Islam and resistance: Hamas,ideology and Islamic values in Palestine

This article investigates the historical evolution, values and Islamic reference points of Hamas. A product of fieldwork in the Middle East in 2009–2010, it allows Palestinian Islamists and their supporters to explain their views on Islam, whilst analysing the implications of these in regards to Hamas’ wider programme of resistance. Interviews and surveys, as well as Hamas’ ongoing use of Islamic terminology and the Islamisation of the Gaza Strip, reveal that religion remains intertwined with the movement’s political and social activities. Secular analyses clearly demarcating political and religious spheres in such cases are inadequate. The interpretation of Islamic values is not immutable, however, but rather part of a dynamic process subject to evolution and change.     

Islamists against the class cleavage: identity formation and interest representation in the case of Hak-İş in Turkey

One of the central characteristics of current Middle Eastern politics is the weakness of class-based political organizations. While structural explanations of this pattern abound, hegemonic struggles of Islamists to erode the class cleavage have so far been largely overlooked. In order to bring this perspective into the literature, this article studies discourses, affects and policies promoted by the Islamic trade unions confederation of Turkey, Hak-??. After the introduction, I first demonstrate that the identity of Hak-?? has consistently been based on a fantasy of social cohesion and aversion to class-based politics. Building on this, I detail how Hak-?? has developed new economic and political practices, in a deliberate effort to overcome class-based unionism. Finally, I argue that the role of Hak-?? has evolved into representing workers' interests within the framework of the corporatist regime built by pro-Islamic AKP government.     

Social policy and conflict: the Gezi Park–Taksim demonstrations and uses of social policy for reimagining Turkey

This article argues that conflicts are productive forces within which new ideas are developed and new social relations are articulated. The critical issue here is the way in which such conflicts are managed and mediated. The paper analyses the Gezi Events of May–June 2013 in Istanbul and considers the way in which people’s reactions in these events are linked with the intersection of everyday lives and the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi – AKP) government’s social policy initiatives, which are increasingly framing these everyday lives. Social policy is considered to be the domain of this intersection, as the government uses policies to inform a particular way of orienting individuals’ everyday context.     

Pathways of Islamist adaptation: the Egyptian Muslim Brothers’ lessons for inclusion moderation theory

The Muslim Brothers’ transition from religious movement to majority-seeking party in Egypt’s post 2011 democratic experiment offered a key test of the inclusion-moderation hypothesis. While the MB’s increasing religious and organizational conservatism at new electoral thresholds appears to challenge the hypothesis, I argue that it was the result of strategic adaptation based on functional alternative interpretations of political opportunity that did not require a trade-off between power-seeking and expressive goals, constrained by prior pathways of electoral adaptation, and shaped by the ambiguous political incentives of democratic transition. This article shows that the MB, like other religious parties, has alternated between strategies for electoral adaptation, challenging expectations of linear evolution; that majority-seeking sometimes encourages intra-movement dynamics that are radicalizing as well as moderating; and shows that expressive goals and identity remain important to religious parties even in office, and make some paths of adaptation more attractive while precluding others. While the case affirms the relevance of political learning mechanisms predicted by inclusion-moderation theory, the divergent outcomes of this learning suggest the need to focus on the contexts and motivations that set movements along one of multiple possible adaptive pathways.     

Can Islamists be secularized? Religion and politics in urban Bangladesh

As in many other Muslim majority states, the Islamist parties play a significant role in the body politic of Bangladesh. Because of their counter-hegemonic modus operandi, the question arises regarding the ability of the Islamists to cohabit democratically in a secular or a quasi-secular political system. The literature on secularization, secularism, and Islam relies on a grand narrative of the reasons to address the question and provides us with polarized answers regarding the Islamists’ ability to accommodate the principle of secularism. However, almost all of the works have been done on the abstract, theoretical level and do not address the interplay of social and political factors in Muslim societies. None of the research on Islamism in Bangladesh addresses Islamist parties’ ability or inability to participate in a quasi-secular, democratic system through acclimating to secularism in the rubric of their political ideology, Islamism. This study therefore examines the grassroots-level socio-political interplays of the Islamist activists with the non-Islamists and analyzes their willingness and ability to accommodate secularism in order to democratically participate in a quasi-secular political system.     

东南亚的伊斯兰教：现状与特点

伊斯兰教作为一种外来的宗教已在东南亚地区流传了数百年,现在已经成为影响东南亚多数国家政治经济发展、民族团结和社会稳定的重要因素。本文在对东南亚地区伊斯兰教的现状进行扼要介绍的基础上,分别从分布及发展、宗教特色、政治性等方面探讨东南亚地区伊斯兰教的一些内在特点,指出伊斯兰教已经对部分东南亚国家产生了重要的影响,认为现阶段这一地区还没有形成较大规模的伊斯兰运动。     

Islamism and the state after the Arab uprisings: Between people power and state power

This paper examines the trajectories of different Islamist trends in the light of the Arab uprisings. It proposes a distinction between statist and non-statist Islamism to help understand the multiplicity of interactions between Islamists and the state, particularly after 2011. It is outlined how statist Islamists (Islamist parties principally) can contribute to the stabilization and democratization of the state when their interactions with other social and political actors facilitate consensus building in national politics. By contrast when these interactions are conflictual, it has a detrimental impact on both the statist Islamists, and the possibility of democratic politics at the national level. Non statist-Islamists (from quietist salafi to armed jihadi) who prioritize the religious community over national politics are directly impacted by the interactions between statist Islamists and the state, and generally tend to benefit from the failure to build a consensus over democratic national politics. Far more than nationally-grounded statist Islamists, non-statist Islamists shape and are shaped by the regional dynamics on the Arab uprisings and the international and transnational relations between the different countries and conflict areas of the Middle East. The Arab uprisings and their aftermath reshaped pre-existing national and international dynamics of confrontation and collaboration between Islamists and the state, and between statist and non-statists Islamists, for better (Tunisia) and for worse (Egypt).     

The Malian Crisis and its Actors

The structural problems characterising Mali interlocked with the dynamics of crisis triggered by the war in Libya in 2011, causing the collapse of one of the few African democracies. The Tuareg rebellion of 2012, the coup d’état and the Islamist takeover of Northern Mali were the three key phases of this crisis, which pushed France – the former colonial patron – to intervene military. After analysing the major local actors involved in the crisis, the article critically analyses the engagement of the EU in the crisis.     

Homegrown Terrorism in the West

The London bombings in 2005 led to the perception that the terrorist threat had changed from external to internal. This became conceptualized shortly after as “homegrown terrorism.” This article deals with the meaning and scope of this phenomenon. We begin by tracing an ambiguity in the term “homegrown,” which is both about belonging in the West and autonomy from terrorist groups abroad. A quantitative study of Islamist terrorism in the West since 1989 reveals an increase in both internal and autonomous terrorism since 2003 and that most plots are now internal—but not autonomous. Finally we suggest that an increase in autonomous terrorism is a transitory phenomenon.