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Allah Made Me Liberal: Social Norms and Non-Conformity Toleration among Moroccan Youths
Abstract
Youth in the Arab world are playing a prominent role in the popular uprisings against entrenched autocratic regimes. While the Moroccan monarchy looks stable, the old legitimacy formula is lagging behind profound normative changes among Moroccan youth. Based on student surveys at three different universities, this paper compares youth attitudes toward non-conformity with religious, social, and legal norms. It seeks to identify and explain variations in responses to norm violations. Participants were divided into five groups and given different questionnaires to suppress or trigger social norms associated with social identities. They were then given different scenarios where fundamental social and religious norms are violated. Participants were then asked to react to instances of non-conformity. The main finding from the survey conducted between December 2011 and April 2013 is that Moroccan youths are more tolerant of non-conformity with religious norms than with non-conformity with social norms associated with family matters. Another major finding is that toleration or non-toleration of non-conformity is not associated with group identity. In other words, respondents are not tolerant of non-conformity because it is simply committed by an outside group. The paper contributes to research on the effect of social norms on behavior in contemporary Muslim societies. Islam has been posited as a variable in explaining economic stagnation, democracy deficit, and ideological extremism since at least the 19th century. More recently, social scientists have focused on specific institutions, networks, and cultural values to assess the effect of Islam. But empirical findings are inconclusive, often contradictory. One of the major difficulties has been the inability to disentangle social norms from religious norms to assess their respective influence in a given situation. We simply do not know whether attitudes about political authority or individual autonomy, for example, are a function of religious or social norms. We also do not know when and why the social and the religious trump each other. But this paper offers new evidence regarding the higher prevalence of religious non-conformity over social non-conformity.
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Maghreb
Sub Area
Identity/Representation