Political Aspects of Contemporary Islamism

Political Aspects of Contemporary Islamism


Grinin L.Ye.,

Leading Researcher of the Laboratory for Destabilization Risk Monitoring, National Research University Higher School of Economics; Principal Researcher, Institute for Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, leonid.grinin@gmail.com


elibrary_id: 250272 | ORCID: 0000-0003-0278-2619 | RESEARCHER_ID: D-8842-2012

Korotayev A.V.,

Professor, Head of Socio-Political Destabilization Risk Monitoring Laboratory, National Research University Higher School of Economics; Professor, Faculty of Global Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, akorotayev@gmail.com


elibrary_id: 72980 | ORCID: 0000-0003-3014-2037 | RESEARCHER_ID: N-1160-2018


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2019.06.07

For citation:

Grinin L.Ye., Korotayev A.V. Political Aspects of Contemporary Islamism. – Polis. Political Studies. 2019. No. 6. P. 81-94. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2019.06.07


The study has been supported by a grant of the Russian Science Foundation (project No. 14-18-03615).


Abstract

It is impossible to understand modern Islamic (especially Arab) societies without taking into account the influence of Islamism as an ideology, cultural environment, mode of action, and lifestyle. Unfortunately, Islamism in many ways has remained a "phenomenon lurking behind the surface." In this article we will focus on the analysis of some political aspects of modern Islamism, showing how Islamism behaves when in opposition (where it feels more confident) and what happens when Islamists come to power in a legitimate way. We would like to show that Islamism is not something superficial, but the deepest and most comprehensive substance of Islamic societies. Therefore, it is extremely important to distinguish between radical and moderate Islamism, relying on the latter to weaken the former, since moderate Islamism can grow to be a positive and promising part of the political spectrum of Islamic countries. We believe that it is impossible to reduce the danger of radical terrorist Islamism by force alone. We can hope that this will decline if it can be divided by moderate Islamism and make the latter more respectable, open, and involved in normal political life.

Keywords
Islamism, radical Islamism, moderate Islamism, fundamentalism, the Middle East, Islamic societies, politicized Islam.


References

Achilov D. 2015. When Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Examining Collective Political Protests in Central Asia. – Democratization. Vol. 23. No. 4. P. 699-722. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2015.1012504

Achilov D. 2016. Revisiting Political Islam: Explaining the Nexus between Political Islam and Contentious Politics in the Arab World. – Social Science Quarterly. Vol. 97. No. 2. P. 252-270. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12232

Achilov D., Sen S. 2017. Got Political Islam? Are Politically Moderate Muslims Really Different from Radicals? – International Political Science Review. Vol. 38. No. 5. P. 608-624. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512116641940

Amin H. 2016. Post Islamism: Pakistan in the Era of Neoliberal Globalization. Islamabad: International Islamic University.

Ayoob M. 2009. The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim World. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Bayat A. 2007. Islam and Democracy: What is the Real Question? ISIM Paper 8. Leiden: Amsterdam University Press.

Bayat A. 2013. Post-Islamism: the Changing Face of Political Islam. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Bisk T. 2015. The War on Islamism. – Lone Actors – An Emerging Security Threat. Ed. by A. Richman, Y. Sharan. Amsterdam: IOS Press. P. 132-145.

Denoeux G. 2002. The Forgotten Swamp: Navigating Political Islam. – Middle East Policy. Vol. 9. No. 2. P. 56-81. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-4967.00057

Fuller G.E. 2004. The Future of Political Islam. New York, NY: Macmillan.

Goldstone J.A. 2001. Toward a Fourth Generation of Revolutionary Theory. Annual Review of Political Science. Vol. 4. P. 139-187. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.4.1.139

Goldstone J.A. 2011. Understanding the Revolutions of 2011. – Foreign Affairs. Vol. 90. No. 3. P. 8-16.

Holdo M. 2017. Post-Islamism and Fields of Contention after the Arab Spring: Feminism, Salafism and the Revolutionary Youth. – Third World Quarterly. Vol. 38. No. 8. P. 1800-1815. https://doi.org/10.1080/014 36597.2016.1233492

Hossain A.A. 2016. Islamism, Secularism and Post-Islamism: the Muslim World and the Case of Bangladesh. – Asian Journal of Political Science. Vol. 24. No. 2. P. 214-236. https://doi.org/10.1080/02185377 .2016.1185954

Kelsay J. 2007. Arguing the Just War in Islam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kepel G. 1987. Les banlieues de l’Islam: naissance d’une religion en France. Seuil; Paris.

Kepel G. 2000. Jihad. Expansion et de ́clin de l’islamisme. Paris: Gallimard.

Ketchley N. 2017. Egypt in a Time of Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kurzman C. 1998. Liberal Islam: A Source Book. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

March A.F. 2015. Political Islam: Theory. Annual Review of Political Science. No. 18. P. 103-123.

