Sample Solution

untington, writing that “the nature of Islamic culture [is] inhospitable [to] democracy”[12], since “democracy clashes with the Islamic notion of the sovereignty of God [and means] taking power from the hands of its usurpers and restoring it to God alone”[11]. In this regard, we can see how Islamic countries may be less likely to democratise and thus be more rigidly stuck in an authoritarian regime; holding beliefs which perhaps do not align as well with democratic governments. It could be argued, for example, that Sharia Law can foster the unequal treatment of women, while it has made space for “a violent Islamic radical movement: Boko Haram, [which] proffers religious authoritarianism as an alternative to democracy”[13].
The extent to which this is true is, of course, debatable, particularly since “Sharia movements draw popular support, especially from lower and middle class Muslims, [since the movements support] social, economic and political reforms meant to provide economic and physical security and accountability”[13]. M. Steven Fish builds on this point, arguing that the “unusual degree of subordination of women in Muslim societies”[19] is not actually caused by an oppressive nature of the religion itself; rather, the position of women has been determined by the historically “kin-based political power [in the] North African countries”[19] . Moreover, according to Freedom House, Indonesia, “the most populous Muslim country in the world, receives very high scores for both civil rights and political rights”[14]; a certain demonstration of the compatibility of Islam with democracy in a contemporary real-world scenario. It may therefore not be as great a contributing factor in the survival of non-democratic regimes as one might have expected.
A third possible explanation for the lengthy survival of a non-democratic regime could be a small winning coalition.

Defined as “the sub-set of the selectorate whose support is necessary for the leader to remain in power”[20], the winning coalition, as shown above in Figure 3, is very important in det