Abstract:

Twenty years ago in 1989, the Berlin Wall and eight years ago in 2001, the Twin Towers in New York were destroyed. The former has paved way to the debate on democratic transition in the post-communist world, while the latter on the relationship between Islam and democracy in the Muslim world. This study argues that although a single democracy debate has been established on the ashes of these two destructions, there has been a double standard in the context of democracy debate for these two different worlds. In this regard, after the destruction of the Twin Towers, democracy has been reassessed as an antidote for the radical movements in the Islamic world. Nevertheless, these debates, parallel to the “civilization clash” rhetoric, have been quite superficial, biased, offensive, philosophical and theological toward religious and cultural aspects of the Muslim world. Conversely, after the destruction of the Berlin Wall, democracy as an alternative system for the new post-communist countries in the new era has been discussed in detailed, comprehensive, objective, constructive, scholarly and empirical manner. This study analyzes in detail the debates on the democratic transition after the collapse of the communist totalitarian systems in the 1990s. The study aims to contribute to the imminent comparative analyses on democracy in two different worlds.

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