Liberalism of religious Muslims in illiberal Muslim-majority and minority societies: evidence from Azerbaijan and Georgia

Abstract

How does a religious group's demographic status influence its members' attitudes toward economic and political liberalization? This study adopts a contextual approach and compares Azeri Muslims' political and economic attitudes in two illiberal states, Azerbaijan and Georgia. We argue that attitudes toward liberalization are shaped by the strength of association with one’s religious community and its relative position vis-à-vis the state and society. Drawing on a series of Caucasus Barometer surveys, we find that context and position in society matter. In religiously restrictive Muslim-majority Azerbaijan, Muslims’ religiosity is associated with greater support for political liberalization but lower support for economic liberalization. In religiously restrictive non-Muslim-majority Georgia, however, Muslims’ religiosity reflects the converse: opposition to political liberalization but support for economic liberalization. Thus, instead of theologies, the political and economic opportunity structures facing religious groups may play a critical role in determining their attitudes toward various forms of liberalization.

Introduction

The question of whether religious Muslims hold illiberal views on political and economic issues has been the subject of considerable scholarly debate.¹ Some studies suggest that religious Muslims tend to hold less liberal political preferences and are more communitarian in their economic views (Said, 1979; Fish, 2002; Guiso et al., 2003; Davis and Robinson, 2009, 2006; Tibi, 2008). Other scholarship on the subject has challenged this view and suggested that Islam is associated with greater economic and political liberalism at the individual level (Inglehart and Norris, 2003; Chen and Lind, 2007; Tessler et al., 2012; Masoud, 2014). Contrasting these findings, other studies have concluded that there is no clear-cut relationship between political economy preferences and the degree of religiosity among Muslims (Pepinsky and Welborne, 2011).

To the extent that the debate has led to discordant conclusions, how much might the observed variation relate, not to the nature of religion, but the way in which distinct contexts nurture different religious preferences? As many scholars have argued, Islam is a multi-faceted religion and its role in social life varies across countries and over time (Geertz, 1968; Zubaida, 1995; Ayoob, 2008; Dzutsati and Warner, 2021; Ciftci et al., 2022). Spanning all inhabited continents and contexts, it stands to reason that Islam can be reconciled with various economic and political ideologies, and its relationship with political and economic beliefs is likely shaped by the demographic and political conditions in which Muslims and Muslim religious communities find themselves (Rodinson, 2007; Roy, 1994).

We argue that the social status and posture of the state toward religious organizations and their members shape the relationship between individuals' religiosity and their political and economic preferences. When religious Muslims are in the minority, they potentially benefit from greater economic liberalism and the consequences of reduced involvement of the state in the economy. As cultural minorities normally do not occupy seats at the regulatory and distributive decision-making tables of the state, they are better off when the share of the economy under state control is small. This effect is exacerbated in illiberal countries where the state and society often expressly discriminate against minority groups. Conversely, when Muslims comprise a majority in an illiberal and highly regulatory state, we expect that religiosity will be positively associated with economic illiberalism, i.e., support for a greater redistributive role of the state in the economy. In a Muslim-majority environment where the state uses economic paternalism to offset its political illiberalism, the context will encourage religious Muslim support for the larger role of the state in the economy.

When it comes to political liberalism, we expect the relationship to be reversed. Religious Muslim minorities might align the preferences with an illiberal state due to fears of a possible breakdown of existing power-sharing agreements and the threat of popular reaction against their community; thus, members of these religious minority communities would be wary of greater liberalization that could jeopardize their status. On the other hand, devout Muslims in the dominant faith community in highly religiously regulative and oppressive states will be more likely to hold politically liberal views in response to their adverse position relative to the illiberal and restrictive government. A government that restrictively regulates individuals and organizations supporting the devout community will likely engender the proliferation of views conducive to political liberalism, especially regarding a smaller (i.e., less regulatory) role of the government in society.

We test our theory regarding the relational effects of varying political contexts on economic and political preferences using survey data on Muslim Azeris from Muslim-majority Azerbaijan and from Christian-majority Georgia, where Azeris are a minority.

