in the future determines the pervasiveness of emancipative/self-expression values. People who are satisfied with the way things are going in their country are also more likely to prefer a democratic form of government.

Conclusion

Political philosophers from antiquity onward had long been dealing with traditions and superstitions. And their treatment of superstition was unequivocally negative. Seneca regarded superstition as an insane mistake (superstitio error insanus est), and 17 centuries later his words echoed in the writings of Thiers (1704, 385) who observed that “superstition est une erreur contraire a la saine doctrine” (superstition is an error contrary to the sane doctrine).

Philosophers and theologians also discussed the relationship between superstition and religion. In the Middle Ages Aquinas noted that “superstition is a vice contrary to religion by excess” (Summa, question 92), and a few centuries later Voltaire (2000) went on to note that superstition was a foolish offspring of religion.

Superstition and traditional beliefs shaped the way in which people looked at the world and lived—and probably continue to do so (Obadia 2016). They influenced public life so much so that de Plancy (1825) could write “all the public calamities were attributed to demons or to the malice of sorcerers,” while Castilhon (1766, 125) would venture to write “partout je vois l’astrologie cultivee, florissant gouverner despoticament les peoples & les Souverains.” The assessment of (the role of) superstition and traditional beliefs in public life was not consistently negative. From Polybius to Bodin, there is a long tradition of political thought that recognizes “that religion is the foundation of the state” (MacPhail 2018, 29), that “religion is the surest foundation of political power” (MacPhail 2018, 35), and that superstition is essential in securing the social order and religious tolerance.

While for centuries philosophers and social scientists recognized the role of traditional beliefs, including superstition, in the life of individuals and communities, the political role of traditional beliefs has somewhat been forgotten in recent years. The new modernization literature has, of course, explored in great detail whether the world has become more secular after decades of economic growth and development. And it has also, repeatedly noted that the emergence of emancipative, post-materialism values, along with the progressive secularization of large portions of the most affluent societies, have been instrumental for the transition to, the consolidation of, and the functioning of democratic governance. But little attention has been paid by this scholarly tradition to the political role of traditional values and beliefs.

This tradition has in fact acknowledged that the process of socioeconomic development is conducive to the abandonment of traditional values and to the adoption, among other things, of a more rational-scientific mindset. It has likewise noted why this transformation of the value system is good for democracy, but it has not adequately explored the tradition-democracy nexus.

The purpose of the present article was primarily to investigate whether traditional practices and beliefs are good for democracy. The answer is unequivocally negative as evidenced by both macro- and micro-level analyses. Countries with a larger percentage of traditionally-minded citizens—individuals who believe in the acceptability under Islam of appealing to the spirits of the dead, of making offerings to jinn, and of using witchcraft for protection—have a lower quality of democracy than countries in which these practices are significantly less appealing. Furthermore, micro-level analyses have shown that individuals with a more traditional mindset are more likely to prefer the rule of a strongman to democratic rule—evidence that provides a micro-level foundation for the findings of country-level analyses.

	Country	Appeals to spirits	Appeals to jinn	Use of sorcery
1	Afghanistan	184	12.19%	155	10.27%	113	7.49%
2	Albania	124	15.74%	70	8.88%	90	11.42%
3	Algeria	60	5.08%	33	2.79%	54	4.57%
4	Azerbaijan	143	14.36%	2	0.20%	10	1.00%
5	Bangladesh	181	9.44%	536	27.95%	130	6.78%
6	Bosnia and Herzegovina	382	37.93%	121	12.02%	75	7.45%
7	Egypt	27	1.50%	9	0.50%	33	1.84%
8	Indonesia	82	4.36%	43	2.29%	66	3.51%
9	Iran	99	6.52%	100	6.58%	84	5.53%
10	Iraq	386	27.26%	—	—	81	5.72%
11	Jordan	25	2.59%	15	1.55%	33	3.42%
12	Kazakhstan	493	49.40%	154	15.43%	110	11.02%
13	Kosovo	79	6.24%	83	6.56%	115	9.08%
14	Kyrgyzstan	419	32.43%	64	4.95%	85	6.58%
15	Lebanon	125	22.69%	37	6.72%	41	7.44%
16	Malaysia	11	0.88%	14	1.13%	15	1.21%
17	Morocco	31	2.11%	47	3.19%	45	3.06%
18	Niger	201	21.25%	116	12.26%	36	3.81%
19	Pakistan	244	16.83%	57	3.93%	82	5.66%
20	Palestinian Territories	30	3.02%	21	2.11%	14	1.41%
21	Russia	384	36.57%	222	21.14%	119	11.33%
22	Tajikistan	462	31.80%	73	5.02%	39	2.68%
23	Thailand	92	9.11%	33	3.27%	223	22.08%
24	Tunisia	45	3.10%	68	4.69%	64	4.41%
25	Turkey	341	22.96%	128	8.62%	134	9.02%
26	Uzbekistan	370	38.34%	55	5.70%	34	3.52%
	Total	5,020	15.40%	2,256	7.23%	1,925	5.90%

Items	Factor 1	Uniqueness
1) Respondent believes that appealing for aid from the souls of deceased relatives or ancestors is acceptable under Islam.	0.80	0.35
2) Respondent believes that appealing for aid from jinn (making offerings to them) is acceptable under Islam.	0.90	0.20
3) Respondent believes that the use of sorcery to protect the family or neighbors from evil forces is acceptable under Islam.	0.87	0.25

