The myth of the secular–Islamist divide in Muslim politics: Evidence from Tunisia

Abstract

Many scholars argue that politics in majority-Muslim societies are marked by deep polarization: dominated by struggles between secularists and Islamists who hold fundamentally divergent ideological positions. Yet, this finding is likely a result of scholarly focus on Islamist organizations and political parties rather than their constituencies. Using Tunisia as a case study, this article investigates attitudinal polarization between secularists and Islamists at the individual level using a mixed-method design combining statistical analyses of survey data with content analyses of in-depth interviews. Statistical results indicate that Islamists are no different from non-Islamists in attitudes about excommunication (takfir), popular sovereignty, women’s rights, or minority rights, though they are more skeptical of democracy and express less religious tolerance. Interview results show that many political procedures advocated by Islamists resemble the secular procedures they seek to replace and, though secularists tend to have negative views of Islamists, many express support for Islamist ideological positions. Taken together, these findings provide little evidence of attitudinal polarization along the so-called secular–Islamist divide.