Conceptions of Shari`a and Support for Militancy and Democratic Values: Evidence From Pakistan

Abstract

Numerous empirical studies of the relationship between popular support for Islamism and support for democracy and violence have yielded inconclusive results. We suspect that this is largely because scholars have not operationalized support for Shari`a in ways that capture the concept’s multi-dimensionality. In this paper, we employ data derived from a carefully designed survey instrument that casts unique insights into how Pakistanis imagine a Shari`a-based government. We find that formalizing an Islamic government as one that implements Shari`a by providing services and security for its citizens is positively associated with support for democratic values, whereas conceptualizing it as one that implements Shari`a by imposing hudud punishments and restricting women’s public roles is positively associated with support for militancy. These results suggest that it is important to understand how individuals within a particular context construe a Shari`a-based government, and future empirical work should take this.

Who Supports Suicide Terrorism in Bangladesh? What the Data Say

“…Consistent with our prediction in H3, we find no statistically significant relationship between piety and support for suicide bombing in either model 1 or 3. This finding for Bangladesh is similar to the finding of Fair, Littman, and Nugent (2017) for Pakistan.…”

“…To test our hypothesized relationships in H3 and H4, we constructed two indices following the methods adopted by Fair, Littman, and Nugent (2017). To test H3, we constructed a simple additive index, called “piety,” from five questions about religious beliefs and specific practices with a possible range of zero (least pious) to one (described in Appendix 1).…”

“…Factor analysis (shown in Table 2) confirms that this index taps into two specific concepts of belief and practice. To test H4 we create a variable called “Hudood,” which resembles the “imposes” of Fair, Littman, and Nugent (2017). 9 This variable, scaled from zero to one, is an additive index derived from five questions (detailed in Appendix 1) that tap into respondent support for Quranic literalism and physical punishments.…”

“…To test H5, we operationalize the notion that Sharia provides service using a question that asks respondents whether or not they believe Muslims leaders should decide family and property disputes. Fair, Littman, and Nugent (2017) had access to a survey that they specifically designed to test their hypotheses about the different ways respondents conceptualize Sharia and their beliefs about Islamist extremism. Unfortunately, we must make do with the questions afforded by Pew howsoever, imperfect.…”

“…Fair, Littman, and Nugent contend that these conflicted results likely stem from the fact that there is no universally held understanding of what the application of Sharia looks like and from the problematic survey items that analysts use to proxy support for “political Islam” (Fair, Littman, and Nugent 2017). They identify and tweeze out several factors that are usually collapsed into the concept of “support for Sharia.” Motivated by the notion that some Muslims view Islamic government in terms of good governance in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Caucasus and Central Asia, Egypt, Iran, and Turkey (Abdul-Ahad 2008; Collins 2007; Rheault and Mogahed 2008; Fair, Littman, and Nugent 2017), they developed several survey items to specifically indicate support for Sharia as a vehicle for providing government services and another set of questions that elicit support for scriptural literalism (physical punishments, restrictions upon women). They construct index variables for both notions of “provision” and “punishment” and find that the former does explain support for Islamist militancy while the latter does not.…”