Abstract:

This study compares how Islamic and Neo-Confucian thinkers argue in favor of democracy. The starting point is a reform policy suggested in China (19th century): to keep the local “essence” (ti) – often interpreted as values – and adopt the foreign “practical use” (yong) – technology. I thus propose that Islamic and Neo-Confucian democrats prefer to interpret democracy as a procedure to select a government instead of as an ideology or worldview. A survey of sources in English and some Chinese and Arabic texts confirms this tendency especially among Islamic thinkers.

Another strategy employed is to search for democratic elements, especially values, in Islamic and Confucian tradition. Islamic democrats also find democratic practice and mechanisms: their interpreta-tion of the early Islamic state under the Prophet as a democratic model gives them access to a democ-ratic founding myth denied to Confucian democrats. In other regards, however, their arguments are similar: both see in their traditions equivalents for the “sovereignty of the people”, interpret exhorta-tions to rule for the people as proof for democratic values and stress the people’s right to overthrow an unjust or immoral ruler.

Both sides are not at ease with what they consider to be Western liberal democracy’s secularism or moral neutrality. I thus suggest that they might prefer a “communitarian” alternative – a form of de-mocracy in which the individual’s freedom is restrained by his or her ties to a moral society. With this more harmonious, less competitive system, they hope to avoid the immorality and chaos they relate to Western modernization.

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“Appropriating” Democracy: a Comparison between Argumentative Strategies for Confucian

and Islamic Democracy

“ In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides”

George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”

Horizon, 1946 1. Introduction

This paper compares the two discussions about the compatibility of “Confucianism and democracy”

and “Islam and democracy”, focusing on democratic arguments of what SCHWARTZ (1976) calls “cul-

tural conservatives” – advocates of democracy who oppose a wholesale adoption of everything “West-

ern”, and instead plead for the relevance of their cultural heritage in a modern political order. I will

thus only shortly analyze arguments of opponents of democracy, and not at all those of critics of their

own culture, like the adherents of the New Culture Movement in China, or those who think that their

tradition does not say anything about a desirable political order, like ʿAl ī ʿAbd al-Rāziq.

“Culture” is a notoriously ambiguous concept. The cultural conservatives appearing in this paper

view it mainly along the lines of the dominating religion or philosophy – Islam or Confucianism, re-

spectively. The cultural heritage they are concerned with is partly represented by the prevailing politi-

cal practice throughout the centuries, but mostly by religious or philosophical texts: the Quran and the

Sunna or the Confucian canon.

While both debates are more than a hundred years old, it was during the Islamic revival of the seven-

ties (WRIGHT 1996: 67), and the resurge of New Confucianism in the eighties (MAKEHAM 2003: 2)

that the discussions re-emerged with force.

In the West, the starting point of a new “Orientalist” discourse were publications like Samuel

HUNTINGTON’s “The Third Wave”, in which he pronounced Confucian democracy to be a “contradic-

tion in terms” (1991: 307) and doubted the prospects of Islamic democracy. Since then, a plethora of

books have examined the relation between Islam or Confucianism and democracy (ESPOSITO&V OLL

1996; KRÄMER 1999; MOUSSALLI 2001, KHAN 2006a; HALL&A MES 1999), liberalism (KURZMAN

1998; BINDER 1988; VON ALBERTINI MASON 2005), human rights (ROUNER 1988; DE BARY&TU

1998; ‘ABD AL-RAHIM 2005) or, in an even wider context, modernization (DONOHUE&ESPOSITO

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1982; AL-AZMEH 1996; KAMRAVA 2006; BELL&HAHM 2003). Scholars and politicians have also con-

tributed to the debate in journals and magazines, most prominently in “Foreign Affairs” and the “Jour-

nal of Democracy”.

Making a selection among such an abundance of primary and secondary sources was difficult. I tried

to include all the English articles and books frequently mentioned in the literature. However, I follow

AL-SULAMI (2003: 4) and KRÄMER (1999: 35) in focusing on Sunni-Arab writers, leaving aside the

somewhat different arguments of the Shia, and contributions in, for instance, Urdu. On the Confucian

side, I mainly review Chinese sources1.

As surveying all the relevant texts in the original languages is beyond the scope of this paper, I have

included selected Chinese and Arabic texts to illustrate the main issues. On the Confucian side, the so-

called “New Confucian Manifesto” (ZHANG et al. 1981) has served as the “point of departure for many

scholars who tackled the issue of the relationship between Confucianism and liberal democracy”

(CHEN 2007: 186). LIU Shuxian’s “from people-as-base to democracy” (1992) is also often mentioned

as a seminal text.

From the Islamic sources, I have chosen an article in the journal “al-Manār al-Jadīd”, which sum-

marizes some of the main points of the debate, and an excerpt from Rāshid AL-GHANNŪSHĪ’s “al-

Ḥurriyyāt al-ʿĀmma fī l-Dawla al-Islāmiyya” (1993) dealing with the political bases of democracy.

The author’s reputation as both an Islamist and a liberal (KURZMAN 1998) is intriguing, and ABU-

RABIʿ (2004: 207) considers this book to be his masterpiece.

Contrasting the two debates has, as far as I am aware of, not been done before, although participants

of one debate do occasionally refer to the other. The only intercultural comparisons I have found – a

series about “Human Rights and the World’s Religions” (edited by ROUNER, 1988) and a study on

ideological and political movements in world religions (FU&SPIEGLER 1987) – contain in fact isolated

articles and little comparative analysis.

I do not ignore the broader sort of literature on the universality of democracy and Human Rights, but

this approach often ends up contrasting “the West” with “the Rest”, thereby overlooking the diverging

1 I employ pinyin and IJMES standards, respectively, for Chinese and Arabic names and words that have not entered Standard English vocabulary. Authors’ names appear as in their publications.

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views held within the latter. Even though the debate is increasingly held in English, and contributions

from older, non-English sources have been translated, scholars doing such sweeping comparisons tend

to rely on secondary sources only and may thus lack in-depth knowledge of the respective cultures.

This in turn reinforces essentialist notions of culture.

The alternative approach, looking only at one of the two debates, usually ensures that the researcher

has adequate background knowledge, language skills, and is aware of nuances and different views. But

it is limited to comparing supporters with opponents of democracy in one geographical area, and thus

cannot reach more general conclusions. Furthermore, many researchers will still implicitly compare

their subject to the ongoing situation in the other area they know best – usually “the West”.

This paper also differs from other studies in its constructivist approach2. Most discussants are so far

mainly interested in whether “democracy” is compatible with “Islam” or “Confucianism” – and they

come to widely diverging conclusions. This is not surprising, as I will show, given their differing defi-

nitions of Islam, Confucianism, and democracy. Unlike most other studies, this paper thus does not

aspire to find a conclusion on the compatibility of Islam or Confucianism and democracy, but instead

analyzes how participants construct the meaning of those terms to support their position.

Following SCHWARTZ (1976), I assume that the circumstances of democracy’s advocates in “the

West” are fundamentally different from those of their Islamic or Confucian counterparts, because the

dominant discourse sees democracy as belonging to “the West”. As a result, Islamists and Confucians

have to devise strategies to “appropriate” a concept of democracy tailored to their own culture, to de-

flect accusations of “betrayal”. This paper’s comparative approach thus allows the discovery of “inter-

culturally” valid strategies of appropriating “Western” concepts like democracy.

The next chapter illustrates how similar the historical “realities” were, which advocates of Islamic

and Confucian democracy encountered, and already touches on some of their main arguments. Chapter

3 elaborates on the paper’s two guiding hypotheses, which are inspired by LEVINSON’s (1964) descrip-

tion of how late Qing Dynasty reformers in the 19th century have justified resorting to Western tech-

nology and knowledge.

2 Constructivism, according to CROTTY (1998: 42), is the view, that “all knowledge, and therefore all meaning-ful reality as such, is contingent upon human practices, being constructed in and out of interaction between hu-man beings and their world, and developed and transmitted within an essentially social context.”

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One of their strategies was to divide the foreign knowledge into essence (ti) and function (yong).

They intended to keep their Confucian essence, but import Western yong – for them mainly embodied

in applied knowledge, technology and science. Along these lines I postulate that Islamic and Confu-

cian democrats tend to define democracy as yong, as a procedure or a mechanism, whose import will

not threaten the Islamic or Confucian “essence”, often interpreted as values.

A second strategy was to redefine – through reinterpretation – as originally Confucian that part of

Western knowledge which was not easily defined as yong. In the context of the democracy debate, I

thus expect Islamic and Confucian democrats to select and reinterpret parts of their tradition as democ-

ratic, especially when it comes to values.

Chapter 4 provides further context to the debates through a short overview of the arguments of the

opponents to Islamic or Confucian democracy, and comes to the conclusion that they employ the exact

opposite strategies, as would be expected. Moving on to the advocates’ strategies in chapter 5, I find

considerable evidence for the first strategy, but also discover how Islamic democrats find in their tradi-

tion powerful sources for democratic mechanisms, and not just values. They mainly rely on portraying

the Islamic community under the Prophet’s leadership as an ideal democratic state. Chapter 6 thus

analyses the construction of such “democratic myths” in both traditions. In chapter 7, I assess the va-

lidity of the second hypothesis. The arguments of Confucian democrats and their Islamic counterparts

turn out to be similar: both find in their traditions equivalents for the “sovereignty of the people”, in-

terpret exhortations to rule for the people as proof for democratic values and stress the people’s right

to overthrow an unjust or immoral ruler. I also find that both sides are often ill at ease with what they

consider to be Western liberal democracy’s secularism or moral neutrality. The next chapter thus ex-

plores if the concept of “illiberal democracies” (ZAKARIA 2005) accurately summarizes the positions

of Islamic or Confucian democrats. I suggest that they might prefer a “communitarian” alternative – a

form of democracy in which the individual’s freedom is restrained by his or her ties to a moral society.