Osman T. 2016. Islamism: What it Means for the Middle East and the World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Poljarevic E. 2015. Islamism. – The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics. Ed. by E. El-Din Shahin. Oxford: Oxford Islamic Studies.

Rahim L.Z. 2011.Towards a Post-Islamist Secular Democracy in the Muslim World. Paper Presented at the Contemporary Challenges of Politics Research Workshop, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Coogee Beach, NSW, Australia, 31 October.

Rajaee F. 2007. Islamism and Modernism: the Changing Discourse in Iran. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Sanderson S.K. 2010. Revolutions. A Worldwide Introduction to Social and Political Contention. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

Schwedler J. 2011. Can Islamists Become Moderates? Rethinking the Inclusion-Moderation Hypothesis. – World Politics. Vol. 63. No. 2. P. 347-376. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0043887111000050

Tibi B. 2012. Islamism and Islam. New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press.

Tibi B. 2013. The Islamist Venture of the Politicization of Islam to an Ideology of Islamism: A Critique of the Dominating Narrative in Western Islamic Studies. – Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Vol. 96. No. 4. P. 431-449.

Tilly C. 1978. From Mobilization to Revolution. New York: McCraw-Hill.

Ugur E. 2017. Islamists and the Politics of Democratization: Evidence from Turkey. – Contemporary Islam. Vol. 11. No. 2. P. 137-155. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-017-0380-z

Volpi F., Stein E. 2015. Islamism and the State after the Arab Uprisings: Between People Power and State Power. – Democratization. Vol. 22. No. 2. P. 276-293. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2015.1010811

Weiss M. 2010. Southeast Asia’s Muslim Majority Democracies: Elections and Islamism Outside the MENA Region. – Taiwan Journal of Democracy. Vol. 6. No. 1. P. 81-106.

Woltering R.A.F.L. 2002. The Roots of Islamist Popularity. – Third World Quarterly. Vol. 23. No. 6. P. 1133-1143. https://doi.org/10.1080/0143659022000036612

 

Chekrizova O.P. 2013. Trends in Evolution of Pakistan’s Islamism. – MGIMO Review of International Relations. Vol. 5. No. 32. P. 108-117. (In Russ.)

Dolgov B.V. 2015. Radikal’nyi islamizm v Alzhire [Radical Islamism in Algeria]. – Islamskie radikal’nye dvizheniya na politicheskoi karte sovremennogo mira. Strany Severnoi i Severo-Vostochnoi Afriki. Pod red. A.D. Savateeva, E.F. Kisrieva [Islamic Radical Movements on the Political Map of the Modern World. Countries of North and North-East Africa. Ed. by A.D. Savateev, E.F. Kisriev]. Moscow: Lenand. P. 229-259. (In Russ.)

Grinin L.Ye. 2017. The Russian Revolution and Modernization Traps. – Polis. Political Studies. No. 4. P. 138-155. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2017.04.10

Huntington S.P. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Russ. ed.: Huntington S.P. Stolknovenie tsivilizatsii. Moscow: AST).

Ignatenko A. 2004. Islam i politika [Islam and Politics]. Moscow: Institut religii i politiki. (In Russ.)

Khairullin T.R. 2018. Islamistskie proekty kak instrument bor’by za liderstvo v arabskom regione: dis. … kand. polit. Nauk [Islamic Projects as a Tool for the Struggle for Leadership in the Arab Region. Ph.D. Thesis (Pol. Sci.)]. Moscow: Institut Afriki RAN. (In Russ.)

Khairullin T.R., Korotaev A.V. 2017a. Islam and the Yemeni Constitutions: Experience of Comparative Analysis. – Asia and Africa Today. No. 5. P. 43-48. (In Russ.)

Khairullin T.R., Korotaev A.V. 2017b. The Iraqi Constitution of 2005 and the Principles of Islam. – Islam in the Modern World. Vol. 13. No. 2. P. 139-152. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22311/2074-1529-2017-13-2-139-152

Landa R.G., Savateev A.D. 2015. Politicheskii islam v stranakh Severnoi Afriki [Political Islam in North Africa]. – Islamskie radikal’nye dvizheniya na politicheskoi karte sovremennogo mira. Vyp. 1. Strany Severnoi i Severo-Vostochnoi Afriki. Otv. red. A.D. Savateev, E.F. Kisriev [Islamic Radical Movements on the Political Map of the Modern World. Vol. 1. Countries of North and North-East Africa. Ed. by A.D. Savateev, E.F. Kisriev]. Moscow: Lenand. P. 126-180. (In Russ.)

Levin Z.I. 2014. Ocherki prirody islamizma [Essays on the Nature of Islamizm]. Moscow: IV RAN. (In Russ.)

