1

Introduction

Liberal democracy has been a way of life in the Western world, which guarantees
freedom and equality before the law1. This democratic value has been spreading to other
parts of the world since the end cold war, with Middle Eastern countries also benefiting
from this experience. Despite the good intentions of this system of government, the
developing countries, especially those from Islamic States are very skeptic when it comes
to practicing democracy. This pessimism is proliferated by two main factors; culture and
authoritarianism thereby affecting the perception of the people in the region on
democracy and I will come back to this shortly.

This essay is rooted on the hypothesis that Democracy is not taken seriously in Islamic
countries. There is a correlation between religion and democracy in Middle East, with
religion as the independent variable while democracy is the dependent variable; which
depends on religion2. This correlation however cannot be juxtaposed due to the structure
of the society, which has both cultural and religious explanations. The country, Jordan is
used herein as case study. Though the most democratic among other Islamic countries in
the Middle East in the views of the West, it still has authoritarian leadership. As I
mentioned earlier, lingering authoritarian practices according to Quitan Wiktorowicz,
limits the prospects for liberal democracy.3 Mass participation; multi-party system; multi-
party elections; and freedom of press are repressed as political elites perpetuate their
political control. Heads of States-in-self-perpetuity is very common in Jordan as the
economy is that of a semi-rentier state whereby the citizens do not pay taxes and the
government also provide subsidies on some goods and services for the people. These
good gestures from the government guarantee autonomy and political control4.
1
Elias, J. and Sutch, P.: IR: The Basics, Routledge, USA, 2007, pp. 70-72.
2
Giddens, A., “Asking and Answering Sociological Questions” in Giddens, A. (5th Edition) Sociology,
Polity Press, Cambridge, 2006, p. 82.
3
Wiktorowicz, Q., “The Limits of Democracy in the Middle East: The Case of Jordan”, in The Middle East
Journal, Vol. 53, Iss. 4, Washington, Autumn 1999, p. 606. Accessed at
http://0proquest.umi.com.innopac.wits.ac.za/pqdweb?index=0&did=46163474&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt
=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1243185293&clientId=57035
4
Wiktorowica, Q., Op. Cit. p. 607.
 2

The cultural explanation originates from Islam as a monotheistic5 religion of teachings of

Muhammad. Muslims are taught to be submissive to God and their leaders and this
ideology has been embedded in the Islamic world. Any other view or cultural practices
sometimes draw violent reactions, especially from the Islamic fundamentalists. They see
democracy as another form of imperialism and that democracy must be resisted at all
cost6. It is no coincidence that women participation vis-à-vis seeking elective positions
are very unusual in Jordan. Civil societies and other forms of organisations outside that of
the ruling government are gauged with laws no to operate.

“Façade democracy” has come into existence in Jordan since 1999 with the election of
King Abdullah II. Reforms in this Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan were guided by
necessity of state survival rather than actual reforms. The financial crisis in 1980s and
return of Jordanian expatriate workers from Gulf States did put pressure on the country’s
economy leading to riots in the streets as there was no other means for Jordanians to
voice out their frustrations and discontents. So in other to maintain political control in
face of the economic crisis, the country had to run to International Monetary Fund (IMF)
for help. IMF’s help usually comes with conditions and Amman had no option than to
initiate façade democracy reluctantly7.

Even though I believe that democracy is perceived not to work in Jordan because it is an
Islamic country, there were still some uncertainties as I did not know the result of the
surveys from Q15 and Q16JOR I intended to interpret in the next section of this essay.
However, an X2 test will enable me reject or accept the null hypothesis depending on the
confidence level. The next section deals with the data interpretation made possible by use
of R commander programme.
5
Monotheism is the religious belief in which people believe that there is existence of only one God. See
http://www.ucc.ie.en/hr/HealthWelfare/MentalHealth/Religion/Buddhism/index.html. Accessed on 24 May
2009.
6
Skocpol, T.: Social revolution in modern world, Cambridge University Press, UK, 1994, p. 242,
Neuwirth, R., Oil-From Blessing to Curse, http://www.michnews.com/cgi-bin/atman/exec/view.cgi, 28
February 2006, p. 2 & Graaff, J.: Poverty and Development, Oxford University Press, Cape Town, 2003, p.
7
54. Wiktorowica, Q., Op. Cit. p. 700.
 3

Data description

Jordan despite its practice of democracy as I explained in preceding section of this

quantitative research essay, still lies the belief that what works in the West does not
necessarily work in the South. In essence, democracy may not be romanced in Islamic
countries as a result of cultural and structural argument already expanded even if the
people will be better off with democracy. Two variables were considered for me to be
able to analyze the hypotheses that democracy is not taken seriously in Islamic countries,
I chose Q15 to provide the necessary questions as the dependent variable while Q16JOR
(independent variable) from data provided in survey of predominantly six Islamic
countries (Pew. Muslim) of which Jordan was one of them. The sample was made up of
all members of the population in Jordan irrespective of their religious affiliations.

The question, Q15 read as follows:

Some people in our country feel that democracy is a Western way of doing things that
would not work here- others think that democracy is not just for the West and can work
well here. Which comes closer to your opinion?

As expected, there were different parochial views from the participants about their
perception of democracy in the country. Some believe that democracy is Western way of
doing things while some section of the population think that democracy can work in
Jordan. However, there are some groups of the population who do not know what answer
to give and the rest refused to respond and/or not interested.
Q16JOR asks the following:
Which religion, if any, do you consider yourself belonging to?