With this more harmonious, less competitive system, they hope to avoid the immorality and chaos

they perceive in “the West”, and which they blame on a particular Western form of modernization.

I am well aware that this topic would be worthy of at least a doctoral thesis, and thus only see it as

an initial overview of the similarities and differences in the debates. An in-depth analysis would not

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just require reading the publications of the main contemporary thinkers in their original language, but

also familiarizing myself with the classical sources they base themselves on. This is obviously well

beyond the scope of this paper.

2. Islam and Confucianism Meet Western Democracy – a Brief History

The democracy debate is burdened with the humiliation suffered under colonialism – a topic almost

all publications refer to. This chapter thus analyses how the “East” has encountered the “West”, and

how earlier generations of Islamic and Confucian scholars, bureaucrats and intellectuals have ap-

proached democracy. In the course, I point out some similarities and differences in the historical back-

ground of the two debates, and hint at arguments and discursive strategies still employed today.

The review begins in the 19th century. There had been contact between Europe and the Islamic world

since almost the times of the Prophet Muḥammad, and even China was connected to the “West”

through trade networks and missions3 long before Marco Polo. But events like Napoleon’s invasion of

Egypt in 1798, the French occupation of Algeria in 1830, and the Opium War 1838-1842 drastically

changed the relation towards and the perception of the Western “Other”. Suddenly, Westerners were

not some distant threat at the border anymore, but had won critical victories at the heart of the empires,

proving their military and technological superiority. SADIKI (2004: 202) describes Napoleon’s inva-

sion as a “shock to the Ottoman-Mamluk-ruled Arabs. It awakened them to the fact that they lagged

behind the lands of Christendom in the arts, sciences, technology and warfare.” The Chinese reaction

after the defeat in the first Opium War was less pronounced, maybe because military defeat at the

hands of “barbarians” and paying tribute to keep them at bay was not uncommon in Chinese history.

Both the Ottoman Empire and the Qing Dynasty were in decline at this time – or at least that is how

later generations, both local and Western described it. In China, the rebellion of the White Lotus Soci-

ety (1796-1804) had dealt the first blow, the Taiping Rebellion (1850-64) further undermined the Qing

authority. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Empire was losing large parts of its Western front to European

powers and had to accept the de facto independence of some of its other territories, like Egypt and Tu-

3 While the first extensive cultural contact between China and Europe was established by Jesuit missionaries at the end of the 16th century, their influence on Chinese thought or technology remained minimal according to TENG and FAIRBANK (1979: 12-17).

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nisia. After an initial backlash against military reorganisation, reforms under the slogan of tanzimat

(reorganisation) (1838-1876) culminated in a first short-lived constitutional era: the parliament was

suspended after only two years. Reforms were also undertaken in Egypt, where an advisory assembly

was elected in 1866, and in Tunisia, adopting the first constitution in the Arab world in 1861. In

China, however, the Qing Dynasty only started considering reforms after another devastating defeat in

the Second Opium War (1856-1860) (TENG&FAIRBANK 1979: 46).

Intellectuals close to the bureaucracy tried to provide a philosophical foundation for those reforms.

Khayr al-Dīn al-Tūnisī (1822/23-90), who served in the Tunisian administration, argued that “one may

legitimately borrow from non-Muslims anything that will promote the prosperity and well-being

(maslaha: public interest) of the Islamic Community and that is not explicitly contrary to the Shari’a”

and equated constitutional democracy with Islamic shūrā (consultation) (BLACK 2001: 297f). Islamic

democrats still commonly use both arguments.

Another early advocate of democracy was Rifāʿa Rāfi ʿ al-Ṭahṭāwī (1801-73), who had visited

France and praised the concept of democracy in his writings, arguing that democracy’s political plural-

ism was similar to pluralism in the schools of law in Islam. For those early reformers and others, like

Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī (1838-97), Muḥammad ʿ Abduh (1849-1905) and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-

Kawākibī (1854-1902), democracy was first and foremost a means to fight despotism and corruption,

and to strengthen their own country against the foreign invasion (TAMIMI 2000: 18ff) – a view similar

to that of many early Confucian advocates of democracy (NATHAN 1986: xiii, 104; ZHAO 2000a: 5).

SADIKI thus contends that the Islamic reformers in fact call for “I ṣlāḥ [Reform, F.K.] without

dīmūqrāṭiyyah” (2004: 218f). According to him, al-Ṭahṭāwī emphasizes the common people’s duties

over their rights, al-Kawākibī displays elitist tendencies, and for both the participatory role of the

populace is of minor importance (2004: 222ff).

In China, the so-called “self-strengthening movement” advocated selectively adapting foreign tech-

nology, beginning with the military, as in the Ottoman Empire. A scholar and official, Zhang Zhidong

(1837-1909), coined the movement’s motto: zhongxue wei ti, xixue wei yong – Chinese learning as

essence, Western learning for practical use. In other words, the Confucian bureaucrat reformers, like

their Ottoman counterparts, were mainly interested “in changes affecting administrative method, not

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the principles of government” (TAN 1972: 9). Like early Islamic reformers, they tended to distrust the

masses and were partial to government by elites, a preference which would last well into the 20th cen-

tury (cf. FRÖHLICH 2000).

The 19th century also offered increasing opportunities for Islamic and Confucian intellectuals to visit

Western countries. The direct encounter with Western society and thus its political system often had a

profound influence on them. But with the accounts of Rifāʿa Rāfi ʿ al-Ṭahṭāwī on his journey to Paris

began also the construction of “the West” as the significant other – which is still an important aspect

of the democracy debate4.

It is thus unsurprising that nationalism spread during the 19th century. Neither the Qing nor the Ot-

tomans belonged to the same ethnicity as most of their subjects, and despite having adopted the ma-

jorities’ religious or philosophical background - in the case of the Manchu Qing Dynasty even their

language – they were vulnerable to an attack on nationalist grounds. Both in China and the Middle

East, the struggle for democracy was thus linked to demands for national self-governance and inde-

pendence from the ruling local minority as well as colonizing powers.

A good example for a movement mixing both demands is Sun Yat-sen’s (1866-1925) xingzhonghui

(Revive China Society), China’s first revolutionary party, founded in 1894 with the purpose of expel-

ling the Manchu and establishing a republican government (TAN 1972: 10). His political philosophy,

the “three principles of the people” (nationalism, democracy and the people’s welfare) incorporated

both Western and Confucian elements (LING 1989: 178ff).

In the meantime, the Qing Dynasty reacted to the annihilation of its modernized army with the “100

Days’ Reform” in 1898. The rather moderate institutional reform was short-lived, however, and its

advocates Kang Youwei (1858-1927) and Liang Qichao (1873-1929) fled to Japan. When the Imperial

Court tried to continue the reforms a decade later by drafting a constitution, establishing provincial

legislatures, and even preparing a national parliament, it was too little, too late. The government virtu-

ally imploded in 1911, and Sun Yat-sen became the first president of the Republic of China.

4 Confucians and Muslims did not necessarily visit the same “West”: For Chinese, the first destination was often Japan, and many Western books were introduced in China through Japanese translation. When they visited the West itself, it was often the USA, and not so much Great Britain or even France, which were the main destina-tions for Muslim visitors.

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In the Ottoman Empire, the main nationalist opposition came from the Turkish population. The

“Young Turks” descended from the Young Ottomans, who had “equated the political language of Is-

lam with that of modern liberal-parliamentary democracy. ‘For them ümmet meant nation, içma social

contract, bîat … the delegation of sovereignty to the ruler by the people, içtihâd meant parliamentary

legislation, meşveret democracy’” (BLACK 2001: 293). Later thinkers would reuse this equalization.

After losses during the First World War, Arab revolts and the declaration of the Turkish Republic in

1923, the abolishment of the Caliphate in 1924 closed the last chapter of the Ottoman dynasty. The

overthrow of both dynasties did not settle the debate about the form of government, though, and much

less the issue of democracy and Islam or Confucianism. In China, democracy soon turned into authori-

tarianism and military government, and the country disintegrated into warlord fiefs for more than fif-

teen years. The Middle East was divided into territories under a hardly democratic colonial rule. The

necessity to establishing a strong and unified opposition to foreign rule therefore remained an impor-

tant theme in any debate about the ideal form of government.

Meanwhile, Confucianism suffered a “devastating attack” (TAN 1972: 48). It had already incurred

blame for China’s failure to meet the challenge of the West, because of its association with the estab-

lished political order (ibid.: 54). But now Confucianism’s cultural supremacy was challenged as well:

the New Culture Movement (ca 1916-1922) called for the wholesale adoption of Western culture, and

disparaged Confucianism as a product of the feudal age, “aimed at maintaining the privileges of the

nobility [and] directly opposed to the republican principles of liberty and equality” (ibid.: 51) – argu-

ments against the concept of Confucian democracy still used today.

Chen Duxiu (1879-1942), for instance, thought that the popular Confucian doctrine (not found in the

Confucian classics, however) of the “three bonds” (sangang), according to which the minister owes

loyalty and obedience to the prince, the son to the father, and the wife to the husband, contravened

democratic notions of equality. So did another important Confucian principle, li (appropriate behav-

iour), which defined privileges and obligations in accordance with the individual’s status (ibid.: 52).

