Religiosity, Freedom of Expression and Lebanon and Morocco

Abstract

Abstract: This study addresses the relationship between religiosity and freedom of speech. While a growing body of research advances the now established notion that Islam as a religion in practice at the individual level is compatible with democracy, this work attempts a more nuanced analysis at the individual level concerning Muslim attitudes and views concerning the right of freedom of speech. Findings obtained through bivariate comparisons of the Arab Barometer Wave I survey results of Morocco and Lebanon, show that religiosity does not predict antagonistic views towards freedom of speech. Findings support arguments that posit no relation between Islam as a religion or Muslim's interpretation of Islam necessarily leading to anti-democratic or anti-freedom of speech sentiments. This work also used bivariate comparisons to analyze the relationship between authoritarianism and freedom of speech. As expected, authoritarian comparisons produced significant predictable statistical results. Authoritarians in both countries, unsurprisingly, were very supportive of their governments, and as a result, they were more comfortable with freedom of speech and open to diverse ideas in their countries than their non-authoritarian counterparts. In contrast, non-authoritarians were supportive of democracy and freedom of speech in theory, but were highly skeptical and even antagonistic to both, when applied to their countries' political environment. These seemingly contradictory results are mitigated when contextual factors are brought into focus. Type of government and center of power were argued as the important potential contextual factors influencing these authoritarian results. The major conclusions are: Individual religiosity is not a predictor of negative attitudes towards freedom of expression and authoritarianism seems to predict a more negative relationship with freedom of speech. Additionally, when attempting to generalize statistical findings, one must take into account all contextual and environmental factors that affect the site of analysis.