The influence of religion on political and economic attitudes

The literature that studies empirical links between religion and democracy or political liberalization among Muslim populations has spanned several decades (Tessler, 2002; Jamal, 2006; Ciftci, 2010; Tessler et al., 2012; Spierings, 2014; Ciftci et al., 2019; Dzutsati and Warner, 2021). Many of these, especially in the earlier attempts, used religiosity as the variable that accounted for the religious influence in society. These early studies largely challenged a linear link between the level of religiosity and attitudes toward democracy (Tessler, 2002; Bratton, 2003). This wave of scholarship initially focused on addressing long-standing theoretical and interpretive arguments that essentialized the role of Islam in Muslim-majority societies and assumed that Islam's influence on Muslims was the primary hindrance to liberalization and democracy in the region. Data from large national and cross-national surveys showed a variety of views and support for democracy, authoritarianism, and Islamism, but these were not clearly or consistently shown to be associated with levels of religiosity (Tessler, 2002; Bratton, 2003; Jamal, 2006; Ciftci, 2010). In other words, if religiosity had an effect on attitudes toward major issues like regime-type preferences, its direction either oscillated in different country contexts, or the pattern within a country varied such that it could not be captured by a simple measure of religiosity.

A similar debate exists regarding an empirical linkage between religion and attitudes toward economic redistribution or inequality (Davis and Robinson, 2009, 2006; Pepinsky and Welborne, 2011; Fish, 2011; Dzutsati et al., 2016; Ciftci, 2019). In these studies, a direct link between religiosity is hard to tease out (Davis and Robinson, 2009, 2006; Pepinsky and Welborne, 2011), but other related linkages have been found, such as connections between support for Shari'a and support for provision for the needy (Davis and Robinson, 2009, 2006), and lower levels of inequality in Muslim-majority countries (Fish, 2011). Ciftci (2019) finds an interactive link between religiosity, social justice concerns, and support for democracy. Overall, however, the link between religion and support for government provision for the poor is stronger in Muslim-majority countries than among Christian-majority populations (Scheve and Stasavage, 2006; Stegmueller et al., 2012).

There is a recent and growing body of work that has begun to look in a different way at how religion may affect political and economic attitudes. Following the lead of approaches studying the influence of religion in the United States and elsewhere, there has been a push to explore the ways that association with a religious community can influence attitudes in ways not directly tied to the intensity of practice or the substance of doctrine (Leege and Welch, 1989; Gilbert, 1993; Jelen, 1993; Campbell, 2004; Djupe and Gilbert, 2008; McClendon and Riedl, 2019). Among Muslim-majority countries, some studies have begun to highlight the ways that political and social contexts shape the attitudes of religious individuals in regard to politics and policy preferences (Driessen, 2014, 2018; Belge and Karakoc, 2015; Buckley, 2016).

Recent work by Ciftci et al. (2019, 2022) has begun to unpack the dynamic between religious community association and the social and political context in ways that helpfully illuminate patterns in attitudes among individuals in Muslim-majority states. They argue that religion's effect on the attitudes of broad political and economic concern stems from the relational effect of religious association rather than from the substance of doctrine (Ciftci et al., 2022, 11). Furthermore, if the influence of religion on attitudes is channeled through its relational and not substantive effects, this emphasizes the fact that these attitudes, which are influenced relationally by religion, are also context-bound and time-contingent (2022, 28). To the extent that a pattern emerges among members of the devout in terms of attitudes toward broad political and economic phenomena, to fully understand the why behind the pattern, the political and social context is more important than tracking down particular beliefs. These patterns are subject to change relative to changes in the context within which these individuals are situated.

For example, attitudes of religious communities have demonstrated different ideas about democratization depending on how the members of those communities are perceived by the broader society around them and whether these communities are treated better or worse by the state. Thus, Belge and Karakoc (2015) found that members of Christian communities in authoritarian states with Muslim majorities had less favorable attitudes toward democracy than Muslim members of those states. According to the researchers, this happens when minorities feel that their social status and security are threatened by a transition to majoritarian institutions. When authoritarian rulers have informal arrangements that protect minority groups amidst a more hostile majority population, the minorities may feel safer sticking to the political status quo rather than supporting a shift to majority rule. Conversely, we would expect that individuals from Muslim communities who believe they have strong support from the broader society but face restriction or suppression by an authoritarian state will be more likely to express attitudes of support toward democracy. In such contexts, democracy's majoritarian aspects, its responsiveness to the will of the public, and its association with commonly associated outputs—i.e., transparency, lower corruption, good governance, and service provision make the prospect of democratization appealing to these individuals (Ciftci et al., 2022, 136). Additionally, individuals in religious communities who find themselves in the margins of religious expression in society are more likely to support the pluralistic and liberal elements of democracy.