Loyalty without reservation towards one’s father (filial piety, xiao), and, by extension, toward the

ruler, was incompatible with liberty, others claimed. Finally, the ideal of the head of a government as a

father or teacher of morals clashed with the “modern separation of politics from morality” (ibid.: 55).

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Despite its association with the Ottoman dynasty, Islam was never attacked so strongly. Even though

secularists like Faraḥ Anṭūn, or Shiblī Shumayyil advocated the restriction of religion in politics or,

like Salāma Mūsā, thought that religion had lost its progressive nature and become a burden, they still

valued Islam as a culture (HOURANI 1983: 251).

The turn of the century also sees the emergence of what TAMIMI (2000: 24) calls “the second gen-

eration” of reformers. The publications of two disciples of Muḥammad ʿAbduh, ʿ Al ī ʿAbd al-Rāziq

(1888-1966) and Rashīd Riḍā (1865-1935) defined diverging paths in the debate about democracy.

The former claimed controversially that “there were no such thing as Islamic political principles […,]

denied the existence of a political order in Islam and claimed that the Prophet had never established

one and that it had not been part of his mission to found a state” (ibid: 25). His argument that Muslims

could thus establish any form of government that seemed beneficial to them, did not appeal to most

Islamic democrats, however.

More popular was Rashīd Riḍā, who claimed that among the political ideas proposed by Islam were

“the principles that authority belongs to the ummah, that decision-making is through shura, that the

government is a form of a republic, [and] that the ruler should not be favoured in a court of law over

the layman” (ibid: 24).

Meanwhile, in China, socialism won considerable support among intellectuals and was often seen as

the best form of democracy (IP 1994: 48ff). Using Sun Yat-sen’s slogan of a period of “political tute-

lage” (xunzheng) leading up to democracy, his Guomindang (People’s Party) had established a one-

party dictatorship by 1928 (ZHAO 2000b: 40).

A group of intellectuals under the leadership of liberal Hu Shi (1891-1962) voiced their protest in

1929-30, discussing in their magazines whether democracy or dictatorship was more appropriate for

China. Confucian principles remained marginal in this debate, more important were practical issues

like the ability to unify the enormous territory, promote economic development or defend against for-

eign aggression (TAN 1972: 232ff). By that time, “the value of democracy […] was generally not chal-

lenged by its critics, but its feasibility for China was” (ibid.: 239).

However, scholars later called “New Confucians” still aspired to a “synthesis of old and new, of

West and East” (ibid.: 264). Philosophers like Zhang Junmai (1887-1969) and Mou Zongsan (1909-

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1995) signed in 1958 the so-called “New Confucian Manifesto”, arguing that Confucianism carries in

itself the “seeds of democracy” (minzhu sixiang zhi zhongzi) (ZHANG et al. 1981: 880). It proclaimed

that according to Confucian teaching, the popular will expressed the “decree of heaven” (the basis of

legitimacy of the Chinese emperor), the nation belonged not to one man, but to the people, for whose

good the government had to strive. In addition, the ruler was expected to take into consideration the

opinion of his advisors and subjects. The authors of the manifesto admit, however, that the impact of

those exhortations might have been limited and dependent on the personal integrity of the monarch, as

there was no constitution protecting those criticising the emperor (ibid.: 880f)5.

The establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 put an end to most of those debates in

Mainland China, as Confucius belonged to the “feudalistic elements” to be expunged, and the Com-

munist party only occasional allowed publications by Confucian scholars (OMMERBORN 2000b). Most

New Confucians emigrated to Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Commentators on Islamic political thought tend to mark the end of an era with ʿAbd al-Rāziq and

move on to the “fundamentalist thinkers” like Ḥasan al-Bannā, Sayyid Quṭb or Abū l-Aʿlā al-

Mawdūdī (BLACK 2001: 319), dating the revival of interest in Islam as early as the 1930s (‘ABD AL-

RAHIM 2005: 119). But even the “fundamentalists” were interested in democracy: In his plans for an

Islamic state, “Al-Mawdudi reiterated the view that consultation (shura) as practised in early Islam

indicated parliamentarianism for the modern state. Thus there would be an elected ruler (amir) and an

elected legislature (majlis-i shura); this was to legislate only on matters not already dealt with by the

Shari’a” (BLACK 2001: 320). Quṭb’s vision is somehow similar, but because he strongly emphasizes

the sovereignty (ḥākimiyya) of god against the sovereignty of the people, he is sometimes seen as un-

democratic (e.g. ESPOSITO&PISCATORI 1991: 435).

The debates finally re-emerged with force in the beginning of 80s. While each revival has its own

local causes, it is also indicative of a more general disappointment with prevalent ideologies, like na-

tionalism and socialism or communism. In the Middle East, Islamist intellectuals had laid the path for

5 It is telling, as we will see later, that the “New Confucians” and Rashīd Riḍā above take similar elements from their traditions: the ideal of authority ultimately belonging to the people (Riḍā’s umma), the principle of govern-ment for and in the interest of the people, and the consultative tradition. Like later Confucian thinkers, the mani-festo’s authors go one step further, however, by asserting that it is through democratic political participation that people will achieve moral self-realization – the main goal of Confucianism (ZHANG et al. 1981: 883).

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an Islamic revival, but it was only in the 70s that Islamism became a mainstream political movement.

“New Confucianism”, on the other hand, was mainly an academic movement, and its emergence is

often attributed to the death of important figures like Tang Junyi, in 1978, and Xu Fuguan, in 1982

(BRESCIANI 2001: 24) sparking renewed interest in their philosophy. However, the “Asian values” de-

bate launched by Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew popularized the idea of a native alterna-

tive to Western democracy (LIU 2007: 269). In addition, the government allowed the movement to

spread in mainland China as well, in order to fill the ideological vacuum left behind by the Cultural

Revolution (OMMERBORN 2000b: 117ff, DE BARY 1998a: x). With the third wave of democracy at its

peak, the issue of how to reconcile democracy with these new movements soon caught the attention of

the West as well, as we will see in chapter 4.

3. Some Thoughts on Possible Strategies of Appropriation

3.1 Contested Concepts

Three basic strategies of attacking the theoretical claim that “Islam and Confucianism are incom-

patible with democracy” seem feasible6. The first redefines the word “democracy”. Many participants

are conscious of its ambiguity, for instance Rāshid AL-GHANNŪSHĪ, who points out that the expression

has expanded to contain diverse political systems, and is so elastic that it can accommodate the com-

munist people’s democracies as well as the capitalist bourgeois democracies (1993: 85).

The second strategy tries to redefine “Islam” or “Confucianism”. This appears to be the most com-

mon strategy: many contributions compile parts of the tradition in support of pluralism, consultation,

accountability, rule of law, and other principles associated with democracy, while neglecting aspects

that could be used to support authoritarian rule. Some of them do it consciously and explicitly (e.g.

KHAN 2006b: 155f, HUANG & WU 1994: 86), but many do not, leaving the impression that they indeed

believe their interpretation to be the “true” Islam or Confucianism.

The third, least evident strategy is related to the phrasing of the claim itself. Some contributors ask,

for example, whether Confucian or Islamic culture is conducive to democracy, others if Confucian and

6 This paper will only consider arguments on their theoretical compatibility, and thus ignore the fascinating, but extensive discussion on the characteristics of democratic regimes in the Middle East and East Asia, and whether they can be called Confucian or Islamic.

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democratic values overlap (LI 2003), etc. Depending on what words are used to express the concept of

“is (in)compatible with”, the task of Confucian and Islamic democrats is made easier or harder.

Their main approaches are either trying to find a base for democracy in the native tradition or to

propose that the tradition does not pose obstacles to democracy (see KURZMAN’s “silent sharia”,

1998). The focus of this paper, as mentioned in the introduction, will be on the former.

3.2 Essence and Function – The Concept of ti and yong

One central slogan of the modernization debate in China, usually attributed to a bureaucrat reformer

of the late Qing period, Zhang Zhidong (LEVINSON 1964: 82), is zhongxue wei ti, xixue wei yong –

often translated as “Chinese learning as substance, Western learning for practical use.”

Ti and yong are important concepts in Chinese philosophy, where, as CHENG (2002: 155) shows,

they were intimately interlinked. They are often translated as “essence” and “function”. As yong is

seen as the outer manifestation of the inner principle ti (MEISSNER 1994: 75f), ti is often considered

the more basic embodiment, “the root, the starting point, the source, and the ground, whereas the func-

tion is always the branch, the development, and the end-result” (CHENG 2002: 156). In modern Chi-

nese, the character yong also appears in the words “use” (shiyong) and “useful” (you yong), which is

why it is often translated as practical use.

Faced with the necessity of accepting foreign ideas, zhongxue wei ti, xixue wei yong seemed an ap-

propriate compromise. The reformer envisioned combining the Chinese spirit (ti – the essence) with

western natural science and technology (OMMERBORN 2000a: 57). The vagueness of those concepts

granted a certain flexibility, and thus the definition of Chinese and Western learning changed over

time, with the latter taking over more and more aspects: at the beginning, it only contained the knowl-

edge on weapons production, then military sciences, and finally technology and natural sciences,

sometimes even social sciences (OMMERBORN 2000a: 55-73, LEVINSON 1964: 85). “Chinese learning”

was constructed as the national, cultural essence - containing values, Confucian ethics and classical

readings (MEISSNER 1994: 79f).

