Parties Inspired by Islam, Discursive Practices and Democracy - a Re-evaluation of the FIS

Abstract

This paper analyses the role of Orientalist discursive practices in promoting a particular understanding of parties inspired by Islamic principles which views them as inherently antithetical to democracy. By employing Michel Foucault’s ideas on discourse, knowledge and power and Edward Said’s Orientalism, this study shows how Orientalist ideas have been prevalent explicitly and implicitly in certain mainstream academic views on the subject. It shows how such a discourse was translated into material practice when it was employed by the Algerian regime when it felt threatened by the rise of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), and by Western political actors to justify their support for the authoritarian military-led Algerian regime during the Algerian Civil War. The paper attempts to de-orientalise our understanding of parties inspired by Islamic principles by not only uncovering the presence of an Orientalist discourse within certain academic works on the subjects, but also by proposing an alternative way of understanding them and evaluating their compatibility with democracy. The study re-evaluates the case of the FIS to demonstrate the importance of analysing each such party’s structure and organisation, aims and behaviour to ensure an understanding based on its specific context and historical experiences instead of Orientalist ideas or other flawed generalisations.