The Paradox of Inclusion/Exclusion of Islamist Parties in Tunisia and Jordan after the Arab Uprisings: A Comparative Study.

• Author: Koprulu, Nur
• Position: ARTICLE

The Islamist movement has undergone sporadic transformation since the onset of the 2011 Arab uprisings. The main questions that have arisen are whether the public protests will lead to democratic transition and what roles the opposition parties and Islamist actors will take. One of the key outcomes of the series of protests has been the electoral victory of Islamists, as in cases like Tunisia and Egypt. Ikhwan-affiliated groups have been described as the foremost champions of the uprisings despite their late involvement in the 2011 rallies and Islamist actors have undergone a transformation hitherto.

With the aim of exploring in greater depth the role of Islamist parties and how they were treated by regimes after the Arab Spring, two countries from the Maghreb and Mashreq regions--one republican and one monarchical--have been selected as case studies. The main reason for the case-selection in this article is derived from the fact that Islamist political parties--who represent the most organized and strongly ideological forces in the region since the 1970s-didn't come to power in the entire Arab world after the large-scale public protests, as some had argued. (1) In line with its aims, this article also emphasizes the variation in the trajectories of state and nation formation in both Maghreb and Mashreq countries in order to illustrate the repercussions of regional dynamics shaping both domestic politics and internal schisms in the Arab Middle East. In this regard, the examples of Tunisia and Jordan and the respective regimes' responses in building relations with the old Islamist actors in both countries, mark the fact that Arab states around the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are not monolithic, and there is no single coherent Arab world. In addition, despite its permeable and embedded history, the Islamist movement (precisely Ikhwan) in the region today displays different trajectories in each country in the post-2011 era regardless of their similar ideological background and shared past. Although the primary groups of Islamists in Tunisia and Jordan have their roots from the Muslim Brotherhood society (Ikhwan) and both represent non-violent/moderate Islamist activism in the region, (2) they have been inversely responded to by their regimes. For instance, in Tunisia, the 'excluded' Islamist actor, al-Nahda, has become an indispensable part of the democratic transition, while Jordan's Ikhwan--despite its longtime close relations with the monarchy--has been upended since the uprisings. Variation in regimes' responses to the rise of Islamist parties around the region is, thus, context dependent. The nature of the variation is, in fact, three-fold. First of all, the demands of the protesters articulated during the public rallies in several countries were diverse; the cases of Tunisia and Jordan, in this sense, should not be taken as typical. Secondly, the role and nature of Islamist parties has to be analyzed alongside the degree/level of democratization in each case study. In other words, each country has its own indigenous/national context and dynamics, just as each has followed its own trajectory of state-formation, as well as divergent histories of political parties and social mobilization. Lastly, each country's interpretation of 'Islam' as a religion was re-constructed in concert with state identity, being repressed in Tunisia by the regime but embraced by the Hashemites in Jordan, until the 2011 uprisings.

Thus, the Arab uprisings have revealed that there is no coherence in how Islamist parties have responded to and been treated since the protests; each country has employed its own methods in containing both Islamists and popular unrest. In this regard, the post-Arab Spring (3) era has highlighted the diverse trajectories of state-formation in the region, as well as the particularities of state-society relations and the democratization efforts of regimes in (re)constructing each country's 'spring.' Despite differing trajectories of identity and state-formation in both countries, the article will then highlight the argument that the formation of Islamist politics has filled the ideological gap left by Arab nationalism in the region; and for that purpose, it is still valid and is not yet outdated in the light of the Arab protests.