Critics have pointed out the deviation from the traditional, complementary understanding of ti and

yong (MEISSNER 1994: 80) and that this modern interpretation “does not show how the paradigm of

13

substance and function and their unity and interflow could be applied to the relationship between Con-

fucian morality and Western science or Western democracy” (CHENG 2002: 158). LEVINSON’s criti-

cism is more based on its perceived failure in reality, because he claims that the Chinese spirit was

soon “infected” by the Western techniques: “western learning, when sought as yung, did not supple-

ment Chinese learning […] but began to supplant it.” (1964: 84).

But despite its conceptual weakness, the ti-yong formula appears to strike a chord all over the world.

Islamic fundamentalists, for instance, seem often willing to use Western technology, but reluctant to

accept Western ideologies or values. The separation of native essence and foreign technology obvi-

ously appeals to many people when encountering “the West” – it is a mode of dealing with the

“Other”, no matter how unsound it may seem to philosophers.

3.3 Our Values, Their Procedures

In a similar vein, democratic procedures might be more acceptable than democratic values. As ti and

yong, Western and native learning are malleable concepts, this formula can be used as a discursive

strategy. Defining democracy as a “mere procedure”, a method or a tool to reach certain goals might

make democracy more acceptable to opponents sceptical of the “West”, as it reduces cognitive disso-

nance.

The first hypothesis guiding this paper is therefore: advocates of the compatibility of Confucianism

or Islam with democracy tend to envision democracy in a restricted, almost mechanical sense – a sys-

tem of rules to elect governments and make decisions, not a system of values or a way of living, as de-

mocracy has been defined as well (see, e.g. CHAN 2007: 182).

Linked to this is a tendency to favour democracy because of the expected outcomes. Democracy is a

good form of government because it allows the realization of important Confucian or Islamic values in

the political sphere, for example a non-despotic, non-corrupt government (CHEN 2007). As we have

seen, this was a popular argument with Islamic and Confucian reformers in the 19th century.

14

3.4 Their Democratic Values are in Fact Our Democratic Values

Another possible strategy is the redefinition of Islam or Confucianism. LEVINSON, having described

the strategy of appropriation used by representatives of the “self-strengthening movement”, goes on to

delineate that of the more radical Kang Youwei and his followers in the late nineteenth-century. He

describes it as finding western values in Confucianism: “the chin-wen school said that Chinese tradi-

tion should possess western values. And it does possess them, said the chin-wen reformers, as the Chi-

nese would realize if they only went back to their authentic Confucianism” (1964: 105).

In other words, the strategy consists in changing the meaning of Islam or Confucianism to resemble

the desired “foreign learning”. Levinson’s quote also touches on two important aspects elaborated later

on. Firstly, most Islamic and Confucian democrats see themselves as reformers in the original meaning

of the word, as those who restore a (democratic) tradition initiated by Confucius or the Prophet

Muḥammad, but corrupted by later generations. Secondly, this strategy is applied mainly to values or

other aspects of democracy not easily defined as procedures or means.

The second hypothesis is therefore: advocates of Confucian or Islamic democracy try to redefine Is-

lam or Confucianism as democratic by selecting suitable parts of the tradition.

4. Clash of Civilizations? The Case against Islamic and Confucian Democracy

As the Islamic and Confucian democrats’ views are a reaction to the prevailing notion of incompati-

bility, a short summary of the opposite will contextualize their arguments. Unsurprisingly, opponents

of Islamic or Confucian democracy focus their attention either on parts of the tradition seemingly in-

compatible with democracy or define the latter as more than just a set of procedures and mechanisms.

Elie KEDOURIE, for instance, made the famous statement that “democracy is quite alien to the mind-

set of Islam” (1994: 1). Samuel HUNTINGTON, the most famous sceptic of Islamic and Confucian de-

mocracy, summarizes the most common arguments against Confucian democracy as follows:

“Classical Chinese Confucianism […] emphasized the group over the individual, authority

over liberty, and responsibilities over rights. Confucian societies lacked a tradition of rights

against the state […]. Harmony and cooperation were preferred over disagreement and compe-

tition. The maintenance of order and respect for hierarchy were central values. The conflict of

15

ideas, groups, and parties was viewed as dangerous and illegitimate. Most important, Confu-

cianism merged society and the state and provided no legitimacy for autonomous social institu-

tions to balance the state at the national level. In ‘traditional China there was no conception of

the separation of the sacred from the profane, the spiritual from the secular. Political legitimacy

in Confucian China rested on the Mandate of Heaven, which defined politics in terms of moral-

ity.’ There were no legitimate grounds for limiting power because power and morality are iden-

tical. ‘To think that power may be corrupt and requires institutional check and balance is a con-

tradiction in terms.’ In practice Confucian or Confucian-influenced societies have been inhospi-

table to democracy.” (ibid: 300f).

HUNTINGTON is more optimistic about Islam. Its egalitarianism, rule-ethic, individualism and aver-

sion to hierarchy are “generally congruent with the requirements of democracy”. However, Islam also

rejects “any distinction between the religious community and the political community. […] To the ex-

tent that governmental legitimacy and policy flow from religious doctrine and religious expertise, Is-

lamic concepts of politics [...] contradict the premises of democratic politics” (ibid: 307).

While Huntington’s position on Islamic democracy is not entirely unsympathetic, Elie KEDOURIE

(1994: 5) is more forceful in his case against “Islamic democracy”:

“There is nothing in the political traditions of the Arab world – which are the political tradi-

tions of Islam – which might make familiar, or indeed intelligible, the organizing ideas of con-

stitutional and representative government. The notion of a state as a specific territorial entity

which is endowed with sovereignty, the notion of popular sovereignty as the foundation of gov-

ernmental legitimacy, the idea of representation, of elections, of popular suffrage, of political

institutions being regulated by laws laid down by a parliamentary assembly, of these laws being

guarded and upheld by an independent judiciary, the ideas of the secularity of the state, of soci-

ety being composed of a multitude of self-activating autonomous groups and associations – all

these are profoundly alien to the Muslim political tradition.”

16

It is easy to criticize Huntington’s and Kedourie’s arguments as overly simplistic7. However, their

essentialist notion of culture is accepted by almost all participants of the debates, who also follow

them in assuming far too much homogeneity within Confucianism and Islam. Even though some

scholars talk about “Islams” in the plural (AL-AZMEH 1996), they rarely proceed to analyse the com-

patibility of those different “Islams” with democracy in detail.

While opponents of Islamic or Confucian democracy often do define democracy as method of elect-

ing a government, they usually do not stop there. Bernard LEWIS, for instance, starts out by defining

democracy as a “general method of choosing and removing governments that developed in England

and then spread among English-speaking peoples and beyond” or a “polity where the government can

be changed by elections” (1996: 52f). But during the rest of his article, Lewis mainly talks about the

lack of “prerequisites” or “assisting elements” in the Middle East: a dominant political tradition of

command and obedience, lack of a notion of citizenship, support for arbitrary rule, etc.

Many opponents of Islamic or Confucian democracy thus implicitly assume a set of “values” and

“ideas” necessary for democracy. The list of such “aspects” of democracy is quite long: ideas of popu-

lar sovereignty and accountability, secularism or a separation of the moral sphere from the state, egali-

tarianism and opposition to hierarchy and despotism, pluralism and political competition, individual-

ism and the notion of inalienable rights of the individual (human rights), “rule of law” and constitu-

tionalism, a strong civil society and middle class, etc8. Two more detailed, but lesser known examples

than Huntington, Kedourie and Lewis shall be examined to support this hypothesis.

While Lahouari ADDI (1992) states there is no contradiction between textual Islam, defined as Quran

and Sunna, and modernism, but between “the way Islam is lived and practiced today” (1992: 126) he

summarizes: “First, in all Muslim societies, there exists an Islamicist utopia that stands as an obstacle

not only to democracy but also to political modernity. […] Second, Islam presents itself as a public

7 Contrary to what many of his critics assume, HUNTINGTON is aware of this shortcomings: He points out, for instance, that “great historic cultural traditions […] are highly complex bodies of ideas, beliefs, doctrines, as-sumptions, writings, and behaviour patterns. Any major culture […] has some elements that are compatible with democracy. [And] even if the culture of a country is at one point an obstacle to democracy, cultures historically are dynamic rather than passive” (1991: 311). 8 This tendency is not limited to this specific debate about democracy: ALVAREZ et al also notice that „almost all normativelz desirable aspects of political, and sometimes even of social and economic, life are credited as defini-tional features of democracy“ (1996: 4)

17

religion that participates in the legitimization of political power. The democratic ideology, however, is

compatible with religion to the extent that it is lived as a private concern” (ibid.: 120).

Thus ADDI speaks not of a mechanism, but of a democratic ideology, a term common throughout his

article. Democratization, he says, “is above all a political and ideological struggle” (ibid.: 121). When

mentioning elections, he does not refer to a mechanism, but to electoral legitimacy; and maintains that,

as religious legitimacy competes with electoral legitimacy, the first will provide a victorious Islamic

party with an excuse for ending democracy: “electoral legitimacy is an inseparable part of democratic

ideology, and the latter requires religion to lose the public character that predisposes it to be a basis of

legitimacy and thus a political resource in the competition for power” (ibid.: 124).

To him, democracy means free elections and alternation in power, but “also the public exercise of

reason, as Habermas would say, on all issues concerning the individual and his or her relations with

the community […] If religion as such intervenes in the debate, that is to say, if the protagonists claim

divine authority, there will no longer be debate or democracy.” He goes even further to argue that be-

lieving citizens cannot opt against religious prescriptions: “Once there is a religious party in the elec-

toral competition or a party presenting itself as such, there can be no free national choice” (ibid.: 125).

