Explaining the moderate platform of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood: Against the inclusion-moderation hypothesis (original) (raw)
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Middle East Law and Governance
At the beginning of the 2010s, several Arab countries seemed about to follow the model of Turkey, with an electoral victory of Islamist parties in a context of democratization. A decade later, Turkish akp has turned authoritarian, and the Moroccan and Tunisian Islamist parties have lost both access to governmental office and a large part of their electoral appeal. In this context, lessons can be learned from the early failed democratic experience in Algeria (1989–1992), and from the evolution of its Islamist movements since then. From these four case studies, the contributors of this issue investigate the notions of moderation and inclusion, and their interrelations. Their articles build on the current trends within literature by taking into account the variety of Islamist movements, and their incorporation within different national trajectories. These articles contribute to the academic discussion by bringing new facts and ideas regarding this topic of inclusion-moderation.
Islamists in Power? Inclusion, Moderation, and the Arab Uprisings
Middle East Development Journal, 2013
Political inclusion is a major concern for democratizing states. Among the many groups excluded and repressed by the former regime, which should now be included? Which should be excluded? And who decides? With the extraordinary events of the Arab uprisings that began in 2011, a wider range of political actors than ever before have become directly engaged in debates and processes of political transition. The new political institutions, however, remain unstable and the distribution of power between them unclear. This paper explores the inclusionmoderation hypothesis with special attention to Islamist groups. It examines the literature on Islamist moderation prior to the Arab uprisings and asks whether the central tenets of those arguments hold in the dynamic environments of the post-revolutionary contexts, particularly in Tunisia and Egypt, where Islamists have done well in free and fair elections. I argue that in unstable and changing institutional contexts, the logic of the inclusion-moderation hypothesis is less likely to be present, particularly when more extreme opposition groups challenge Islamists to prove their core commitment to a conservative religious political vision.
The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood: Between the Burden of History and the Prospect of Political Change
Bilgi Journal, 2012
Political Islam has undergone important changes since the beginning of last century and, more specifically since the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979 and later on, after the 9/11 attacks in New York. It is the aim of this text to overview the evolution of one of the less known, yet crucial movements in the history of Islamism, that is, the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. Its capacity to adapt to changing circumstances is certainly one of their most outstanding features: from democratic participation, to radicalization, going through a process of revision after being expelled from Syria to end up at the front line of current political opposition in that country when many thought they had lost the battle and would only be allowed in the country once the regime decided it suited its aims. They recently showed a new stage in their evolution that opens the debate whether they are only pursuing certain objectives or they are indeed committed to democracy. Whatever the answer, their will to become political brokers in Syria is clear.
The Strategy and Goals of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Syrian Revolution
Preludes to the Islamic State: Contextualizing the Rise of Extremism in the Syrian Uprising, 2014
In March 2011, a popular uprising in Syria – following the lead of the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Bahrain – challenged the stability of the apparently unshakable Assad regime that had ruled Syria for the previous four decades. During that time, the absolute power of the security services, the high echelons of the Army and the core of the regime had only been challenged once. That was during the so-called Muslim Brotherhood uprising between 1976 and 1982, the study of which is beyond the scope of this writing, but which resulted in the ousting of the Brotherhood in Syria and the near elimination of their political and social role in the country. However, the beginning of the revolution in Syria in 2011 brought the Brotherhood back to the political scene, where they have played a very important role, various aspects of which are examined in this paper, which deals with the period from 2011 to mid-2013 although a short historical introduction to the past decade is provided for contextualisation purposes. Building on the analysis of this short period, it is the aim of this study to describe the strategy used by the Muslim Brotherhood to become a prominent political actor and the representative of the mainstream Islamic current in Syria, as well as stating their degree of success in achieving that. Due to the immediacy of the data and the ongoing changes to the political and strategic equation, this study is mostly based on primary sources such as interviews and direct testimonies as well as press releases and articles in the Brotherhood’s main official mouthpiece.
Syria Muslim Brotherhood After the Arab Spring
International Relations and Diplomacy, 2019
Since 2011, the Syria Muslim Brotherhood (SMB, hereafter) activism has been going through a shift at both political and military level. This paper explores various elements of this shift to explain the expansion of SMB political opportunity structure as well as the evolvement of their internal organizational structure and within the wider structure of the Syrian opposition and finally the framing approach adopted by the SMB to mobilize people and communities. The SMB's efforts to institutionalize the opposition in exile and mobilize a wider spectrum of the Syrian society including the poor and middle class have helped increase their popular bases. On the military front, SMB lack of needed experience and resources hinder their progress in the battle field. Nevertheless, SMB continued to verify its engagement strategies based on application of the opportunity and threat analysis which helped expanding its operational space as a political, military and social movement laying the ground for a presumably steady role of the SMB in the post conflict era.
Evolution through Revolution? : the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and the Syrian Uprising
2017
Syria’s peaceful uprising turned into an armed conflict with Assad’s lethal response to demonstrations demanding dignity and freedom. Looking for an oppositional Syrian political power who might have influenced dynamics on the ground, light was shed on the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (SMB). As dictatorships toppled in 2011 in the region and were replaced by MB-related parties such as in Egypt and Tunisia, the interest into the previously exiled SMB increased as a Syrian alternative. Research in this area was predominantly concerned with SMB’s history, and did not examine how the SMB’s shaped the ongoing events in Syria, and how in return, the conflict shaped the SMB. This thesis analyses, mainly through exclusive interviews, the SMB’s evolution as a prominent Syrian opposition group both on the domestic and international level. Findings show a shift in priorities within the organization from the hierarchal system to a wide-spectrum approach through various charitable, social and polit...
The Inclusion-Moderation Thesis: Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, 2019
The Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun) is one of the most popular and influential socioreligious movements in the Muslim world. Over the past century, the movement dominated the religious sphere in several countries, with its extraordinary ability to blend religion, politics, and activism. With its comprehensive and elastic ideology, disciplined structure, and enormous resources, the Muslim Brotherhood (hereafter, the Brotherhood) was able to galvanize and mobilize Muslims in order to achieve its political, social, and religious objectives. Over the past few years, the Brotherhood has been a subject of debate and disagreement among scholars, particularly regarding its ideology, tactics, and objectives. Also, scholars disagree whether the Brotherhood should be studied as a religious, social, or political movement. In fact, the multifaceted character of the Brotherhood, which is part of its very nature since the beginning, has something to do with this confusion and disagreeme...
Rowaq Arabi , 2020
The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has been experiencing an unprecedented wave of repression and political exclusion since the July 2013 coup d'état. This wave has led to a radical transformation in the Brotherhood's strategies and political conduct. Moreover, some documents it published proposed the use of violence as a legitimate method to fight back against the current regime. However, this radical transformation could be described as incomplete and temporary. Further, it was essentially triggered by the influence of the Group base and the mid-level leadership over the senior leaders, and not a strategic decision made by this senior leadership and then advocated and promoted within the organization. The dynamics of radicalization/de-radicalization in the Muslim Brotherhood's experience after the coup d'état shows the limitation of the inclusion/moderation theory. Several structural and actor-related factors are engaged in shaping social movements' options vis-a-vis political exclusion. This indicates the importance of including some other theories such as the rational choice and the political opportunity to understand and explain this conduct.