Within this same vein, Ciftci et al. (2022) found that religion also had a contextual and relational pattern in attitudes toward the state distribution of wealth to those in need. When examining the attitudes of the devout in Egypt and Tunisia, they found that individuals with similarly devout religious outlooks had significantly different levels of support for state-level economic distribution. In Egypt, where liberal market economic policies have greater sway and where religious communities have had the opportunity to engage in private and charitable social services and social outreach to grow their religious movements, support for state distributive policies was significantly lower from the devout than other populations in Egypt. Greater state provision for the poor in Egypt competes with their charitable service opportunities and community outreach. The opposite pattern was observed in Tunisia. In that country context, where the state's higher level of redistribution and heavy restriction on the charitable outreach and funding by Islamist movements, devout communities did not have such opportunities for private social service provision but benefited from the provision of the state (2022, 193). Thus, devout Muslims were found to be significantly more supportive of state redistribution than their counterparts in Egypt. The context of the nature of religious regulation and the ability to engage in charitable outreach for religious communities in each country appeared to strongly shape attitudes toward state economic and social welfare policy.

The case of Muslim Azeris in Azerbaijan and Georgia

We aim to compare the economic and political views of devout Muslim Azeris in two neighboring countries. Thus, the populations in our sample are very similar in their religious identity, beliefs, and practices, but differ notably regarding their demographic and political context. In Georgia, Muslim Azeris constitute a minority while in Azerbaijan they comprise the majority. This population, with a shared ethnic background and shared religious identity but with a variable demographic context, provides a suitable case population for testing our proposed relationships. The comparative design allows us to keep the input differences of the two cases to a minimum and assign the differences in the outcomes to one qualifier, the demographic context. Due to the high level of similarity between the two groups, any remaining differences between them regarding the relationship between political economy preferences and religiosity can be attributed to divergent demographic conditions. Ethnic Azeris comprise the majority of Muslims in both countries, the majority of whom are Shia Muslims.² Due to the separation from the Shia mainland in Iran after the Russian conquest in 1828 and subsequent European, Russian, and Turkish influences, Azeris of Azerbaijan and Georgia tend to be more secular than their ethnic kin in Iran (Balcı, 2004). Scholars have pointed out that the secularizing activities of pre-Soviet Azeri intellectuals as well as the militant atheist policies of the Bolsheviks led to the replacement of Sunni and Shia religious identities with an ethnic-national “Muslim” identity (Brondz and Aslanova, 2019, 6; Yunusov, 2013). Thus, higher levels of religiosity and religious practice in these countries likely lead to more social distinction (and possibly tension) than the categorical distinction between Sunni and Shia. In Azerbaijan, Muslim Azeris constitute the majority (91.6%), while in Georgia, they represent 6.3% of the total population.³ Azeris are spatially concentrated in the Kvemo Kartli region of Georgia, which borders Azerbaijan and accounts for over half of all Azeris in Georgia.

Politically, Georgia is normally categorized as an unstable “deficient” or “illiberal” democracy, while Azerbaijan is considered an authoritarian state. Heydar Aliyev, a Soviet-era KGB officer and Communist party apparatchik, became president of Azerbaijan in 1993, and was succeeded by his son Ilham Aliyev in 2003. In an authoritarian move in 2017, President Ilham Aliyev appointed his wife Mehriban Aliyeva as the first vice president of Azerbaijan, making her eligible for succession to the presidency. In illiberal but democratic Georgia, reformist president Mikheil Saakashvili came to power in 2004. Saakashvili faced criticism for authoritarian tendencies by the end of his second term. The Georgian Dream coalition (later a party), which took power in 2012, initially claimed to promote democratic ideals and support Georgia's integration with Europe. However, its critics argue that soon after the party signed the Association Agreement with the European Union and secured visa-free travel for Georgian citizens to Schengen Area states, it began to exhibit authoritarian behavior. The party harassed independent media and politicized the judiciary system to undermine the opposition. Additionally, the party reportedly was manipulated by its billionaire founder, Bidzina Ivanishvili, to shape legislation according to his own business interests.⁴ In December 2023, the European Commission granted Georgia the status of a candidate country for membership in the European Union. However, soon thereafter, Ivanishvili announced his return to the government of Georgia, as the country was gearing up for parliamentary elections in 2024.⁵