Turning to Confucianism, we find a similar position in LI Chenyang’s writings: comparing the value

system of Confucianism with the liberal democratic value system, he maintains that “while some con-

temporary Confucian scholars attempt to conciliate Confucianism with democracy, they have moved

too far from Confucianism’s traditional base. In their attempt to make Confucianism everything (e.g.,

it is both for group loyalty and for individual liberty; it is both for moral superiority of some refined

individuals and for equality across the board), they have made Confucianism a ‘nothing’” (2003: 237).

This does not mean that LI subscribes to a black-and-white thinking that others occasionally display.

He argues that both democracy and Confucianism endorse values like loyalty and individual freedom,

but they differ in their priorities (ibid. 240).

However, his conclusion about the incompatibility between the two is based on the fact that he re-

fuses to define democracy just as a mechanism: “Without the values of individual liberty, equality, and

pluralism, democracy as a mere procedure is merely a technique or formality. This technique has been

and continues to be misused in [Mainland, F.K.] China” (1997: 184).

18

Thus opponents of Confucian and Islamic democracy do indeed employ the tactic of defining de-

mocracy as “more than just a mechanism”. Let’s now turn to the advocates’ strategies.

5. Democracy as Mechanisms and Procedures?

The prevalent opinion among scholars researching Islamic notions of democracy is summarized by

Gudrun KRÄMER (1993: 5)9:

“While the state is considered to be central to having Islamic law enforced, its form and or-

ganization are declared to be secondary, a matter not of substance but of technique. This has to

be seen in relation to the common assertion that there is no prohibition for Muslims to adapt

techniques and modes of organization of non-Islamic origin, provided they do not adopt any

un-Islamic values. If government organization is a matter of convenience and mere technique,

then the adoption of democracy, or of certain democratic elements, may be acceptable, recom-

mended or even mandatory – provided it does not lead to the neglect or violation of Islamic

norms and values.”

For Western readers it might seem strange that Islamic law (sharīʿa) should belong to the essence of

Islam. However, KRÄMER (1999: 50), quoting an Islamic scholar, argues that not only has the sharīʿa

become a myth for justice and equality, it has also been juxtaposed with fiqh, Islamic jurisprudence:

“the shari’a is enshrined in the Qur’an, pure and uncorrupted for fourteen centuries, but fiqh

is the product of the human heart, mind and senses, caught up in an ultimately non-real world

of time and space […] when Muslims seek to understand the shari’a and apply their under-

standing […] their conclusions are no longer the same, flawless, immutable pure shari’a of the

Qur’an but have become, invariably, the human interpretations of shari’a, namely fiqh”.

This interpretation of the sharīʿa and fiqh bears similarity to CHENG’s (2002: 156) explanation of ti

and yong10. While sharīʿa is thus seen as the essence of Islam, democracy is interpreted as foreign 9 While several sources tend to emphasize how Islamic democrats feel more comfortable with a mechanic defini-tion, there is one scholar who disagrees with this interpretation: DORRAJ (1999: 14) says: “If democracy is viewed merely in its formal and constitutional dimensions, then it is incompatible with Islam. If the definition is broadened to encompass the broader essence of democracy, then there are possibilities for reconciliation and accommodation despite the profound differences.” Unfortunately, he never elaborates on this point, but only mentions the egalitarian spirit of Islam and its seeds of accountable government as compatible essence. Maybe when talking about incompatibility, he does in fact mean that there is no tradition of modern democratic practice in the history of Islam.

19

technology or function. Famous Muslim scholar Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī, for instance, lists western democ-

racy among technologies in his separation between values and technologies (KRÄMER 1999: 71).

Another clear example is given by AL-GHANNŪSHĪ (1993: 85), who defines democracy as two me-

chanical, institutional components everyone can agree on: niẓām ḥukūma (a system of government)

and majmūʿat muʾassasāt (a group of institutions). On other occasions, he defines democracy as a “set

of mechanisms for the proper administration of society and a formula for power-sharing” (AL-

GHANNOUCHI 2000: 102). TAMIMI (2001: 103) summarizes al-Ghannūshī’s concept of democracy:

“Like industrial mechanisms, democratic mechanisms should be regarded as universal human

accomplishments that can function in diverse cultural climates and can co-exist with different

intellectual backgrounds. These mechanisms are not to be confused with Western ideologies,

such as secularism, nationalism, capitalism, and power-hungry utilitarianism, which eventually

lead to the marginalization of religion and the deification of man. These are values in which the

Western model of democracy evolved.”

In a similar vein, MOUSSALLI’s (1994: 61) concludes about Sudanese Islamist political leader al-

Turābī: “It is clear thus far that al-Turabi accepts the formal part of democracy without adopting its

substantive part”.

But the neat formula of “native essence, foreign procedures” does only partially capture al-Turābī’s

view, as AL-SULAMI indicates: “Shura is thus presented, by al-Turabi, as a system of government con-

sisting of institutions that cover almost all matters related to al-‘Amr al-Ām (public affairs), from

electing the head of a state to explaining how interest groups and local governments should function”

(2003: 2).

Khurshid AHMAD follows a similar pattern. He divides democracy into two parts very similar to ti

and yong: “its philosophic roots: the concept of popular sovereignty and consequent principle of le-

gitimacy based exclusively on popular support; and its operational mechanisms ensuring people’s par-

ticipation in governance” (2000: 2). Another part of its philosophic roots, “the denial of the existence

or at least the relevance of eternal religious guidance and absolute moral values in matters of political

10 Defining sharīʿa as the set of Islamic norms and values is not uncommon (see Ḥasan al-Turābī in AL-SULAMI 2003: 76, 201, and al-Ghannūshī in TAMIMI 2001: 91).

20

governance” (ibid: 3f), is not acceptable to Islam, but the operational mechanisms are, which consist

of “a variety of forms of self-government and popular participation in political decision-making [...].

The operational models are based on the principles of liberty and equality, of constitutionalism and

rule of law, of division of power between different organs of state, executive, legislature and judiciary,

of fundamental rights, including the rights of minorities, of freedom of belief, opinion, expression,

association, press and communication” (ibid.: 4). AHMAD then goes on to show that these principles

are all present in Islamic tradition (ibid.: 8, 10ff). Like al-Turābī above, AHMAD clearly looks for both

democratic values and mechanisms in Islam.

The case is not clear-cut on the Confucian side either. EMMERSON (1995: 102), referring to survey

research, argues that in East Asia “democracy as a procedural system of public responsibility and

choice would appear to have more attitudinal support”. L IU (2007: 261) mentions that China has never

developed a “check-balance mechanism in its political system as practiced in Western democracy”;

and the second generation of reformers like Mou Zongsan indeed wish to import democratic mecha-

nisms and institutions. As FU (1987: 186f) states: “Mou, […], suggests that the Confucian historical

mission today is to integrate this modernized political and legal institution, in the form of constitu-

tional democracy, into the Confucian Way”.

Confucian democrats often clearly distinguish between the “inner and the outer for democracy”

(CHENG 2007), between “democracy as a justificatory moral principle of value, such as popular sover-

eignty or political equality, and as a particular type of political system” (CHAN 2007: 179). However,

many follow Wei Zhengdong’s view that “modernization of a nation such as China is not simply a

matter of scientific-technological development and politico-institutional changes; it must deeply in-

volve a proper adjustment of the entire traditional value-system” (FU 1987: 188). For them, the separa-

tion between ti and yong proposed by their predecessors is no longer a valid strategy.

However, they are still looking for elements in their tradition compatible with democracy, as the fol-

lowing chapter shows.

6. Creating Democratic Myths: Elections in Mecca

21

Democracies in the West have “founding myths” – stories about early democratic societies in their

past, precursors of the present democratic system. For most European countries one of those myths is

the Athenian democracy, or the French Revolution. Those European roots are often mentioned in the

definition of democracy (e.g. LIU 1992: 23, AL-GHANNŪSHĪ 1993: 83 and LEWIS 1990 above), thus

leaving the impression that democracy is a wholly European affair.

In order to challenge this conception, Islamic and Confucian democrats have to invent their own

democratic myths, and destroy contesting myths. This also means dealing with the past non-

democratic regimes that claimed to be the ideal Islamic or Confucian governments. It is hardly surpris-

ing, therefore, that Islamic and Confucian democrats strive hard to discredit those governments.

To Rashīd Riḍā, for example, the Ottoman Caliphate was only a stand-in, and he therefore calls for

the return of the “real” caliphate (PETERS 2005: 125). Especially Islamists like al-Turābī (AL-SULAMI

2003: 137) disparage all political systems established after the four rightly-guided caliphs as well.

The Confucian mode of discrediting the “ancient regime” is probably best illustrated by the histori-

cal works of Xu Fuguan, one of the signatories of the New Confucian Manifesto. His criticism of the

emperors’ behaviour is scathing. The first emperor of a unified China, Qin Shihuang, did not base his

system on Confucianism, but on teachings of the competing school of legalists, as Xu is keen to point

out (LIU 2001: 118). And when Confucianism became state ideology during the Han dynasty, it was

just a façade: “the Emperor was content to use Confucian terms as a false front for purpose of prestige.

For anything that was contrary to his personal despotic rule, he either distorted it for his exploitation,

or simply became counter to it” (ibid: 149).

