Islamic political parties in the aftermath of the Arab spring : a way to moderation?

Abstract

Almost half a century ago, Moderation Theory was developed to account for the Moderation of Christian Democratic and Communist parties. In the recent years, some scholars have also proved the applicability of the theory to foreshadow the moderation of Islamist parties. The Arab awakening roused the re-emergence of Islamist parties who were subjects of political repression and exclusion under the ousted regimes and their predecessors. The inclusion - moderation hypothesis suggests that as formerly excluded parties become intergrated within the formal political system, a process of moderation compels the parties to relax its conservative ideological stance, abandon violence and play by the rules of democracy. This thesis questions the applicability of the inclusion moderation hypothesis in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. The study uses the case studies of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Tunisia's Ennahda party. It understands moderation in terms of Khalil al-Anini's definition and it studies variables portraying the parties' decision-making and changing cultural narratives and changing organisational structures. Specifically, it studies the state openness to political participation, economic policies, constitution building and women's and minority rights. While the experience of our two case studies highlight different results, inclusion was not found to have resulted in moderation and that of the Muslim Brotherhood even stalled. This thesis concludes that the moderation of lslamist parties in the aftermath of the Arab Spring resulted from exclusion not inclusion.