Malashenko A.V. 2015. Islamizm kak dolgosrochnyi faktor global’noi politiki [Islamism as a Long-Term Factor in Global Politics]. – Islamskie radikal’nye dvizheniya na politicheskoi karte sovremennogo mira. T. 1. Strany Severnoi i Severo-Vostochnoi Afriki. Otv. red. A.D. Savateev, E.F. Kisriev [Islamic Radical Movements on the Political Map of the Modern World. Vol. 1. Countries of North and North-East Africa. Ed. by A.D. Savateev, E.F. Kisriev]. Moscow: Lenand. P. 97-126. (In Russ.)

Mirskii G.I. 2015. Radikal’nyi islamizm: ideino-politicheskaya motivatsiya i vliyanie na mirovoe mu­sul’manskoe soobshchestvo [Radical Islamism: Ideological and Political Motivation and Influence on the World Muslim Community]. – Doklad Mezhdunarodnogo diskussionnogo kluba “Valdai” [Report of the Valdai International Discussion Club]. (In Russ.)

Orlov V.V. 2015. Marokko: sherifskaya monarkhiya kak opponent radikalizma [Morocco: Sheriff Monarchy as an Opponent of Radicalism]. – Islamskie radikal’nye dvizheniya na politicheskoi karte sovre­mennogo mira. T. 1. Strany Severnoi i Severo-Vostochnoi Afriki. Otv. red. A.D. Savateev, E.F. Kisriev [Islamic Radical Movements on the Political Map of the Modern World. Vol. 1. Countries of North and North-East Africa. Ed. by A.D. Savateev, E.F. Kisriev]. Moscow: Lenand. P. 285-324. (In Russ.)

Seregichev S.Yu. 2015. Politicheskii islam v Sudane: istoriya, idei, praktika [Political Islam in Sudan: History, Ideas, Practice]. – Islamskie radikal’nye dvizheniya na politicheskoi karte sovremennogo mira. T. 1. Strany Severnoi i Severo-Vostochnoi Afriki. Otv. red. A.D. Savateev, E.F. Kisriev [Islamic Radical Movements on the Political Map of the Modern World. Vol. 1. Countries of North and North-East Africa. Ed. by A.D. Savateev, E.F. Kisriev]. Moscow: Lenand. P. 367-404. (In Russ.)

Tsaregorodtseva I.A. 2017. Islamskii aktivizm: osnovnye etapy razvitiya ideologii. – Islamskie radi­kal’nye dvizheniya na politicheskoi karte mira. Vyp. 2. Severnyi i Yuzhnyi Kavkaz. Pod red. A.D. Savateeva, N.A. Neflyashevoi, E.F. Kisrieva [Islamic Radical Movements on the Political Map of the World. Vol. 2. North and South Caucasus. Ed. by A.D. Savateev, N.A. Neflyasheva, E.F. Kisriev]. Moscow: Institut Afriki RAN. P. 93-111. (In Russ.)

Vasetsova E.S. 2017. Algeria in the Context of Regional Security in the Middle East. – Age of Globalization. Journal of Global Studies. No. 4. P. 82–91. (In Russ.)

Vasil’ev A.M. 1967. Puritane islama? Vakhkhabizm i pervoe gosudarstvo Saudidov v Aravii (1744/45–1818) [Puritans of Islam? Wahhabism and the First Saudi State in Arabia (1744/45–1818)]. Moscow: Nauka. (In Russ.)

Vasil’ev A.M. 2017. Islamskii ekstremizm: opasnosti real’nye i mnimye [Islamic Extremism: Real and Imaginary Dangers]. – Islamskie radikal’nye dvizheniya na politicheskoi karte mira. Vyp. 2. Severnyi i Yuzhnyi Kavkaz. Pod red. A.D. Savateeva, N.A. Neflyashevoi, E.F. Kisrieva [Islamic Radical Movements on the Political Map of the World. Vol. 2. North and South Caucasus. Ed. by A.D. Savateev, N.A. Neflyasheva, E.F. Kisriev]. Moscow: Institut Afriki RAN. P. 33-54. (In Russ.)

Content No. 6, 2019

See also:


Mirsky G.I.,
“Political Islam” and Western Society. – Polis. Political Studies. 2002. No1

Mirsky G.I.,
Islam and a Nation: the Near East and Central Asia. – Polis. Political Studies. 1998. No2

Sergeev V.M., Sarukhanyan S.N.,
The Middle East in search of a new regional center. – Polis. Political Studies. 2012. No2

Stepanyants M.T.,
In Search of National Model of Development: Appealing to Archaization. – Polis. Political Studies. 2016. No6

Grinin L.Ye., Korotayev A.V.,
Revolution vs. Democracy (revolution and conterrevolution in Egypt). – Polis. Political Studies. 2014. No3


Screen version