Even the examination system, which KIM (1994: 192) sees as a democratic institution that allowed

theoretically anyone to become an important official, was manipulated and favoured literary attain-

ments over moral character development important to Confucianism. The rote-learning necessary to

pass the examination in combination with the threats that loomed over any official criticising the em-

peror therefore resulted in the “underdevelopment of Chinese thought and learning” (LIU 2001: 162).

Other Confucian democrats join Xu Fuguan in his criticism. LIU (2001: 164) points out that the Chi-

nese emperors transformed the three mutual obligations (sangang) mentioned above into “three obedi-

22

ences”, turning reciprocal duty into absolute subservience toward the ruler. HUANG and WU (1994: 76)

conclude:

“Confucianism became emaciated as it infiltrated the government system, shedding its vigor-

ous democratic élan […] Passages in the Confucian classics of stern warnings to the sovereign

[…] were expurgated; stage-by-stage development of individual humanness through family,

and state, and on to the universal heaven and earth, was made to support for a rigid social hier-

archy with oppressive authority as awesome as heaven and earth.”

But while both Islamic and Confucian democrats manage to discredit the ancient regime, Confuci-

ans struggle to find a founding myth for Confucian democracy. Confucius spent most of his life travel-

ling from one kingdom to the other, serving without much success as an advisor to their rulers. Unlike

the Prophet Muḥammad, he was never able to found the “ideal society” which could be presented as a

democratic paragon. LIU Shuxian thus resorts to looking for democratic practice in Confucius’ behav-

iour towards his disciples, stressing that their relation was lively and mutual (huopo shengdong de

shuangbian guanxi), not at all like the stiff court protocol which later prevailed (1992: 29).

Xu Fuguan also likes to portray Confucius as a (democratic) reformer, if not a revolutionary: “Con-

fucius transformed the traditional distinction between the ‘superior man’ (junzi) and the ‘mean man’

(xiaoren) determined by social class into a distinction […] determined by their moral character. […]

Confucius’ cultural efforts helped to bring about the collapse of the ancient Chinese aristocracy, and to

open up the path for the common people to rise and participate in government” (LIU 2001: 58f). Over-

all, however, it is difficult for Confucian reformers to find an appropriate example for Confucian de-

mocratic practice11.

The Islamist democrats, on the contrary, have been very successful in creating a democratic found-

ing myth in the Islamic umma under the prophet and the first four caliphs – a myth in turn intimately

connected with that of the ideal Islamic society. They as well tend to see the Prophet as a reformer, a

champion of equality (DORRAJ 1999: 14f), who followed the advice of the people given in the shūrā,

which is often depicted as popular participatory system (AL-SULAMI 2003: 199).

11 For some reason, they never tried to reinterpret the mythological Sage Emperors Yao and Shun, who often serve as paragons of Confucian government (VON ALBERTINI MASON 2005: 113), in a democratic light.

23

This myth is so convincing that even Larbi SADIKI , not uncritical of Islamist movements, accepts the

interpretation of a democratic community brought down by later despots: “Like ijmāʿ, shūrā stopped

being demotic. Instead of evolving into a popularly-based institution of consultation for the enactment

of civic responsibility, shūrā became a narrow-focused process between and within concentric circles

of power. Thus except for the first 39 years of Islam, since the beginning of the Medinan period in 622

and up to the reign of the last rightly-guided khalīfah in 661, shūrā was absented from political rule”

(2004: 81).

Islamic democrats thus do not necessarily have to import democratic mechanisms and procedures

from abroad, because they can claim to return to ancient Islamic institutions. For outside observers,

this may of course look like giving an Islamic coating to Western institutions (AL-SULAMI 2003: 203).

7. Democracy as Values

Confucian and Islamic democrats who accept the extended democracy definition proposed by their

opponents (chapter 4) are forced to select and reinterpret their tradition to search for some of democ-

racy’s “aspects” or values. Many of those “aspects”, especially the topic of human rights, have

spawned their own, extensive debates. I will therefore only discuss the most commonly mentioned.

7.1 Sovereignty of God and the Mandate of Heaven vs. the People

At the heart of the debate over democracy lies the sovereignty of the people. Many discussants start

with an etymological reference – democracy as a Greek word expressing the rule of the people (LIU

1992: 23). Quite popular is also Lincoln’s “rule of the people, by the people, for the people” (RAYYIS

1999: 122). In Confucianism, however, the ultimate source of authority lies with “the Heaven” (CHAN

2007: 185), and in Islam, “the authority of the people is not […] absolute, but limited by the sharīʿa,

by God’s religion” (RAYYIS 1999: 125).

This never seems to have posed big obstacles for Confucians: relying mainly on Mencius, they have

interpreted the people’s will as an expression of Heaven’s will (KIM 1994: 191, CHANG 1976: 295f,

but see CHAN 2007: 186 for a critical view).

24

A similar argument exists among Islamic democrats. Based on the ḥadīth (saying) that the umma

will never err, one could theoretically argue that the umma is infallible and its will therefore expresses

the will of God. While the ḥadīth is commonly used to justify democracy on an Islamic basis, this ar-

gument is not as uncontested as the similar argument among Confucians, maybe because of the

counter-claim that the sovereignty of God is expressed through the Quran and the sharīʿa (RAYYIS

1999: 125).

In another interesting similarity, both Islamic and Confucian democrats tend to highlight the concept

of “rule for the people”, as with Rashīd Riḍā and the New Confucian Manifesto, and to refer to count-

less traditional admonitions to rulers to govern for the good of their people (LIU 1992: 18; KIM 1994:

191).

However, “rule for the people” is more a definition of good governance than of democracy, and it

seems difficult to establish a tradition of political participation stronger than consultation. The Islamic

democrats’ shūrā is usually translated as consultation (see, e.g. MASMOUDI 2003: 41), and in Confu-

cianism, scholars and officials are expected to counsel or teach the ruler12. Consultation without a

means to enforce the majority opinion, however, does not really live up to the standards set by many

opponents. Confucian and Islamic democrats have reacted in two ways.

Some of them simply state the congruence of consultation with democracy. HUANG and WU quote

Mencius’ admonishment to the ruler to not act unless all people agree on a course of action and con-

tinue: “This is literally government by consulting the will of the people – no matter how much the

scholars quibble over what ‘the people’ entailed in ancient times. Confucian democracy […] has been

in existence since the time of Mencius, about four centuries before Christ” (1994: 74). Similarly Has-

san AL-ALKIM : “The concept of shura has been misinterpreted in western literature. The meaning of

shura has been conceived as ‘consultation’. Shura, however, is a legislative process whereby the ex-

ecutive authority is obliged to accept the decisions of the legislative authority.” Quoting Fahmī Hu-

waydī, he insists: “Such decisions are binding to the executive authority since shura is a divine order”

12 Some of Mencius’ quotes can even be interpreted as an admonishment to consult all the people (HUANG & WU 1994: 74).

25

(1993: 81). Al-Turābī’s even goes as far as to claim that the third caliph organized an election to find a

successor (AL-SULAMI 2003: 200)13.

Interestingly, both traditions have conceived of another way to enforce the people’s will: a “people’s

right to revolt” (DE BARY 1998b: 8). A quote by Mencius is interpreted as allowing the people to over-

throw the ruler in the name of heaven if he does not govern righteously (e.g. KIM 1994: 191). In Islam,

Muslims may not only disobey any ruler commanding them to break Islamic law, they have a positive

duty to resist him (LEWIS 1996: 56). While this is certainly one way of enforcing accountability, de-

mocracy is usually defined as the right to elect a government, not just to overthrow it. Furthermore, the

“right to revolt” seems to hinge on the immoral behaviour of the ruler.

7.2 Moral Majority: Secularism and Morals in a Democracy

One of the main criticisms against Islamic or Confucian democracy is its alleged lack of secularism,

the failure to separate religion or morals from the state. Two strategies similar to the ones explained in

chapter 3 are again available to the democrats: either to argue that there is indeed a tradition of secu-

larism or separation of religion and state in their tradition, or to challenge the claim that secularism is

necessary for democracy. The latter strategy is uncommon, and mostly used by Western scholars.

They point out that political practice since the Umayyad Dynasty was quite different from the Islamic

ideal, and that separation of religion and state was in fact the norm (ESPOSITO&V OLL 1996: 4).

As with democracy, it is possible to see secularism in a procedural, mechanical sense (as separation

of church and state) or an overarching worldview. As the latter interpretation is the one most contribu-

tors to TAMIMI and ESPOSITO’s “Islam and Secularism in the Middle East” subscribe to, they tend to

reject secularism. ELMESSIRI (2000: 52), for instance, claims that “secularism is […] a world-outlook

that is embedded in the simplest and most innocuous cultural commodities, and that forms the uncon-

scious basis and implicit frame of reference for our conduct in public and in private.” In the West, the

private life of the individual, with its freedom to choose and practice religion, has been eroded “by the

increasing power of the state and the pleasure industries and the diminishing power of Christian norms

13 These claims do not go unchallenged: EL-AFFENDI points out that the Prophet has also ignored the advice of the “overwhelming majority” at least once (2006: 232).

26

and ideals” (ibid.: 57). In short: instead of a separate sphere of state and religion, the state has taken

over everything. This leads to a classical Occidentalist image of the West as materialistic and irrelig-

ious – for which of course secularism is to blame14.

This might not appear surprising at first: Should not anyone who explicitly calls for an Islamic de-

mocracy reject secularism? Interestingly, Rachid AL-GHANNOUCHI concludes in the book mentioned

above that “until an Islamic shura (consensual) system of government is established, the second best

alternative for Muslims is a secular democratic regime” (2000: 123). The reason for his rather positive

appraisal of secularism is, in my opinion, the fact that he sees secularism less as the essence of the

West and more like an institutional arrangement.