Although Islam has played an identity-forming role in the nation-building of Azerbaijan (Mahmudlu, 2017) and its conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh (Ergun, 2022), outside the first few years of political and social liberalism, Azerbaijan has operated as a highly regulating and strictly secular state with a relatively modest role for Islam in the public sphere.⁶ The formation of Azerbaijan in the post-Soviet context brought about an initial opening for the spread of Islamic religious movements in the country, in some cases sponsored by outside groups and governments from Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia (Balcı, 2004; Bedford, 2009; Jödicke, 2017). The subsequent concern over the foreign influence lurking behind the increase in religiosity has led to tension between the population of devout Muslims in Azerbaijan and the heavy-handed control by the state (Motika, 2001; Bedford, 2009; Jödicke, 2017; Bashirov, 2020). Tensions in Azerbaijani–Iranian relations and flourishing Azerbaijani–Turkish relations have put Shia teaching at a disadvantage in Azerbaijan (Balcı, 2004). Moreover, qualitative research suggests that the Azeri Shite population rejects Iran as a spiritual and ideological leader (Rohoziński, 2005 cited in Wiktor-Mach, 2012, 220). Other researchers paint a more nuanced picture, saying that even though Iran failed to establish the dominance of its spiritual leaders in Azerbaijan, Iranian-influenced Shia groups continue to operate in the country (Jödicke, 2017). The Azerbaijani state has tried to mold a common religious identity that would bridge the Sunni–Shia divide in the country (Brondz and Aslanova, 2019; Darieva, 2020). State efforts have been somewhat successful as Azeris, for example, tend to downplay the tensions between the followers of Shia and Sunni teachings, which cause much concern elsewhere in Muslim countries with Sunni and Shia populations.⁷ As researchers have pointed out, the religious landscape of Azerbaijan has become dominated by the state efforts to coopt Islamic leaders into the construct of so-called “Traditional Islam” (Bedford et al., 2021) and to subsume religious practices under the regulation of the state-sanctioned Caucasus Muslim Board (Bashirov, 2020). In a Muslim-majority society within a restrictive and oppressive authoritarian state, it would be easy for devout Muslims suffering the restrictions and pressures from the state to develop a preference for political liberalism, which would allow greater space for their religious practices and religious communities within the public sphere.

Georgia is also a secular country, but the influence of the Georgian Orthodox Church on the society and politics of the country is quite high.⁸ In Georgia, the role of the Georgian Orthodox Church in the formation and protection of the nation has been publicly recognized and gives church authorities significant leverage on policies and politics in Georgia. In a seminal work, Grzymala-Busse (2015) points out the dynamics behind the level of fusion between the nation and religion and links the strength or weakness of this fusion to the power of religious authority to exert its agenda in the sphere of politics. For the Muslim minority in Georgia, while individuals are able to tentatively enjoy the provision of minority rights in the country, they are often exposed to popular protests in the streets led by church authorities or right-wing groups that seek to reduce or remove the protections that currently exist for minority communities.⁹ The religion-infused nature of these popular and grassroots protests would likely cause individuals with minority identities, particularly those most strongly affiliated with these identities, to see political liberalization as an issue of concern. The social dynamics in Georgia provide little encouragement for religious minorities if popular participation and rule are given greater strength.¹⁰

In short, both Azerbaijan and Georgia display tendencies to implement repressive practices toward religious Muslims. The former primarily seeks to coopt and control Muslim clerics, activists, and religious zealots and actively secularize the public sphere (Kuru, 2009). The latter appears to marginalize or neglect Muslim minorities, but the greatest threat could be seen as coming from social pressures in society amplified by the Georgian Orthodox Church. Where state restrictions and heavy-handedness supersede social disapproval, as in Azerbaijan, we would anticipate that religious individuals would likely favor political liberalization. And, as Dzutsati et al. (2016) note, in contexts where other avenues for political participation are closed, Islam may play a coordinating and organizing umbrella role for the forces opposed to the authoritarian state. However, we anticipate that the opposite would be the case where social disapproval of religious individuals is more threatening than the behavior of the state in Georgia; in such cases, religious individuals would be less likely to support political liberalization because this would be seen by devout Muslim Azeris in Georgia as potentially providing adverse social forces with enhanced political power.

In relation to attitudes about economic liberalization, we expect that in repressive environments, Muslim religiosity will intersect with economic preferences in divergent ways. In cases where Muslims are a minority facing social discrimination, they tend to benefit from greater economic liberalism, which reduces state involvement in the economy. The logic behind this is that the more the state is involved with distributive decisions, the less likely it is that the resources and state provision would end up in the hands of a socially marginalized minority unless a specific policy provision has been made for such a practice. In Georgia, where the illiberal but democratically elected government is under the watchful eye of the public, including the politically influential church authorities, state redistribution of wealth would not likely be favorably channeled in the direction of the Muslim minority population. Georgia's already economically liberal economy and blind market forces likely enable greater economic opportunities for Muslim minority individuals than the prospects of greater government control and decision-making over economic affairs. As cultural minorities typically do not hold sway over the state, a smaller share of the economy under state control is advantageous for them. The more religious the Muslims, the greater their discrimination will be in such a context. Hence, greater Muslim religiosity will also be associated with their higher support for economic liberalism, i.e., a smaller role of the government in the economy.

