Alfred and Ahmet, Tunisia 2013. Author's photograph.Alfred Stepan, a world-renowned political scientist, passed away on September 27 at the age of 81. He was my mentor, friend, co-author, and source of inspiration. To recap Stepan’s academic legacy in a brief tribute is impossible; thus, I will focus on the latest concentration of his richly productive research agenda – the study of Islam and democracy.
In their hugely influential Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (1996), Stepan and Juan Linz (1926-2013) criticized western governments for often having a “double standard” in their support of autocrats against Islamists, such as the western endorsement of the military coup in Algeria in 1991. The standpoint in this brief note would later be elaborated by Stepan’s publications on world religions and democracy.
Stepan brought a truly comparative perspective to the study of religions and democracy. In a path-breaking article published in 2000, "Religion, Democracy, and the ‘Twin Tolerations’," Stepan argued that Islam, Confucianism, and Eastern Orthodoxy were not inherently more authoritarian than Western Christianity. He also criticized Samuel Huntington’s thesis that the separation of religious and political spheres only existed in western Christianity. For Stepan, all religions were multivocal; they all had pro-authoritarian and pro-democratic interpretations.
