THERE are roughly 50 Muslim-majority countries in the world, nearly half of which claim to practise some form of democracy. Yet, arguably, only about seven to 11 qualify as functioning electoral democracies. This raises an uncomfortable question: why has democracy struggled to take deeper root in much of the Muslim world?

Whatever the reason, the fact is that the majority of Muslim nations are still struggling to grasp the idea of a nation-state, and democracy is still an alien concept in the minds of Muslim power elites.

The debate about democracy, governance and statecraft is still pinching many Muslim nations. Apart from a few countries, the majority of Muslim states have their own excuses for why Western-style democracy cannot work in their societies. This approach is called exceptionalism, ie, even if a process is delivering somewhere, it does not mean it will work everywhere.

Interestingly, despite the exceptionalism approach, many failed hybrid democracies look towards Muslim monarchies and authoritarian states; although they are absolute and controlled systems, they do enjoy economic prosperity and relatively stable social orders. Even so, many people are not satisfied with circumstances, as evidenced in the political turmoil that often jolts Muslim countries. But power elites are so resilient and power structures so strong that they cannot be broken. For instance, the Arab Spring failed to bring about lasting and substantive change to the MENA region. In fact, Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring, and once its strongest democratic success story, eventually drifted towards a controlled political order. In July 2021,........

© Dawn