In a Muslim-majority setting like Azerbaijan, we expect religiosity to be positively correlated with demand for economic redistribution rather than economic liberalization. There are several reasons for this. The connection between religiosity and support for provision for the needy has previously been established (Davis and Robinson, 2009, 2006). Muslim-majority countries have been shown as particularly invested in a large role of the state in the economy when it concerns inequality reduction (Scheve and Stasavage, 2006; Stegmueller et al., 2012). Furthermore, unlike in Muslim-minority Georgia, where Muslims are an out-group and unlikely to benefit from the state-based income and wealth redistribution, in Muslim-majority Azerbaijan, devout Muslims can also expect to benefit from state welfare distribution, which should increase the appetite for supporting the state involvement in the economy among religious Muslims (Habyarimana et al., 2007; Ciftci et al., 2022). Finally, the provision of state welfare services and safety nets could be seen by the devout as a means to mitigate the costs of their high investments in “religious club goods” (Iannaccone, 1992; Warner et al., 2018; Ciftci et al., 2022). Support for greater involvement of the state in the economy and social welfare services is the reverse of support for economic liberalism. Hence, we would expect that in a Muslim-majority setting, greater religiosity would be associated with lower economic liberalism.

Another important contributing factor is the difference between Azerbaijan and Georgia in the ease of doing business. Georgia has consistently scored very high on the ease of doing business indices while Azerbaijan scored significantly lower in comparative terms. For example, in 2010, Georgia and Azerbaijan scored respectively 11 and 66 in the World Bank ranking.¹¹ If private businesses face more hurdles in Azerbaijan than in Georgia, residents of the former are on average likely to put less hope in economic liberalism than residents of the latter.

Hypotheses

These findings and discussion allow us to generate several testable hypotheses regarding the religious Azeri communities in Azerbaijan and Georgia. Overall, we would anticipate that the different contexts of the two countries would lead to distinctly different patterns of political and economic attitudes among religious Azeris in each country.

Economically driven clientelism is frequently utilized by oppressive governments to establish political legitimacy (Eisenstadt, 1973; Gerschewski, 2013). However, the impact of these policies is likely to vary between minority and majority groups. Taking into account the demographic status of religious Muslims is essential, in addition to the nature and degree of repression. The demand for economic redistribution may be less pronounced among Muslim minorities since such measures would mainly benefit religious and cultural “others” (Habyarimana et al., 2007). This implies that in societies where religious Muslims are marginalized both economically and politically, and particularly when they are in the minority, individuals are motivated to reject greater government control and intervention in the economy (Alesina et al., 1999).

In regard to economic preferences among devout Azeris, we would expect that:

H1a: Greater religiosity among Azeris in Georgia will be associated with greater support for economic liberalism.

Conversely:

H1b: Greater religiosity among Azeris in Azerbaijan will be associated with lower support for economic liberalism.

In autocratic states that regulate religious practices and charitable work by religious organizations, devout communities and their members have more incentives to be open to state redistributive behaviors. As members of the dominant social identity, they would have no reason to believe that they would be excluded from redistributive benefits, and their high levels of investments and time in “religious club goods” (Iannaccone, 1992) make it likely that government subsidies and entitlements will be beneficial to them (Ciftci et al., 2022).

As it relates to attitudes toward political liberalism, we anticipate that these relationships will be reversed. Within Muslim majority societies like Azerbaijan, scholars have noted the usefulness of Islam in providing an idiom that enables an oppositional vision and critique to autocratic and corrupt regimes (Arjomand, 1984; Hunter, 1988; Bayat, 2013), and the discursive power of Islam to operate as this idiom in the post-Soviet Caucasus has only grown stronger in the post-Cold War era when the other revolutionary ideology, Communism, has practically ceased to exist (Dzutsati et al., 2016). The majoritarian responsiveness inherent in political liberalization within an authoritarian state would likely seem highly appealing to members of the dominant faith community who feel the sting of state regulation and repression of religious expression and activities. In Georgia, however, where the Muslim minority faces heavy social pressure from the dominant Georgian Orthodox community around them, political liberalism would likely be seen as giving greater leverage to society to punish or marginalize them further. In such cases, liberalization would be less desirable than the status quo (Ciftci et al., 2022).

Thus, we anticipate that:

H2a: Greater religiosity among Azeris living in Georgia will be associated with lower support for political liberalism.

H2b: Greater religiosity among Azeris living in a highly regulated and restrictive Azerbaijan will be associated with higher support for political liberalism.

Data

Using 2010–2013 Caucasus Barometer survey data from the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC), we assess the attitudes of Muslim Azeris in Azerbaijan and Georgia.¹² Our universe of cases includes only Muslim Azeris in Azerbaijan and Georgia.¹³ This narrow selection allows us to minimize potential confounding factors and restrict variability in individual economic and political preferences to demographic status and sociopolitical context.

