Policy Punchline

In his 2019 book "Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison," Prof. Ahmet Kuru tackles the question of why Muslim-majority countries have historically exhibited high levels of authoritarianism and low levels of socio-economic development in comparison with the rest of the world. He rejects the two mainstream views of essentialism, which says that Islam is the root of this phenomenon, and anti-imperialism, which says that Western colonization is the reason for historical and modern problems in Muslim-majority countries. In this interview, we discuss a broad range of topics related to Islam and democracy in the Middle East. We focused particularly on Turkey, Dr. Kuru’s home country - discussing what it was like to grow up with a father heavily involved in politics, to Erdogan’s response to the coronavirus, to Dr. Kuru’s hopes and predictions for the future of Turkey’s democracy. We also discussed in great depth the ulema in Muslim-majority democracies, the