All axes · issue
State & religion
الدين والدولةSeparation of religion from state and law (positive) vs. religious authority in state and law (negative).
Scoring rubric
How positions are calibrated on this axis. The conventions guide the scorer; anchored examples show how known MENA actors land at -10, -5, 0, +5, +10.
Score the desired relationship between state and religion. Negative pole: religious state (sharia / halacha as primary source of law, religious authorities in governance). Positive pole: secular state (formal separation, no privileged religious authority, civil-law primacy). Sub-state religious autonomy (Druze courts in Lebanon, Halacha courts in Israel) does not by itself push the score; what matters is the actor's position on whether the state itself is religious.
- -10Theocratic state, sharia/halacha as primary lawFIS Algeria, Northern Islamic Movement
- -7Strong religious framing, religious courts dominantHouthis, Al-Asalah, UTJ
- -3Moderate Islamist, accepts civil-law primacy with Islamic referencePJD Morocco, Tewassoul
- +0Religion important but not constitutionalFLN Algeria
- +3Civic state with religious accommodationEgyptian SDP, USFP
- +7Strong secularism, religion privatizedPT Algeria, Workers' Party
- +10Militant secularismTheoretical pole; few MENA actors
- Parties scored
- 83
- Mean
- +0.12
- Median
- +2.00
- Std dev
- 6.47
- Range
- -10.0 → 9.0
Ranking
All parties scored on this axis, sorted from most Secular state to most Religious state.
- 1 Tunisian Workers Party TN +9.0
- 2 Sudanese Communist Party SD +8.5
- 3 Jordanian Communist Party JO +8.5
- 4 Free Egyptians Party EG +8.0
- 5 PFLP PS +8.0
- 6 Hadash IL +8.0
- 7 DFLP PS +8.0
- 8 Palestinian People's Party PS +8.0
- 9 The Democrats IL +7.5
- 10 Workers' Party DZ +7.5
- 11 Yemeni Socialist Party YE +7.5
- 12 Hadash-Ta'al IL +7.5
- 13 Yesh Atid IL +7.5
- 14 Yisrael Beiteinu IL +7.0
- 15 Meretz IL +7.0
- 16 Ba'ath Party (Syria) SY +7.0
- 17 Balad IL +7.0
- 18 Mubadara PS +7.0
- 19 Free Destourian Party TN +7.0
- 20 Tagammu Party EG +7.0
- 21 Egyptian Social Democratic Party EG +7.0
- 22 Socialist Forces Front DZ +6.0
- 23 Long Live Tunisia TN +6.0
- 24 Ta'al IL +5.5
- 25 National Forces Alliance LY +5.5
- 26 New Wafd Party EG +5.0
- 27 Socialist Union of Popular Forces MA +5.0
- 28 People's Movement TN +5.0
- 29 Israeli Labor Party IL +5.0
- 30 Union of Forces of Progress MR +5.0
- 31 Patriotic Union of Kurdistan IQ +5.0
- 32 Progressive Socialist Party LB +5.0
- 33 New Hope IL +4.0
- 34 National Unity IL +4.0
- 35 Kurdistan Democratic Party IQ +4.0
- 36 Lebanese Forces LB +4.0
- 37 Syrian National Coalition SY +3.5
- 38 Fatah PS +3.5
- 39 Kataeb Party LB +3.5
- 40 Authenticity and Modernity Party MA +3.0
- 41 Southern Transitional Council YE +2.0
- 42 Free Patriotic Movement LB +2.0
- 43 National Rally of Independents MA +2.0
- 44 Democratic National Rally DZ +1.0
- 45 National Liberation Front DZ +0.0
- 46 Mostaqbal Watan EG -1.0
- 47 National Charter Party JO -1.5
- 48 Reform Party JO -2.0
- 49 National Umma Party SD -2.5
- 50 General People's Congress YE -2.5
- 51 Amal Movement LB -3.0
- 52 Likud IL -3.0
- 53 Democratic Unionist Party SD -3.5
- 54 Istiqlal Party MA -3.5
- 55 Ennahda TN -4.5
- 56 National Wisdom Movement IQ -5.0
- 57 Sairoon Alliance IQ -5.0
- 58 Ra'am (United Arab List) IL -5.5
- 59 Justice and Development Party MA -6.0
- 60 Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society BH -6.0
- 61 State of Law Coalition IQ -6.0
- 62 El Insaf (Equity Party) MR -6.5
- 63 Yemeni Congregation for Reform (Islah) YE -7.0
- 64 Movement of Society for Peace DZ -7.0
- 65 Justice and Construction Party LY -7.0
- 66 Al-Menbar Islamic Society BH -7.0
- 67 Hayat Tahrir al-Sham SY -8.0
- 68 Otzma Yehudit IL -8.0
- 69 Freedom and Justice Party EG -8.0
- 70 Islamic Action Front JO -8.0
- 71 Hezbollah LB -8.0
- 72 Noam IL -8.5
- 73 Northern Islamic Movement IL -8.5
- 74 Islamic Asalah Society BH -8.5
- 75 Religious Zionism Party IL -9.0
- 76 Shas IL -9.0
- 77 Ansar Allah (Houthis) YE -9.0
- 78 Hamas PS -9.0
- 79 National Rally for Reform and Development (Tewassoul) MR -9.0
- 80 Nour Party EG -9.0
- 81 United Torah Judaism IL -9.5
- 82 Islamic Salvation Front DZ -10.0
- 83 Palestinian Islamic Jihad PS -10.0
Score distribution
Histogram of scores across all 83 parties. Mean +0.12, median +2.00, σ 6.47. Multi-modal distributions point to genuine cleavages on this axis; unimodal narrow ones to consensus.
Religious state Secular state
By country
Mean score per country.
- Tunisia 5 parties +4.50
- Palestine 7 parties +2.21
- Egypt 7 parties +1.29
- Sudan 3 parties +0.83
- Syria 3 parties +0.83
- Lebanon 6 parties +0.58
- Israel 19 parties +0.47
- Morocco 5 parties +0.10
- Algeria 6 parties -0.42
- Libya 2 parties -0.75
- Jordan 4 parties -0.75
- Iraq 5 parties -1.40
- Yemen 5 parties -1.80
- Mauritania 3 parties -3.50
- Bahrain 3 parties -7.17
Cross-axis correlations
How parties' scores on this axis covary with their scores on each other axis. Pearson r runs from −1 (perfect inverse) to +1 (perfect identity); 0 means independent. Computed across all parties scored on both axes (n shown per row). Strong correlations expose which axes are really measuring the same cleavage in the data; near-zero values are the ones with the most additional explanatory power.
- Gender equality strongly positively correlated +0.97 n=22
- Social strongly positively correlated +0.95 n=83
- Traditionalism vs modernization strongly positively correlated +0.91 n=78
- Press freedom strongly positively correlated +0.85 n=21
- Civil liberties strongly positively correlated +0.70 n=81
- Liberal democracy moderately positively correlated +0.66 n=83
- Iran posture weakly inversely correlated -0.29 n=19
- Centralism vs federalism weakly positively correlated +0.25 n=78
- Regional stance weakly positively correlated +0.21 n=82
- Economic roughly independent -0.19 n=83
- West alignment roughly independent +0.15 n=81
- Palestinian question roughly independent +0.12 n=83
- Sectarian power-sharing roughly independent +0.08 n=11
- Pan-Arab vs particularist roughly independent +0.05 n=66
- Regime stance roughly independent -0.01 n=78