He calls North African countries “pseudo-secularist”: “Instead of establishing a separation between

what is mundane and what is religious […] pseudo-secularists seek to impose full control over the in-

stitutions and symbols of religion” (ibid.: 98). While secularism led to the “emancipation of the mind

from the authority of religion, and emancipated both religion and society from the authority of the

church” in the West, the Arabian pseudo-secularism led to what AL-GHANNOUCHI calls a “secular the-

ocracy”. In other words, “real” secularization would at least free Islam from oppression by the state.

While he does see some positive elements in (“real”) secularism, he remains ambiguous about its

compatibility with Islam. He asserts that secularism is incompatible with Islamic values in one para-

graph, only to claim half a page later that depending on the definition, it might be perfectly compatible

(2000: 105f).

AL-GHANNOUCHI also contradicts ELMESSIRI’s view of an irreligious West: “today the religious es-

tablishment in the West is […] its largest institution ever. […] Represented by the church (though in-

creasingly pluralistic – mosques, synagogues, Hindu temples etc.), the religious establishment is well

organised and enjoys an independent status which qualifies it to contribute substantially to checking

and balancing the power of the state in favour of society. The church has a significant moral and spiri-

tual influence on the public” (2000: 110f). But at the same time, like all Islamic democrats, he also

sees a considerable amount of what he calls “tawahush” (“return to a wild or savage state, to barbar-

14 The argument over secularism is more than any other in the democratic debate influenced by Orientalist and Occidentalist views – a tendency to “essentialize” the “Other” to justify a political position.

27

ity” ibid.: 115) in Western society, indicated by rising crime rates, violence and riots. An excess of

secularism is to blame, “because it went too far and liberated man […] from the values of altruism and

humanity” (ibid.: 120).

But in general, the more widespread strategy among Islamic democrats is to disassociate secularism

and democracy, usually by claiming that because Islam, unlike Christianity, is already inherently de-

mocratic; it does not need to be separated from the state. Turning a major argument of Western schol-

ars on the head – namely that the absence of a centralized religious institution made the separation of

“church” and “state” more difficult in Islam – they claim that Islam does not need to secularize exactly

because of this lack – there was never the threat of a religious institution or a clergy taking over power

(AHMAD 2000: 14f).

The separation between church and state is rarely discussed in the Confucian debate, probably be-

cause Confucianism is even less institutionalized than Islam and this topic thus did not seem pertinent.

However, if secularism is defined as the separation of morality from the state, it touches the heart of

the debate about Confucian democracy.

Confucians have an equally unflattering image of the West as their Islamic counterparts: “As an East

Asian looking at America, I find attractive and unattractive features. […] But as a total system, I find

parts of it totally unacceptable: guns, drugs, violent crime, vagrancy, unbecoming behaviour in public

– in sum the breakdown of civil society. The expansion of the right of the individual to behave or mis-

behave as he pleases has come at the expense of orderly society”, says Lee Kuan Yew15 in an inter-

view with Fareed ZAKARIA (1994: 111). Even LIU Shuxian (1992: 37f), who has a very positive atti-

tude towards the West, conjures up the image of a decaying society in the USA:

“But there is a latent danger in this culture: the young generation lives in a wealthy society, is

used to sensual pleasures, and each of them chases what he or she likes. Far sighted people

worry about the phenomenon that social morals have gotten lost. But the strength of today’s

American society is not what is shown in Hollywood movies, displayed on the screen and on

television. The sizeable American middle class is still god-fearing [jingshen, “god-

15 Counting Lee Kuan Yew among the Confucian democrats, might be debatable, given his criticism of (West-ern) democracy. His view of the West, however, is in line with the thinking of many Confucian democrats.

28

worshipping” F.K.], hard-working, kind-hearted and sympathetic. But America’s traditional re-

ligious belief and moral and virtues are without doubt constantly declining”.

Again the image depicted of the West is negative: it is materialist, overly individualistic, and suffers

from crime and violence. Both Confucian and Islamic democrats locate the reason for this in the decay

of public morality, especially religion. The similarity is striking, despite a different emphasis: Islamic

democrats stress the lack of sexual morals more, while Confucians focus on the decay of traditional

family ties – an important aspect of the Confucian moral philosophy. Both sides, however, deny that

secularism or moral neutrality is an integral part of democracy. How a non-secular or “moral” democ-

racy will be achieved, however, is not entirely clear. It often sounds as if the state should impose cer-

tain moral values on its citizens - justified with the claim that the population would agree to such lim-

its on their freedom (EMMERSON 1995: 95).

There is, however, a more subtle approach, described by some Confucian democrats as “communi-

tarian democracy”. The same can also be discovered, albeit more implicitly, in arguments of Islamic

democrats, as we will see in the next chapter.

8. Illiberal Democracies? – Democratic Mechanisms without Liberal Values

Considering the Confucian and Islamic description of Western society, the uneasiness with its indi-

vidualism, materialism and lack of morality, some have conclude that the real problem is not democ-

racy in itself, but liberal democracy – a democratic concept based on competitive elections with major-

ity decisions, the rule of law, separation of powers and the notion of individuals with inalienable rights

(CHAN 2007: 179).

Prominent examples of Confucian democrats rejecting liberal democracy are David L. HALL and

Roger T. AMES (1999) and ACKERLEY (2005). Drawing on the tradition of communitarian democracy,

they argue against the view of “discrete individuality” on which “rights-based liberalism” is founded

(HALL&A MES 1999: 116), and show how many of the Western bases of democracy rest on these as-

sumptions:

“The liberal understanding of the ‘state of nature’ is an implication of the belief that individu-

als exist independently of, and prior to, any social groupings. The necessary resort to the notion

29

of a ‘social contract’ is obviously entailed by the priority of individuals to society. […] Liberty

itself is presumed by the notion of contractual relations into which one freely enters. […] A fi-

nal element of rights-based liberalism shaped by the presumption of discrete individuality is a

commitment to the ‘rule of law’. Individuals dissociated in principle are best ordered by appeal

to norms that abstract from any differences. Commitment to the rule of law might appear a ne-

cessity for any democratic society. On communitarian principles, this commitment would be

qualified by a belief in the importance of the community in defining the character of the indi-

vidual. A too ready resort to the rule of law could be thought a symptom of the failure of cus-

tom, tradition, and habitual patterns of deference to educate and shape behaviour prior to any

need for recourse to legal sanctions.” (ibid.: 116f).

This quote summarizes almost all issues relevant in this complex argument for a different, Confu-

cian democracy and illustrates its appeal: moral education – an important goal in Confucian philoso-

phy – supplements (or supplants) rule of law, and duties towards others are strengthened at the ex-

pense of freedom. But communitarian democracy is useful also because it does not force Confucians

to construct certain aspects into their tradition that might be difficult to find in the first place.

In the human rights debate, for instance, Confucians prefer to define a person in terms of his or her

relations to others (CHENG 1998: 145; HUANG&WU 1994: 77, 8; ROSEMONT 1998: 63) instead of as

an individual with inborn rights. Another concept some Confucian democrats struggle with is rule of

law, as it is associated with the opposing legalist school.

Islamic democrats, on the other hand, feel much more at ease with rule of law, because it can be in-

terpreted to mean the rule of sharīʿa, and therefore an Islamic tradition (KUBBA 1996: 86). DORRAJ

(1999: 13) agrees, but cautions that, like for the Confucian democrats quoted above, “the very exis-

tence of the individual as an autonomous being separate from the community, with certain inalienable

rights, is alien to mainstream Islamic orthodoxy”.

On a practical level, however, both traditions subscribe to the rule of law with its ability to limit hu-

man arbitrariness and abuses of power, which are important goals in Islam and Confucianism (see e.g.

HAMDI 1996: 84, ACKERLY 2005: 553). But when it comes to debating the actual ideal Confucian or

Islamic democracy instead of current (opposing) regimes, this interest seems to wane in favour of a

30

belief that “the government and the people are a harmonious unity, rather than an antagonistic duality”

(LEE 1995: 4).

Islamic democrats display a similar desire for harmony in an ideal state, even though few of them

would go as far as denouncing “partyism (hizbiyya) as discordant and tantamount to religiously pro-

scribed fitna and disorder” (PISCATORI 2000: 18ff). Still, in Ḥasan al-Turābī’s vision of parties – or, as

he prefers to call them, “political trends” – should not stick to particular ideas or ideologies but con-

stantly review their programmes within the framework of sharīʿa (AL-SULAMI 2003: 188). After a de-

cision has been made, the minority should try to join the majority, helping them to implement and en-

force the laws. When deciding on candidates for elections, the whole population should be allowed to

vote, not just the members of the party (ibid.: 191), so that the victorious candidate does not just re-

flect the views of his voters, but that of the whole constituency (ibid.: 124). Al-Turābī clearly feels

more comfortable with a harmonious whole of the people than with a society divided in groups with

different interests.

He also echoes the Confucian emphasis on morality instead of law as a guiding principle of the ideal

society (AL-SULAMI 2003: 201, 153):

“In the case of shura, al-Turabi stresses the important role of morality in Muslim societies.

He argues that most Muslims’ lives are not controlled and organised by laws and orders (issued

by the government); they are organised, rather, according either to morality or religious con-

science (existing in the framework of shari’ah). Thus, moral norms in al-Turabi’s shura system

should be more influential than legislation. When laws are introduced, al-Turabi contends, they

become rigid, and this may lead to the fear that these laws may eventually turn against the no-

tion of freedom in general.”

