Author: Hannah M. Ridge (Chapman University)

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ABSTRACT

Although countries with larger Muslim populations are less likely to be democracies, multi-national individual-level studies question whether Muslims are less democratic. Furthermore, the secular- Islamist cleavage has been linked to diverging democratic sentiment. To unpack the relationship between Islam, Islamism, and regime-type preferences, this study employs a conjoint analysis in Egypt and Morocco. Religious and Islamist Muslims demonstrated limited differences in their attitudes toward participatory democracy compared to their less religious and non-Islamist counterparts. They are substantially different, though, in their support for political Islam; namely, Islamists are more likely to support an official religion and including religious leaders in government. This accords with the argument that Islam is not inherently anti-democratic.