We use two dependent variables, one measuring economic liberalism and the other gauging political liberalism of respondents. We capture the concept of economic liberalism using two questions in the surveys. The first question elicits individuals' preferences for private ownership versus state ownership of business enterprises. Respondents are asked to place themselves on the continuum from “Private ownership of business and industry should be increased”—1 to “Government ownership of business and industry should be increased”—10. For the purposes of this survey, we recode the variable to indicate support for private ownership of businesses on an increasing scale. Responses “don't know,” “refuse to answer,” and other failures to respond were excluded from the analysis. In the second question, one end of the spectrum says: “Competition is good. It stimulates people to work hard and develop new ideas.” The other end of the spectrum encapsulates its opposite: “Competition is harmful. It brings out the worst in people.” The variable is recoded from the dismissal of competition to the support of it. Next, we take the mean of the two variables to create our first dependent variable—Economic Liberalism. The constitutive terms are broadly consistent with the recent research on the definitions of economic liberalism (Babb and Kentikelenis, 2021). The distributions of Economic Liberalism in Georgia and Azerbaijan appear to be similar (see Figure 1a and 1b).

Figure 1. Distributions of dependent variables by country. (a) Distribution of economic liberalism. Azeris in Georgia. (b) Distribution of economic liberalism. Azeris in Azerbaijan. (c) Distribution of political liberalism. Azeris in Georgia. (d) Distribution of political liberalism. Azeris in Azerbaijan.

Preference for political liberalism is measured using the question on the role of government in society. Respondents are asked to indicate if they agree or strongly agree with two successive statements: (1) “People are like children; the government should take care of them like a parent” and (2) “Government is like an employee; the people should be the bosses who control the government.” We recode the answer choices on an increasing scale of support for liberalism. Those respondents who strongly agree with statement one are coded as 1, those who simply agree are coded as 2; respondents who agree with the statement on the government as an employee of people are coded as 4 and those who strongly agree with this statement are coded as 5. Respondents who do not agree with either of these statements are counted as the middle, neutral category 3. The resultant dependent variable Political Liberalism measures individual support for political rights and freedoms vis-à-vis the state, which is consistent with the theoretical literature on political liberalism (Hardin, 1999; Rawls, 2005). The distributions of Political Liberalism in Georgia and Azerbaijan seem to be different with a higher degree of the trait observed among Azeris in Azerbaijan (see Figure 1c and 1d).

To measure Muslims' religiosity, we use all five available questions that pertain to religion. These include questions on religious services attendance, religious fasting, self-assessed religiosity, the importance of religion to respondents, and trust in religious organizations. Religious attendance is measured with a predictor on a decreasing ordinal scale from 1, for respondents who visit religious services every day to 7, for respondents who never visit them except for special occasions such as weddings and funerals. The question on religious fasting measures how often respondents fast on a 5-point decreasing ordinal scale from “always fast” to “never fast.” The next question asks respondents to put themselves on the spectrum of being religious from 1 as being “not at all religious” to 10 as being “very religious.” Another indicator asks respondents how important religion is in their daily lives. The predictor is measured on an increasing 4-point ordinal scale from “not at all important” as 1 to “very important” as 4. Finally, the fifth used question asks whether respondents trust the religious institutions to which they belong. Trust in religious institutions is measured on an increasing 5-point ordinal scale from “fully distrust” as 1 to “fully trust” as 5.

We recode variables to an increasing scale of support for religion and religiosity, while also removing all undecided respondents who did not answer these questions from the analysis. We conduct factor analysis and extract five components that account for 100% of variability of the indicators and take their mean.¹⁴ Azeris, who reside in Georgia and self-identify as Muslim are coded as 1 for their minority status while Azeris in Azerbaijan and identify as Muslim are coded as 0. It appears that on average, Azeri Muslims in Georgia appear to be more religious on average than Azeri Muslims residing in Azerbaijan where there is a broader distribution of religiosity among Muslims (Figure 2a and 2b).

Figure 2. Distributions of religiosity by country. (a) Religiosity among Azeri Muslims in Georgia. (b) Religiosity among Azeri Muslims in Azerbaijan.

We control for possible confounding factors, including trust for the president of the country, age, gender, education, and income level of respondents. We also include Urban, which is an ordinal indicator of type of settlement of respondents with three levels—the capital, another city or town, and village. Figure 3 displays the distributions of all used variables.¹⁵

Figure 3. Distributions of used variables.

