Abstract This article delves into the impact of digital activism on the leadership style of female-led non-governmental organisations operating under restricted access to opportunities. The focus is on Muslim sisterhood activism, examining the shift from offline to online activism led by the younger generation. The article analyses the barriers that have historically prevented Muslim sisterhood activists from playing leadership roles within the Muslim Brotherhood group and compares offline and online leadership roles using the case study of the Revolutionary Coalition for Egyptian Women from 2014 to 2023, with a focus on 2014. The study reveals that the younger generation of Muslim women has adopted a language that prioritises self-representation and body politics over religious discourse, indicating a heightened awareness of gender politics during the period between 2014 and 2023. To overcome state-imposed restrictions, the younger generation of the Muslim sisterhood has contradicted their well-established values on women’s roles and focused their political agendas on regaining popularity in Egyptian society. By exploring the impact of different political opportunities on women’s leadership roles through the political process paradigm, this article bridges a gap in the literature on resistant politics, feminism, leadership, and digital activism. The study shows that the younger generation of Muslim women is spearheading a strategic change in the resistant activist discourse, utilising the new digital space for activism to promote their cause.

Abstract This paper traces the rise of sectarianism in the Syrian governorate of Deir Ezzor from the 1970s up to the current civil war. To this end, this research will focus on answering two main questions: “what factors made sectarianism prevalent in Deir Ezzor after 2003?” and “how did attempts by the Syrian regime, Iran, and Islamists to use sectarianism to mobilize people, lead to the catastrophe in Deir Ezzor during the Syrian civil war?” The primordial framework that considers sectarianism to be a consequence of age-old religious differences between Sunni and Shiʿite Muslims is rejected in this paper. This paper shows that a better understanding of sectarianism can be found through a synthesis of instrumentalism and historical sociology. The historical sociology framework provides an understanding of how adverse socioeconomic conditions and security threats in Deir Ezzor led to the rise of sectarianism, whilst instrumentalism explains how the regime, Iran, and the Islamists used sectarian identities to retain control over the population of Deir Ezzor.

Abstract At the beginning of the 2010s, several Arab countries seemed about to follow the model of Turkey, with an electoral victory of Islamist parties in a context of democratization. A decade later, Turkish akp has turned authoritarian, and the Moroccan and Tunisian Islamist parties have lost both access to governmental office and a large part of their electoral appeal. In this context, lessons can be learned from the early failed democratic experience in Algeria (1989–1992), and from the evolution of its Islamist movements since then. From these four case studies, the contributors of this issue investigate the notions of moderation and inclusion, and their interrelations. Their articles build on the current trends within literature by taking into account the variety of Islamist movements, and their incorporation within different national trajectories. These articles contribute to the academic discussion by bringing new facts and ideas regarding this topic of inclusion-moderation.

Abstract This article explores the complex dynamics shaping the integration of the Tunisian Islamist party Ennahdha into the instituted political game. Drawing on a strategic relational approach, the analysis highlights the simultaneous, mutually reactive, and often conflicting relationships of Ennahdha party with three types of actors: political secular forces (allied or antagonist), political and religious Salafi actors, and faith-based associations. Based on extensive field research and 33 in-depth interviews conducted with key players involved, we propose to capture these dynamics at the macro (regime), meso (organizations), and micro levels, through the notion of strategic pluralization, by which we mean a reconfiguration of Ennahdha’s relations with various Islamic actors under the pressure of secular forces. Going beyond institutional-structural approaches and monolithic interpretations of the Islamist constellation, we argue that Ennahdha’s integration in relational economies has formed the basis of the party’s strategy to secure its political inclusion in the post-revolutionary scene.

Abstract This article presents the case of Turkey within the framework of this special issue entitled “On Islamist Parties and the Inclusion-Moderation Hypothesis”. I argue that rather than a distinction between the concepts of “tactical” and “ideological” moderation that the literature talks about, a distinction between the concepts of an “inclusionary-populist” and “moderate Islamist” party could provide a more useful insight over the role of Islamist and post-Islamist parties in democratization and de-democratization processes. Through a re-analysis of the secondary literature and a content analysis of 196 newspaper columns written by three pro-democracy intellectuals, I label the akp’s transition period from moderate-Islamism toward authoritarianism as its inclusionary populist phase. I show that in contexts marked by deep ideological divisions and unconsolidated democratic institutions, a shift in party identity from moderate-Islamism toward inclusionary populism can be taken as the early signal of an unfolding process of autocratization.