Variable	Description	Obs.	Mean	Std. Dev.	Min.	Max.
female	A dummy for respondent's gender	32,604	0.508	0.500	0	1
age	Respondent's age in years	32,384	37.22	14.02	18	97
married	A dummy for respondent's marital status	31,255	0.690	0.463	0	1
education	Level of respondent's education rescaled to a range from 1 to 10	31,064	4.84	2.54	1	10
income	Level of respondent's income rescaled to a range from 1 to 10	28,888	4.55	2.44	1	10
i.relimportant	A set of dummies for the level of importance of religion in respondent's life: 1) Not at all important (base category), 2) Not too important, 3) Somewhat important, 4) Very important.	32,308	3.60	0.68	1	4
country_satisfied	A dummy for respondent's satisfaction with the way things are going in her country.	31,514	0.498	0.500	0	1
confidence_in_future	The level of respondent's assessment of her future. The respondents were asked at what step (from 0 to 10) they would place themselves on the so-called “ladder of life” (10 representing the best possible life) now and five years from now. confidence_in_future is the difference between the future step and the present step of the ladder.	28,739	1.18	1.89	−10	10

	(1)	(2)
female	0.0141*	0.0650*
	(0.00709)	(0.0324)
age	0.000312	0.00140
	(0.000289)	(0.00132)
married	0.00170	0.00876
	(0.00854)	(0.0391)
education	−0.00253	−0.0114
	(0.00179)	(0.00813)
income	0.000218	0.00118
	(0.00202)	(0.00924)
i.relimportant:
1. Not at all important (base category)	0	0
	(.)	(.)
2. Not too important	0.0159	0.0708
	(0.0389)	(0.178)
3. Somewhat important	0.0183	0.0804
	(0.0363)	(0.166)
4. Very important	0.00238	0.00431
	(0.0359)	(0.165)
country_satisfied	−0.0350***	−0.160***
	(0.00763)	(0.0349)
confidence_in_future	−0.00674***	−0.0308***
	(0.00204)	(0.00934)
traditional_practices	0.0867***	0.396***
	(0.0155)	(0.0704)
N	17,756	17,756

Footnotes

About the Authors

Riccardo Pelizzo is a Professor and the Vice Dean for Academic Affairs in the Graduate School of Public Policy at Nazarbayev University. A comparative politics specialist, he has extensively explored party system change in Sub-Saharan Africa. With Gianfranco Pasquino he recently published The Culture of Accountability (Routledge, 2023). He can be contacted at riccardo.pelizzo@nu.edu.kz.

Nygmetzhan Kuzenbayev is a PhD candidate at Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan. His research interests lie at the intersection of economics, psychology, and political science. He can be contacted at nygmetzhan.kuzenbayev@nu.edu.kz.

ORCID iDs

Riccardo Pelizzo

Nygmetzhan Kuzenbayev

Notes

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	Country	Appeals to spirits		Appeals to jinn		Use of sorcery
	Country	Acceptable	%	Acceptable	%	Acceptable	%
1	Afghanistan	184	12.19%	155	10.27%	113	7.49%
2	Albania	124	15.74%	70	8.88%	90	11.42%
3	Algeria	60	5.08%	33	2.79%	54	4.57%
4	Azerbaijan	143	14.36%	2	0.20%	10	1.00%
5	Bangladesh	181	9.44%	536	27.95%	130	6.78%
6	Bosnia and Herzegovina	382	37.93%	121	12.02%	75	7.45%
7	Egypt	27	1.50%	9	0.50%	33	1.84%
8	Indonesia	82	4.36%	43	2.29%	66	3.51%
9	Iran	99	6.52%	100	6.58%	84	5.53%
10	Iraq	386	27.26%	—	—	81	5.72%
11	Jordan	25	2.59%	15	1.55%	33	3.42%
12	Kazakhstan	493	49.40%	154	15.43%	110	11.02%
13	Kosovo	79	6.24%	83	6.56%	115	9.08%
14	Kyrgyzstan	419	32.43%	64	4.95%	85	6.58%
15	Lebanon	125	22.69%	37	6.72%	41	7.44%
16	Malaysia	11	0.88%	14	1.13%	15	1.21%
17	Morocco	31	2.11%	47	3.19%	45	3.06%
18	Niger	201	21.25%	116	12.26%	36	3.81%
19	Pakistan	244	16.83%	57	3.93%	82	5.66%
20	Palestinian Territories	30	3.02%	21	2.11%	14	1.41%
21	Russia	384	36.57%	222	21.14%	119	11.33%
22	Tajikistan	462	31.80%	73	5.02%	39	2.68%
23	Thailand	92	9.11%	33	3.27%	223	22.08%
24	Tunisia	45	3.10%	68	4.69%	64	4.41%
25	Turkey	341	22.96%	128	8.62%	134	9.02%
26	Uzbekistan	370	38.34%	55	5.70%	34	3.52%
	Total	5,020	15.40%	2,256	7.23%	1,925	5.90%

	(1)	(2)
	LPM	Logit
female	0.0141*	0.0650*
	(0.00709)	(0.0324)
age	0.000312	0.00140
	(0.000289)	(0.00132)
married	0.00170	0.00876
	(0.00854)	(0.0391)
education	−0.00253	−0.0114
	(0.00179)	(0.00813)
income	0.000218	0.00118
	(0.00202)	(0.00924)
i.relimportant:
1. Not at all important (base category)	0	0
	(.)	(.)
2. Not too important	0.0159	0.0708
	(0.0389)	(0.178)
3. Somewhat important	0.0183	0.0804
	(0.0363)	(0.166)
4. Very important	0.00238	0.00431
	(0.0359)	(0.165)
country_satisfied	−0.0350***	−0.160***
	(0.00763)	(0.0349)
confidence_in_future	−0.00674***	−0.0308***
	(0.00204)	(0.00934)
traditional_practices	0.0867***	0.396***
	(0.0155)	(0.0704)
N	17,756	17,756