Islamist Parties and Post-Islamism Revisited after the Uprisings

The series of public protests across the MENA region that erupted first in 2010 and became known as the Arab uprisings has brought Political Islam and Islamist parties back on to the region's agenda. (4) Although Islamists were late to join the demonstrators calling for economic and political reforms, some have argued that Islamists hijacked the Arab Spring. (5) According to Katerina Dalacoura, "None of the 2011 uprisings in the Arab Middle East was led by Islamist movements or had a predominantly Islamist agenda." (6) In addition, in the case of Egypt, the Kefaya (Enough) movement, the 'April 6' youth group and 'We Are All Khaled Said' initiative, as well as the trade unions; likewise in the case of Tunisia workers under the umbrella of the key trade union of the country UGTT and the protestors from secular, centrist, liberal, and middle class groups all gathered at public rallies during 2011. However, the electoral victories of the Tunisian al-Nahda and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood--who received 37 percent and 37.5 percent of votes respectively in the first post-2011 parliamentary elections--have led to a re-visitation of the rhetoric of post-Islamism. Both cases demonstrate that Islamist parties and Islamist politics are still salient. Asef Bayat and Olivier Roy, who put forward the notion of post-Islamism, have argued that "Islamism has gradually lost its credibility and that in its place we find a new discourse of exploration and contention over the role of Islam in politics." (7) The rationale behind this argument is closely tied with the changing political discourses of Islamist movements, such as Egypt's Ikhwan and Tunisia's al-Nahda, which as political parties "significantly departed from the original Islamist project of establishing an Islamic state" and prioritize politics over religion. (8) For instance, Bayat argues that "In contemporary Iran, post-Islamism is expressed in the idea of fusion between Islam (as a personalized faith) and individual freedom and choice; and post-Islamism is associated with the values of democracy and aspects of modernity... Yet, there is also a strong quest for an independent modernity." (9) For Bayat, "We may be witnessing the coming of a post-Islamist Middle East, in which the prevailing popular movements assume a post-national, post-ideological, civil, and democratic character." (10)

A contending argument to Bayat and Roy was put forward by Cavatorta and Merone, who claim that "To a certain extent, it is rather sterile to once again talk about the failure or the end of Islamism." (11) In the post-1990 era, the "category of Islamism still holds considerable importance" for them. (12) Thus, the rhetoric of post-Islamism, which has been regarded as an ideological project alternative to liberal-democracy, began to be challenged after the Arab uprisings for two main reasons. Foremost, the ideological evolution and transformation of Islamist parties in the post-2011 era--like the cases of al-Nahda and Ikhwan--has to be taken on board. (13) As al-Anani suggests, "The Arab Spring has ended the old image of Islamists as 'victims' of autocratic regimes . Islamists will try to preclude the reproduction of the old authoritarian regimes." (14) Nevertheless, in most cases, Islamists have been seen as the main beneficiaries of the public protests, and in the eight years since, their integration or inclusion among the emergent factions has been endemic.

The second point that arose after the 2011 riots was the necessity to reassess the role of Islamism in processes of democratization in the MENA region. At the beginning of the protests, it seemed that Islamists would come to power with a linear increase in the trend towards democratization. The Muslim Brotherhood Society which is one of the oldest and most organized Islamist groups in the MENA region has been considered as one of the fundamental actors of the uprisings. (15) One of the key debates at this point was whether or not Islamists' exclusion from the system culminates in marginalization of these groups. The exclusion from the political system as it was in the very case of Tunisia's al-Nahda did not, however, result in radicalization of Islamist politics as some argued. In the aftermath of the public riots, the moderate or centrist Islamists --which were primarily the Ikhwan-affiliated groups--have shown their full commitments with a variety of discourses and practices to work within the boundaries of the political arena, if not with the ruling elites. In this regard, Jordan's Islamic Action Front (IAF), the Moroccan Justice and Development Party (JDP) and Egypt's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP-despite its short-lived rule until its overthrow in 2013 through a coup d'etat), have all depicted their compliance with existing liberal-democratic rules and willingness to embrace issues on human rights and gender equality in the public sphere.

Thus, moderate Islamism in the MENA region is more or less associated with the Muslim Brotherhood Society due to its traditional non-violent approach. As Robin Wright indicated, Tunisia's al-Nahda and Morocco's JDP represent two key branches of Ikhwan that mobilized as moderate movements, labeling them 'neo-Islamists.' (16) For Wright, neo-Islamists can be described as "progressive, pragmatic and striving for sharia's goals rather than its literal implementation." (17)

Thus, the notion of post-Islamism--which was put forward in response to the changes in Islamist politics and agenda after the 1990s--may not be sufficient to define and contextualize the role of al-Nahda...