The analysis

We estimate a series of linear regressions with each of the dependent variables.¹⁶ Model 1 includes only the indicator of religiosity. Model 2 adds the interaction of religiosity and minority status. Model 3 adds all control variables but no interaction. Model 4 also includes the interaction of religiosity and minority status. Results are displayed in Tables 1 and 2. Economic Liberalism and Islamic Religiosity display the expected relationship (Table 1). More religious individuals in a Muslim-minority country, Georgia tend to express greater support for economic liberalism. This is consistent with hypothesis 1a, which specifies that greater religiosity of Azeris living in Muslim-minority Georgia will be associated with greater support for economic liberalism. Conversely, when Muslims are a majority—such as Muslim Azeris in Azerbaijan, their level of religiosity is inversely related to support for economic liberalism. This is consistent with hypothesis 1b. Note that the constitutive interaction terms in models 2 and 4 are not interpreted directly. Instead, they indicate the effect of each predictor when the other constitutive term is at its lowest level. This also means that just being a member of the Azeri minority is not associated with support for economic liberalism, see models 2 and 4 in Table 1. Less religious members of the Azeri minority are probably less discriminated against and feel less threatened by the notion of a Georgian majority-controlled state. However, greater levels of religiosity are associated with lower levels of support for economic liberalism when Muslims are not in a minority status, i.e., Azeri Muslims in Azerbaijan, see model 4 in Table 1.

Table 1. Economic liberalism and Islamic religiosity in minority setting (OLS models)

***p < 0.01; **p < 0.05; *p < 0.1.

Table 2. Political liberalism and Islamic religiosity in minority setting (OLS models)

***p < 0.01; **p < 0.05; *p < 0.1.

The relationship between Political Liberalism and Islamic Religiosity is mostly consistent with our expectations (see Table 2). The interaction of religiosity and minority status (i.e., religious Azeris in Georgia) has a negative and statistically significant relationship with political liberalism in models 2 and 4. When religious Muslims are part of a religious minority, they tend to express lower support for political liberalism according to model 4. This finding is consistent with the expectation laid out in hypothesis 2a that greater religiosity of Azeris living in Muslim-minority Georgia will be associated with lower support for political liberalism. However, in model 2, the constitutive term of religiosity (i.e., religious Azeris in Azerbaijan) is not statistically significant even though it is still positively correlated with support for political liberalism. This result indicates that the effect of religiosity on support for political liberalism is positive but not statistically significant in the case of Azeris in Azerbaijan. In model 4, however, when accounting for other variables, including minority status which is consistently negative, the coefficient for religious Azeris in Azerbaijan becomes positive and significant. The indicator of minority in models 2 and 4 is negatively correlated with support for political liberalism. This indicates that even when the religiosity of Azeris in Muslim-minority Georgia is at its lowest values, the minority status by itself is associated with lower support for political liberalism. Azeri minority members in Georgia appear to reject the notion of increased popular will in the country regardless of their religiosity.

Marginal effects

To explore the hypothesized relationships further, we also create marginal plots based on Table 1: model 4 and Table 2: model 4. Figure 4a indicates that as the religiosity of Muslims in Muslin-minority Georgia increases, support for economic liberalism goes up from 4.25 to about 6.2, which represents a change of nearly 46%. As religiosity in Muslim-majority Azerbaijan increases, economic liberalism goes down from about 5.5 to 5, or a change of about 9%. The relationship reverses when it comes to support for political liberalism (Figure 4b). Growing religiosity is associated with decreasing support for political liberalism in Muslim-minority Georgia from about 2.2 to 1.65, which represents a decrease of 25%. In Muslim-majority Azerbaijan, the increase in religiosity is associated with an increase in political liberalism from about 1.85 to 2.05 or an upward change of nearly 11%.

Figure 4. Marginal effects of religiosity and Azeri Muslim-minority status on economic and political liberalism. (a) Religiosity, status, and economic liberalism. (b) Religiosity, status, and political liberalism.

Discussion

Demographic status of Muslim Azeris appears to have a substantial impact on their political economy preferences. In a minority setting in Georgia, religiosity of Muslim Azerbaijanis is positively correlated with their support for economic liberalism. In a majority context in Azerbaijan, religiosity of Muslim Azeris is inversely correlated with their support for economic liberalism. In the former case, the distance between the group and the wider society is larger while in the latter case, the distance is smaller. From the point of view of the discriminated minority, lower involvement of the state in the economy will leave more doors open for their group. Moreover, the more religious the minority, i.e., the more intense the trait on which basis it is discriminated against, the more it is to gain from economic liberalism.

This relationship reflects the minority's belief that greater involvement of the state in the economy reduces the number of economic opportunities for them. This involves the notion of discrimination against the minority, which is unlikely to receive as many government jobs and other opportunities as the titular ethnic group. This finding is contextual because, in societies where minorities enjoy equal rights or even receive preferential treatment through affirmative action programs, they are not likely to be economically liberal because state involvement in the economy benefits them.

