By exploring the trajectories of Islamist parties in six diverse countries (Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia), this book provides a comparative analysis of the strategies employed by Islamist groups to confront established political structures through electoral processes and their subsequent governance practices if and when they assume power. The latter aspect is less explored than the predominant focus on Islamist opposition movements. The book analyses how these Islamist political parties navigate and negotiate with oppositional forces and establishments, concisely discussing the complex dynamics at play within each country. The book also bridges the gap between North Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Asia Minor, providing a comparative analysis across regions. Primarily serving as an introductory text to the subject of Islamist parties, the book functions as a comprehensive reader and handbook. Each chapter covers a range of key issues and themes relevant to the governance and political activities of the Islamist party of the country studied in the chapter, offering a general overview of Islamist party experiences across various themes and different historical periods.

This edited book examines the growing worldwide phenomenon of civilizational populism in democratic nation-states and brings together research that explores this in a wide variety of religious, political, and geographic contexts. In doing so, the book shows how, from Europe to India and Pakistan, and from Indonesia to the Americas, populists increasingly define national belonging through civilizational identity, claiming that the world can be divided into several religion-defined civilizations with incompatible values. The volume also discusses the complex relationship between civilizational populism, democracy and nationalism and shows how nationalists often use civilizational identity to help define ingroups and outgroups within their society. With this, the book investigates the salience of the concept, its widespread and influential nature, and also explains how populists construct civilizational identities, and the factors behind the rise of civilizational populism.

The first Islamist parties to come to power through democratic means in the Muslim world were those in Turkey, Tunisia, and Egypt. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the 2002 election in Turkey, and Ennahda (Renaissance Party) in Tunisia and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt were both elected in the wake of the Arab uprisings of 2010/11. Yet only Ennahda could be said to have fulfilled its democratic promise, with both the Turkish and Egyptian governments reverting to authoritarianism. Drawing upon extensive fieldwork in three countries, Sebnem Gumuscu explains why some Islamist governments adhered to democratic principles and others took an authoritarian turn following electoral success. Using accessible language, Gumuscu clearly introduces key theories and considers how intra-party affairs impacted each party's commitment to democracy. Through a comparative lens, Gumuscu identifies broader trends in Islamist governments and explains the complex web of internal dynamics that led political parties either to advance or subvert democracy.

Surveying the causes of the Arab Spring, and revealing the governing trends arising from it, this book examines various international relation theories through the lens of the experiences of the countries in the Middle East and North Africa region. It takes the events of the Arab Spring as an outcome of globalization’s double movement whose integrative cultural, political and security frameworks devastated nationally controlled economies, undermining the nation-state system and propagating a decentralized and communitarian-based governance structure. The consequences for many plural, diverse societies were two-fold: autocratic nationalism was discarded while decentralized regimes representing communitarian-based politics came to the fore. The author reveals how the formulation of a new communitocratic order rests on the accommodation of this newly emerging communitarianism and explores the major drivers of political transformation, describing the emerging communities, forecasting their governing options and the possible repercussions for the post-Arab Spring states.

The twentieth century saw the emergence of new states shaped on the classic nation-state model. How has this model been moulded and implemented? What have been the implications for minorities in these new nation-states? And how have minorities responded to nationalising processes? Following a discussion by Rogers Brubaker of his concept of nationalising state, contributions to this volume examine the dynamic relations between national minorities and nation-states established in the course of the last century, including Ukraine, Moldova, Turkey, Malaysia and Israel. This book’s original theoretical framework and comparative approach offer a new understanding of the complex interactions between the formulation of a state identity and the aspirations of those who do not fit in the proclaimed core nation. In light of recent developments in ‒ notably ‒ Ukraine and Israel, this book is essential reading for all those interested in the rights and protection of national minorities and, more broadly, in the debates over the definition of the polity in a tense environment.

Islamic Political Movements and Power in the Arab World: The Rise and Fall represents a comprehensive study of contemporary Islamic political movements and their prospects. Undertaken by the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research and employing a scholarly, methodological approach, it addresses the prominent transformations that have occurred within certain Islamic political organizations as a result of what the media have dubbed the “Arab Spring”—namely those Islamic parties and movements which came to power in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. In addition, new Islamic parties and organizations have emerged, thus re-shaping the political environments of several Arab countries. This volume provides an examination of the political rise of Islamists in the wake of the so-called “Arab Spring” and deconstructs the experience of Islamic political parties and movements in government. It discusses the negative effects and implications of Islamists’ efforts to inject religion into the practice of politics and to politicize religion, which have led to increased religious and political polarization in a number of Arab countries and undermined efforts to build the national consensus needed to achieve peace, economic development, social justice and democratic transformation. The authors of the papers presented herein raise pertinent questions concerning the future of Islamic political movements in the Arab World, particularly in light of certain movements’ negative experiences of governance, the internal developments being witnessed in various Arab countries, and the regional and international transformations affecting the Arab world as a whole.

The African Renaissance and the Afro-Arab Spring addresses the often unspoken connection between the powerful call for a political-cultural renaissance that emerged with the end of South African apartheid and the popular revolts of 2011 that dramatically remade the landscape in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. Looking between southern and northern Africa, the transcontinental line from Cape to Cairo that for so long supported colonialism, its chapters explore the deep roots of these two decisive events and demonstrate how they are linked by shared opposition to legacies of political, economic, and cultural subjugation. As they work from African, Islamic, and Western perspectives, the book’s contributors shed important light on a continent’s difficult history and undertake a critical conversation about whether and how the desire for radical change holds the possibility of a new beginning for Africa, a beginning that may well reshape the contours of global affairs.

Globalisation and modernisation are the buzzwords of the new millennium. They serve to sharpen the focus on the dynamic nature of political, economic and social systems and, in this book, the editor and contributors attempt to locate educational changes in a selected number of Muslim countries within the over-arching global scene. There has been considerable debate about the legitimacy of these terms and both have inspired definitions, nuances and accompanying emotions that run the whole gambit from welcoming acceptance to murderous aggressions. Terms like ancient, medieval or modern, when describing eras in the history of Europe, with the most recent one being referred to as post-modern, have been strongly debated. And, within the broad sweep of globalisation it is argued that there are identifiable stages, with many making for exclusive definitions, others inclusive.