Again, the answers varied from Islam, Christian and Others. The rest of the population
does not know which religion they consider themselves to belong to whereas the rest
refused to answer the question. Those responses of “do not know” and “refused” for both
questions Q15 and Q16JOR have been coded as NA as I did not want them to appear on
my graphic illustration (Figure. 1) on page 4 and Figure 2, page 5.
 4

Bar Graph- Figure 1. (Perception to democracy)

4000
3000
Frequency

2000
1000
0

can work for the west

q15

The bar graph labeled figure one above represents the dependent variable, Q15 which has
been recoded as q15. The next graph, figure 2, in page 5 shows the responses from the
population of Jordan as Islamic country herein referred to as the independent variable
recoded from question, Q16JOR. Meaning and interpretations of these graphs will be
given shortly.
 5

Bar Graph- Figure 2. (Responses from Jordanians)

800
600
Frequency

400
200
0

christian islam

Jordan

Contingence tables

Table q15 counts

Jordan can work here western way
christian 33 0
islam 768 186
 6

Column percentage table for q15

Jordan can work here western way

Christian 4.1 0
Islam 95.9 100
Total 100.0 100
Count 801.0 186

Table q15 count shows that out of the 987 samples of those that responded to the closed
questionnaire, 33 are Christians and all of them believe that democracy can work in
Jordan. Also, a significant number of the Islamic population, 768 out of the 954
respondents concurred with the views of the Christian minority group. 186 people from
the Islamic population believe that democracy cannot work in Jordan. It shows that those
who do not think that democracy can work in Jordan are still higher in number than the
Christian population vis-à-vis 186 to 33 proving that this is a predominantly Islamic
country.

In the column percentage table for q15, 4.1% are Christians compared 95.9% Muslims.
However, it is very surprising contrary to my hypotheses that people in this region
believe that democracy is a thing for the West. However, I cannot conclude at this
juncture that the hypothesis is totally wrong till I test the X2 putting into consideration
that all the NA were no included.

Pearson's Chi-squared test

X-squared = 7.928, df = 1, p-value = 0.004868

Null expected counts

q15
Jordan can work here western way
Christian 26.78116 6.218845
Islam 774.21884 179.781155

Observed contingency table

q15
Jordan can work here western way
Christian 1.44 6.22
Islam 0.05 0.22
 7

The pattern that has been produced in this sample shows that most people think that
democracy can work in Jordan. This is evidence in the observed contingency table and
the mosaic plot. The chi-square statistics, which is 7.928, is not big enough which means
that the null hypothesis can be rejected with confidence level of 99.5% as p-value =
0.004868 is less than 1%.

Mosaic Plot- Figure 3. (Null expected)

mychitest$expected

christian islam
can work here
q15
western way

Jordan
 8

Mosaic Plot- Figure 4. (Observed)

mychitest$observed

christian islam
can work here
q15
western way

Jordan

The above mosaic plots in figures 3 and 4 also depict almost the same information as the
contingency tables. The observed mosaic plot shows a significant deviation from the null
expected. It can be deduced that there is big perception that democracy is a thing for the
West. The observed shows that the observed bigger than the expected as those who
believe that democracy can work in Jordan is overlapping to the area that says it is
western way.
 9

Substantive implications

The data that has been used in this research shows that it will take a very long time for
actual democracy that is not pressured by the international money donors to come to
Jordan. It will take a lot of change in mind sets of people in terms of religion and culture
before true democracy can flourish in Jordan and other Islamic countries marred by wars,
rumours of wars and violence. The study also shows that the non-muslim communities in
Jordan are very small. The best democratic process for Jordan and other Islamic countries
has to be researched as blanket imposition of democracy may lead to another Iraq. On the
short term, the country should be encouraged to continue to engage with the West in
dialogue so that is can improve on its human rights records and women’s participation in
politics. Some uncertainties that were perceived earlier on were false alarm because there
was no error in the methodology used. Any other method to be used in a similar research
will be a matter of triangulation and equifinality since there is no one method of
conducting research. Meaning that similar results will be obtained, no matter which
approach or method is used provided the variables remain constant8.
8
Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences,
MA: MIT Press, Cambridge, 2005.
 10

Bibliography

Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences,
MA: MIT Press, Cambridge, 2005.

Elias, J. and Sutch, P.: IR: The Basics, Routledge, USA, 2007.

Giddens, A., “Asking and Answering Sociological Questions” in Giddens, A. (5th Edition) Sociology,
Polity Press, Cambridge, 2006.

Graaff, J.: Poverty and Development, Oxford University Press, Cape Town, 2003.

http://www.ucc.ie.en/hr/HealthWelfare/MentalHealth/Religion/Buddhism/index.html. Accessed on 24 May

2009.

Neuwirth, R., Oil-From Blessing to Curse, http://www.michnews.com/cgi-bin/atman/exec/view.cgi, 28

February 2006.

Skocpol, T.: Social revolution in modern world, Cambridge University Press, UK, 1994.

Wiktorowicz, Q., “The Limits of Democracy in the Middle East: The Case of Jordan”, in The Middle East
Journal, Vol. 53, Iss. 4, Washington, Autumn 1999. Accessed at
http://0proquest.umi.com.innopac.wits.ac.za/pqdweb?index=0&did=46163474&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt
=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1243185293&clientId=57035
11