Development and democratization from the perspective of Islamic world view : The role of civil society versus state in the Arab world

Purpose – The issue of democracy and development interrelationship is very complex and debatable. There does not seem to exist any automatic relationship between them and the purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationships of democracy with civil society and development based on Islamic World View. Design/methodology/approach – A theoretical approach has been developed to examine how stable democracies and sustainable human development can be attained only with a balanced combination of the involvement of state and society to ensure socially most desired goods and services based on the theory of choice. The empirical evidence is used to show how the democracy can be promoted in terms of creating proper conditions that can empower the people to form civil society to press for democratization, using self‐expression values compatible to shura. Findings – The paper concludes that democracy must be homegrown and cannot be implanted by external forces by “Iraqi‐style invasion”. Originality/value – An original study on the interrelationship between state and civil society in the Arab world, within the context of Islam.