EVALUATIONS: Political Islam and Europe Views from the Arab Mediterranean States and Turkey
EVALUATIONS: Political Islam and Europe Views from the Arab Mediterranean States and Turkey

Author(s): Robert Springborg
Subject(s): Governance, Politics and religion
Published by: CEPS Centre for European Policy Studies
Keywords: Political Islam; Political Islam in Maghreb; Political Islam in Turkey;
Summary/Abstract: The social, political and even economic power of moderate Middle East Islamists has been growing for a generation or so, but the phenomenon was not given the attention it deserved by outside observers and policy-makers until the impressive recent electoral performances by Arab Islamists in Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco and, most recently, Bahrain. Earlier accomplishments at the polls by the Islamic Action Front in Jordan in 1989 and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey in 2002, although signalling the importance of political Islam, did not establish its status as the pre-eminent oppositional political force in the region. Now that status cannot be disputed. As a result, the question of how to deal with Islamists who reject violence, embrace democracy and outperform their competitors at the polls has become a central concern not only of incumbent Middle East elites, but of interested foreign actors as well.

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