Political Culture of Islamic Societies (emphasizing the situation of liberating values)

Document Type : Research Paper

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Abstract

Political development or increasing the capacity and efficiency of political systems for solving the contradiction between individual and collective interests, and combination of popularity, liberty and basic changes, have always been considered as the main goal of societies. Although different groups have presented different definitions for "political ideal type" so different routes have been depicted for future, but the common basis in all views regarding political development is humanistic prospect. This article tries to present a typology of political culture in Islamic countries that will make political development plausible. The data analyzed in this study have been taken from the website of World Values Survey. In the website, the data of thirteen countries related to the Fifth Wave (2005-2008) have been taken consisting 21,358 questionnaires. Among these countries, nine countries are Muslim ones. The highest ranked country is Norway, and Japan, Australia and Bulgaria are in the middle in terms of liberating values and democratic ones. The results are interpretable in two ways: from the first point of view, the data-based results remind us that political culture is variable in different countries and we can categorize the political culture of Islamic countries in three different ranks: Turkey is in the first rank; Iran, Morocco. Malaysia. Indonesia and Iraq are in the second rank; and Egypt, Mali and Jordan are in the third rank which their values are immensely different from democratic countries. From the second point of view, it seems that the route of democracy in the Islamic countries is a plausible but diverse, complicated and reflective one.

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