Muslim countries experience wide variation in levels of Islamist political mobilization, including such political activities as protest, voting, and violence. Institutional Origins of Islamist Political Mobilization provides a theory of the institutional origins of Islamist politics, focusing on the development of religious common knowledge, religious entrepreneurship, and coordinating focal points as critical to the success of Islamist activism. Examining Islamist politics in more than 50 countries over four decades, the book illustrates that Islamist political activism varies a great deal, appearing in specific types of institutional contexts. Detailed case studies of Turkey, Algeria, and Senegal demonstrate how diverse contexts yield different types of Islamist politics across the Muslim world.

This ethnography of contemporary Istanbul charts the success of Islamist mobilization through the eyes of ordinary people. Drawing on interviews gathered over twenty years of fieldwork, White focuses on the appeal of Islamic politics in the fabric of Turkish society and among mobilizing and mobilized elites, women, and educated populations.

In Peaceful Islamist Mobilization in the Muslim World: What Went Right , Julie Chernov Hwang presents a compelling and innovative new theory and framework for examining the variation in Islamist mobilization strategies in Muslim Asia and the Middle East.

"This book is a generational stocktaking over the contemporary state of political science research on the Middle East and North Africa. It presents the major theoretical developments that have unfolded since the Arab uprisings in 2011-12, while highlighting the critical knowledge and fruitful literatures that regional experts have contributed back to mainstream political science. It features nearly 50 regional specialists, whose twelve chapters tackle the prevailing themes that gird the contemporary study of Middle East politics. Among the many topics touched upon are authoritarianism and democracy, contentious politics, international relations, regional security, military institutions, conflict and violence, political economy, economic development, religion, Islamist movements, social identity, sectarian politics, public opinion, migration and refugees, and local politics and governance. Each chapter reviews key debates and pathbreaking findings, while presenting highly curated references that illustrate the breadth and depth of ongoing research agendas"--

This book aims to explore how Islamist parties mobilize debates, discourses, and environments in electoral authoritarian systems. Interrelating three theoretical schools, Electoral Authoritarianism Theory, Protest Voting Theory, and Political Process Theory, it adopts and expands on a demand-and-supply framework to approach the subject in a novel way, and adapts them to address North Africa, a region in which such theoretical scholarship has until now not been conducted. In-depth case studies focus on two Islamist parties in North Africa, Tunisia’s Ennahda and Algeria’s HMS, both of which adopted the Muslim Brotherhood model, had charismatic leaders, and were active in the political scene from 1989-2014, the period between their first electoral trial and their electoral participation after taking part in governance. The chapters proceed chronologically, providing a historical treatment of the evolution of Ennahda and the HMS since their inception and addressing their development in two and a half decades.

This book examines underexplored features of identity and their influence on group mobilization in violent and non-violent political settings. It contains improved empirical descriptions of what the tapestry of ethnicity and religion in the world looks like and offers new explanations for how religion leads to conflict within cultural traditions.

This new textbook explores the societies and populations of the Middle East and North Africa. Presenting original chapters written by the world’s leading Middle East scholars, it analyzes the social fabric of the region’s varied countries to uncover the organizing structures, human vulnerabilities, and dynamic forces that shape everyday lives. The volume can be used in conjunction with The Government and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa textbook for a comprehensive overview of the region. Whether used as a companion text or a standalone volume, this work provides the historical and cultural context necessary for understanding the peoples inhabiting Arab world, Israel, Turkey, and Iran, since the early twentieth century. Linking past to present to future, it also ascertains the ongoing developmental trajectories of these societies, including their overall stability and prosperity. The chapters are clearly structured, and contain insightful case studies, illustrative photographs, and visualized data. They also end with discussion questions and annotated bibliographies to help spark further research. Among the rich topics covered are the following: Rural life Civil society and personal identities Economic challenges, oil legacies, environmental harm Religious movements, women and gender, and youth politics. The Societies of the Middle East and North Africa is written in an accessible way, prioritizing social, cultural and economic dimensions. As such this textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to the field and will be invaluable to students of Middle Eastern politics and society, as well as sociology, history, economics and anthropology.

An original theory and meticulous analysis of how advocates of political secularization emerged historically and why they succeeded in some contexts but not others. Why do some countries adopt secular institutions while others do not? In The Origins of Secular Institutions, Zeynep Bulutgil develops a theory that combines ideational and organizational mechanisms to explain how institutional secularization occurs. She first focuses on why political groups with a secularizing agenda emerge. Her argument is that the circulation of Enlightenment literature among the elite and associations through which the elite could exchange ideas were the main factors that influenced the early emergence of secularizing political movements. She then turns to the conditions under which these movements succeed. Secularizing political groups are at a comparative disadvantage when it comes to recruiting grassroots support because, unlike religious actors, they cannot rely on a pre-existing institutional structure. They become likely to overcome this obstacle if they have time to build a robust organization before religious political movements emerge. Bulutgil supports these arguments by combining statistical analysis of original historical data with comparative analysis of countries in Europe (France, Spain, The United Kingdom) and the Middle East/North Africa (Turkey, Morocco, and Tunisia). An authoritative explanation of why political secularization occurred in some countries but not others, this book will reshape our understanding of an issue of unsurpassed importance for over two centuries: the effects of modernity on politics.

Are Islam and democracy on a collision course? Do Islamic movements seek to "hijack democracy?" How have governments in the Muslim world responded to the many challenges of Islam and democracy today? A global religious resurgence and calls for greater political participation have been major forces in the post-Cold War period. Across the Muslim world, governments and Islamic movements grapple with issues of democratization and civil society. Islam and Democracy explores the Islamic sources (beliefs and institutions) relevant to the current debate over greater political participation and democratization. Esposito and Voll use six case studies--Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Sudan--to look at the diversity of Muslim experiences and experiments. At one end of the spectrum, Iran and Sudan represent two cases of militant, revolutionary Islam establishing political systems. In Pakistan and Malaysia, however, the new movements have been recognized and made part of the political process. Egypt and Algeria reveal the coexistence of both extremist and moderate Islamic activism and demonstrate the complex challenges confronting ruling elites. These case studies prove that despite commonalities, differing national contexts and identities give rise to a multiplicity of agendas and strategies. This broad spectrum of case studies, reflecting the multifaceted relationship of Islam and Democracy, provides important insight into the powerful forces of religious resurgence and democratization which will inevitably impact global politics in the twenty first century.

The Sufi Muslim orders to which the vast majority of Senegalese belong are the most significant institutions of social organization in the country. While studies of Islam and politics have tended to focus on the destabilizing force of religiously based groups, Leonardo Villalon argues that in Senegal the orders have been a central component of a political system that has been among the most stable in Africa. Focusing on a regional administrative center, he combines a detailed account of grassroots politics with an analysis of national and international forces to examine the ways in which the internal dynamics of the orders shape the exercise of power by the Senegalese state. This is a major study that should be read by every student of Islam and politics as well as of Africa.