As with Confucian democrats, the law is more of a final resort after all the informal solutions have

failed (HALL&A MES 1999: 216f).

Communitarian principles also influence al-Turābī’s view of political participation: “Individual

Muslims should not isolate themselves from the community and care solely for their own interests,

they must care about and participate in debate and public affairs” (AL-SULAMI 2003: 165). And while

in the West, the individual votes to gain private advantages, “shura, according to al-Turabi, sees po-

31

litical participation as a set of activities aimed at enhancing cooperation among individuals and

groups, and promoting shared interests” (ibid.: 161).

But on the other hand, al-Turābī and many others also propose elements that are core demands of

political liberalism. His shūrā-System is based on a written constitution similar to those in the West

(AL-SULAMI 2003: 88), guaranteeing civil liberties like freedom of speech and assembly. The only dif-

ference is that al-Turābī bases these freedoms not on the idea of natural law, but on the doctrine of

tawḥīd, which “liberates humans from submission to other humans” (AL-SULAMI 2003: 103). Al-

Turābī also propagates the separation of powers, especially the independence of the judiciary system

(ibid.: 137ff), and in general advocates limitations on government authority (ibid.: 153). Interestingly,

acceptable elements of political liberalism are again framed as institutions or procedures.

9. Conclusion

The goal of this paper was to compare discursive strategies employed by Confucian and Islamic de-

mocrats in the debate about the compatibility of Islam and democracy on the one hand, and Confu-

cianism and democracy on the other. Using a constructivist approach, I analysed publications on these

two topics in English, as well as a few Arabic and Chinese texts.

The study did not just explore similarities, but also put them into a broader context and highlighted

particularities of each debate. The paper started by describing how the participants of the debate en-

countered similar obstacles, as the dominant discourse considers democracy to be incompatible with

their native tradition. Until recently, their opponents buttressed their position with the lack of democ-

ratic governments in regions with a strong Islamic or Confucian tradition. Democracy was therefore

something “foreign”, and accepting it might indicate a weakness or at least a lack of trust in the native

tradition.

A short historical background underlined similarities and differences. The colonial experience has,

for instance, led many thinkers on both sides to see a democratic reform first and foremost as a means

to strengthen their country against foreign aggression. The perceived weakness was made more painful

by the fact that both Confucians and Muslims of the 19th and 20th century can look back to a glorious

32

past where they were far ahead of Europe, and thus asked themselves: what did go wrong?16 But there

are also differences, most notably the enormous backlash Confucianism had to endure, while the repu-

tation of Islam has survived its exploitation by the Ottoman dynasty relatively unharmed17.

The study has explored two possible paths to challenge the claim that Islam or Confucianism are in-

compatible with democracy: either redefining democracy or redefining Islam or Confucianism. Based

on observations made by Levinson about the appropriation of foreign knowledge by Confucian think-

ers in the 19th century, two hypotheses were suggested. The first assumed that Islamic and Confucian

democrats would tend to define democracy as procedures and mechanisms for good governance, be-

cause many people seem more willing to accept foreign technology or mechanisms than values or

morals. The second hypothesis assumed that they would try to find democratic values in their own tra-

dition by selectively reinterpreting traditional texts and practices.

I have found evidence backing both hypotheses, but with reservations. But there is a clear tendency

among opponents of Confucian and Islamic democracy to define democracy as much more than just

mechanisms and procedures, as chapter 4 has shown, while the supporters tend to favour a more par-

simonious definition focused on basic mechanisms like elections. Interestingly, a similar pattern also

pertains to the concept of secularism. It is of course possible that the Confucian and Islamic democ-

rat’s choice is simply due to the fact that these are also the most common definitions.

Islamic democrats are more likely than their Confucian counterparts to favour adopting the Western

democratic “mechanism” while keeping the native “essence”. This could be explained by the fact that

the conscious discussion of the strategy in the Asian context has made its users aware of its potential

pitfalls. The more academic-philosophical atmosphere of the Confucian debate – as opposed to the

Islamic one where more journalists, politicians and political scientists participate – could also have

contributed to greater scepticism.

Another difference is the Islamic democrat’s success in creating a “democratic founding myth”, de-

scribed in chapter 6. The idea of an Islamic democratic government under the Prophet appeals to an

audience far broader than just the Islamists. Islamic, unlike Confucian, democrats therefore do not

16 Confucian and Islamic democrats obviously point to the lack in democratization (LIU 2001: 162), but com-parative studies on socialist and nationalist thinkers might find other answers. 17 The reasons for this difference are another issue that would deserve to be explored more extensively.

33

necessarily have to “import” democratic mechanisms and procedures. Instead they can, like Ḥasan al-

Turābī and Kurshid Ahmad, construct a whole system of government (often called shūrā) from Is-

lamic tradition – even though sceptics might call this a simple renaming of western institutions. The

topic of (democratic) myth construction was only touched upon, and would deserve its own study

based on more and broader sources18.

The more obvious hypothesis on the “democratic” reinterpretation of Islam and Confucianism, espe-

cially their values, was largely confirmed. It is interesting to note that both traditions counter the Ori-

entalist claim of the “despotic Oriental tradition” in a similar way: both point to a tradition of admoni-

tions and exhortations to the ruler to govern for the good of the people and stress native concepts of

popular sovereignty. Confucian and Islamic democrats alike emphasize the traditional right of the

people to resist an unjust or immoral leader.

Debating the value of secularism in democracy also highlighted the close link between the construc-

tion of the significant “Other” and democracy. When HAMDI says that “On certain moral questions,

moreover, Western democracy appears […] to be running amok. It is hard to see why lax Western mo-

res that weaken or destroy the family – that most crucial of all social institutions – should be exported

to the rest of the world under the banner of democracy” (1996: 82), he is clearly equating Western

democracy with Western society, while expressing common Islamic (and Confucian) objections to the

latter. Larbi SADIKI has explored the issue of “democracy as an Orientalist discourse” (2004: 140-197)

and its Occidentalist response. The interesting topic of Orientalism and Occidentalism in the debate

about democracy could not be further pursued in this paper, but might benefit from the grounding ef-

fect of a comparative analysis of images and constructions across cultures.

The debate over secularism has drawn attention to the main flaw Islamic and Confucian democrats

see in Western democracy: its “irreligiosity” or “moral neutrality”. Especially the former abhor the

notion that a democratic majority could arrive at an immoral decision. While many Islamic and some 18 Another interesting democratic myth the paper has not dealt with is the claim of some Islamic thinkers that the Europeans have actually inherited certain democratic principles from Islam (KRÄMER 1993: 3). This should be another highly effective strategy of appropriation – Islamic reformists like Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī and Muḥammad ʿAbduh have employed a similar strategy to justify adopting modern science. Sustaining an equiva-lent claim for Confucianism is obviously more difficult, given the limited contact between the two civilizations before the 19th century, but CREEL (1952: 276) quotes a Chinese scholar who declared that “Chinese philoso-phy was without doubt the basic cause of the French Revolution”. LIU Shuxian (1992: 23) briefly refers to it as well.

34

Confucian democrats would like to prevent this by imposing morality from “outside” the democratic

process (by imposing the sharīʿa or referring to some benevolent dictator), others choose a more sub-

tle approach. They propose a communitarian democracy, where the individual is embedded in a moral

society which regulates itself through education and informal admonitions instead of government-

enforced law. In this vision, individuals participate in politics not only to satisfy their own desires, but

to fulfil common goals of the whole society.

This paper’s intercultural-comparative approach has already brought to light several additional top-

ics worth studying, and more could be added. The different political dynamics of the debates, for in-

stance, has been largely neglected in this study: BELL and HAHM have noticed the absence of Confu-

cian “fundamentalists” (2003: 2). While this is a fascinating puzzle in itself, it also changes the politi-

cal context of the discussion. Unlike most contemporary Islamic democrats, their Confucian counter-

parts rarely need to fear being associated with radicals and thrown into prison. The positive attitude of

some Islamic democrats towards political rights of the individual, independent courts and other “lib-

eral” ideas is likely connected to their experiences of oppression by a non-democratic government.

Its constructivist approach bars this paper from contributing directly to the main issue of interest: is

democracy compatible with Islam or Confucianism? However, a constructivist analysis can still help

participants sharpen their arguments, discover blind spots and alert them to the vagueness of many of

the concepts they bandy about. A striking gap, for instance, is the almost complete absence of current

topics in democratic theory – “current” here meaning anything after the 19th century. Especially the

Islamic democrats rarely venture beyond quotes from Hobbes or Locke, and usually do not even cite

them directly, but from other sources (e.g. AL-GHANNŪSHĪ 1993: 80). MacPherson, whose treaties on

the distinction between liberalism and democracy would be helpful to define non-liberal alternatives to

democracy, is only mentioned by AHMAD (2000) and in the secondary literature (e.g. by AL-SULAMI

2003). Finally, while some Islamic democrats distinguish between parliamentarism and presidential-

ism, none of the authors surveyed discusses consociational democracy – even though this could be a

suitable democratic form those adverse to confrontation. The same is true for the idea of deliberative

democracy – only ADDI (1992) quotes Habermas.

35

On the whole, however, this vast topic and related questions were simply too big to be covered in

single, short paper. An appropriate treatment would also require a more extensive knowledge and

reading of contributions in Arabic, Chinese and possibly other languages. In the end this paper re-

mains an outline for a much more extensive comparison that still needs to be written about the debates

on whether Islam or Confucianism are compatible with democracy or not.

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