Abstract This article focuses on the transformations of Algerian Islamist parties, placing them in a dynamic context. Having undergone both phases since the fall of the ruling party in 1989, Algeria furnishes a case study for analyzing the conditions and challenges of the inclusion and exclusion of Islamist parties. The synchronic and diachronic construction of the Algerian case, combined with a comprehensive and inductive approach, thus allows us to contribute to the inclusion-moderation debate on multiple empirical, methodological, and conceptual levels. Only this dual approach makes it possible to grasp the changes and continuities in the ideology and modes of action of the Islamist parties as well as the evolution of how the regime integrated or excluded them from the political arena. On the level of defining moderation and radicalization, it allows us to differentiate between, on the one hand, political labelling by the various Islamist or non-Islamist actors and institutionally defined legal criteria and, on the other hand, academic concepts. This calls for adopting a dual analysis: what we term a radicalization within the institutional arena (by subverting the foundations of the state, i.e., the Islamic state project) and a radicalization from outside it (by armed violence). In this framework, the political exclusion of an Islamist party correlates closely not with its intrinsic radicality but with the crossing of an electoral threshold, which sets the stage for implementing its radical program. Knowing how the civilian and military authorities assess this threat is thus essential for understanding the exclusionary and inclusionary processes. Next, we must differentiate between inclusion in the electoral game, which is accepted, and inclusion in the executive branch, on which the Islamist parties are internally conflicted. Finally, it behooves us to show that the moderation of programs and modes of action does not stem from (prior) inclusion in the political game, but instead results from a new institutional constraint. It produces specific effects, namely partisan fragmentation, and ambivalence about the identity of Islamist parties.

Abstract The Middle East faces ongoing challenges in democratization and in corruption. This article examines the influence of wasta – a Middle Eastern form of clientelism – on citizens’ political attitudes. Although wasta is situated between citizen services and corruption, many citizens view wasta as corrupt. Using Arab Barometer survey data, this article shows that the widespread use of wasta in the Middle East makes citizens less satisfied with their current largely non-democratic governments. Wasta also increases their interest in democracy as an egalitarian alternative regime structure. Wasta users, however, are protective of the personal advantages that wasta networks afford them. Widespread wasta thus represents a challenge to democratization.

Abstract An efficient, impartial, and independent judiciary is a major demand for Moroccan citizens. In online advocacy, citizens denounce the flawed judiciary, sometimes virally circulating content on its corruption and susceptibility to interference. On tv, non-fiction programs respond to frequent requests for legal advice from audiences. Meanwhile, dramas employ frames that reflect codes on how society should perceive the judiciary and the rule of law. This article assesses the dominant frames of the judiciary on tv dramas. Two programs, Moudāwala and Al-Māḍī Lā Yamūt, are selected based on their relevance and popularity. The qualitative analysis of these programs incorporates character and narrative portrayals into thematic and frame analyses. As the two programs illustrate judicial struggles from within and without, they exemplify portrayals of the legal system that uncover discrepancies between normative practices and ruthless realities. The judiciary’s dominant frames focus on individual solutions and blame citizens for ignoring judicial texts or institutions. Frames reflect how media avoid watchdogging the judiciary and extend, directly or otherwise, hegemony over both the judiciary and the media.

Abstract The article analyzes multiparty coalition governments under authoritarian tutelage in Morocco and Algeria. While in Morocco multiparty coalition governments are just a means for the King to dress their windows, in Algeria they represent a new arena of power bargaining. In both cases, portfolio allocation follows the Gamson’s law but cases of advantage for the formateur are also given. Nonetheless, the parties included in multiparty coalition governments are almost always regime-controlled ones, as is the case in Algeria, or encounter reserved domains constitutionally defined, as is the case in Morocco. Moreover, in both cases the democratic potential intrinsic to multiparty coalition governments is defused by preventing grassroots parties to access top-weighted ministerial portfolios and by envisaging a relevant role for non-party ministries. This renders cabinet positions hardly contestable and adds up to the durability of multiparty coalition governments while making them barely apt at channeling grassroots demands for political change.

Abstract How do power-sharing governing coalitions work in the context of politicized identities and external pressures? And how do they emerge, develop, and disintegrate when governing parties share power in the context of colliding agendas? Working on the premise that coalition governments may be messy constellations of power, rather than rational avenues for deliberation, this article explores the politics of coalitions in the Middle East as a case of adversarial power-sharing, or what we frame as ‘forced marriages.’ We focus on Yemen and Lebanon, two polities that have developed power-sharing arrangements in conflict-laden environments, albeit under different circumstances and logics of state-building. We argue that while both countries are different on a wide range of variables, they have broader lessons to convey on the ways coalition governments perform and the policy consequences they yield. Throughout both countries’ political history, coalition governance patterns have led to political fragmentation and policy gridlock. However, the puzzle is that notwithstanding antagonistic policy agendas and despite popular disaffection with ruling arrangements, coalition governments have kept re-emerging. This requires an incisive look into the relational and complex dynamics that sustain their logic.