In a majority setting, however, the relationship goes the other way around. The more religious the Azeris in Azerbaijan, the lower their support for economic liberalism. This is likely related to the findings in the previous literature. According to Davis and Robinson (2009, 2006), Abrahamic religions typically exhibit a tendency toward economic communitarianism. Additionally, individuals who adhere to a more orthodox religious belief system are more likely to support an expanded role for the government in the economy, with the aim of reducing income inequality and providing assistance to the less fortunate. This is also consistent with the findings in cross-national setting (Fish, 2011).

The relationship between religiosity and support for economic liberalism is mirrored with respect to political liberalism. Religiosity of Muslim Azerbaijanis in Georgia is negatively correlated with support for political liberalism while religiosity of Muslim Azerbaijanis in Azerbaijan and politically liberal attitudes has a positive relationship. In autocracies and illiberal democracies, minorities often have informal power-sharing agreements with the state. Therefore, seeking a smaller role of the government might be not in the best interests of the minority. Besides, in illiberal democracies, minorities are often on the receiving end of the biases of the wider society. In a Muslim-majority context, when the state is oppressive, religiosity can be associated with greater political liberalism. The state efforts to establish control over Islamic leaders often backfire by producing religious opposition. However, this process is highly dynamic and contingent on many factors. At some points in time, the state efforts might be quite effective while at other times they might become ineffective. For example, the victory in the war over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 likely boosted the affiliation of religious Muslims with the state in Azerbaijan.¹⁷ If the energy prices decline in the future, frictions between the oil-dependent government in Baku and the opposition, including religious Muslims, are likely to grow.

These conjectures indicate the highly contextual and diverse role of religion in society. For example, the theory here implies that under the conditions when the Muslim minority is not discriminated against or it has no fears of discrimination, Muslim religiosity might be associated with less economically liberal attitudes. The same goes for the relationship between religiosity and political liberalism. When minorities are politically empowered, they might actually contribute to countries' democratic resilience (Rovny, 2023).

An alternative explanation for the differences in political economy attitudes among Muslim Azeris in Azerbaijan and Georgia could be related to country-specific contexts. For example, Muslim Azeris in Georgia may have become more economically liberal than their ethnic cousins in Azerbaijan under the influence of the wider Georgian society. For example, although Georgia is an imperfect democracy, it normally scores higher than Azerbaijan on democracy indices and has a higher ease of doing business indicators.¹⁸ While the influence of country-specific factors unrelated to demographic status is a possibility, it would still not explain why religiosity among Muslim Azerbaijanis in Georgia is positively correlated with support for economic liberalism. Since Azerbaijanis in Azerbaijan and Georgia shared the same country for a long time and the border between the two countries has remained open, it is more likely that the differences in political economy attitudes among Muslim Azerbaijanis in Azerbaijan and Georgia are explained by demographic and political regime-related factors.

Conclusion

This study has examined the link between religiosity and individual views on economic and political liberalism among Muslims in minority and majority settings. While previous studies have produced conflicting results, some suggesting that religious Muslims hold less liberal views and others proposing the opposite, this study suggests that the social and political context within which a religious group operates strongly shapes preferences regarding issues of economic and political liberalization. This is because such broad preferences are informed by the rational interest of the individual and the group within their social and political environment (Dzutsati and Warner, 2021; Ciftci et al., 2022). This study further contributes to the literature by highlighting this dynamic among devout Muslims that receives less attention in the literature on Muslim public attitudes.

When Muslims are a minority in a socially repressive non-Muslim polity, religious Muslims tend to support greater economic liberalization while opposing political liberalization that would involve the dominant population having a greater role in political and social policy. Under these circumstances, the Muslim minority tends to be economically liberal, as is the status quo in Georgia, supporting a smaller role for the government in the economy in the hopes of better access to economic opportunities. But members of this community also appear to prefer the existing political status quo in the state rather than great political involvement from a society in which they are a significant minority.

Finally, we recognize and emphasize that the relationship between religious Muslims and political and economic beliefs is complex and varies depending on demographic and political conditions. No social or political context absolutely determines the preferences and attitudes of any individual; it does, however, create incentives and encouragement for individuals, based on their position within society, to be more likely to support certain preferences over others. Such incentives and constraints operate everywhere and for everyone, including those with or without deeply held beliefs and community associations. Religion's influence, like the influence of anything else, must be understood within the relational context in which it operates. Thus, it is important to avoid simplistic generalizations about the attitudes of religious Muslims towards political and economic issues and to take into account the diversity of people and the contexts in which their faith is practiced.