Party Of Justice And Development Research Articles

Islamist populism? Exploring the MENA region from a comparative and empirical perspective

ABSTRACT Based on the Global Party Survey (GPS) database, this research article explores the interaction between populism and Islamism in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) party systems. Drawing on the ideational approach to populism, this analysis shows that Islamist parties do not share a common populist profile. Rather, we can speak of three broad profiles according tSalamanca, Spain, Institute of Iberoamericao the three main dimensions of populism. While the Moroccan Party of Justice and Development (PJD) displays a populism dominated by people-centrism, the Rally of Algerian Hope (TAJ), the Tunisian En-Nahda (EN), and the Jordanian Islamic Action Front (IAF) profiles are dominated by anti-elitism. On the other hand, the Turkish Justice and Development Party (AKP) is heavily influenced by Erdogan’s leadership and its strongman impetus.

What does the PJD learn from the outside? International factors and Islamist politics in Morocco

ABSTRACT This article explores the interaction between international and domestic arenas by studying the mechanisms through which domestic actors incorporate international factors into their strategic decisions. More specifically, it investigates whether and how the international context, regional examples, and third-party actors’ foreign policies impact the process of inclusion of the Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD) into Moroccan political institutions. The main contention is that the PJD selectively incorporates international experiences and insights. This article examines this dynamic by investigating the interplay of two main mechanisms, learning and adaptation, that connect internationally generated experiences and circumstances and the PJD’s strategic decisions. It focuses on three main phases of the PJD’s inclusion process: (a) the party’s first steps in the parliament (1996–1999), (b) the first years of the reign of Mohamed VI (1999–2010), and (c) the PJD’s electoral victories after the 2011 regional anti-authoritarian protests (since 2011–2012).

Bipolarisation of the Moroccan political party arena? Refuting this idea through an analysis of the party system

ABSTRACT The campaign for the October 7, 2016 election of the Moroccan House of Representatives, during which media attention was focused on the competition between the Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD) and the secular Party of Authenticity and Modernity (PAM), resulted in a narrow victory of the former over the latter. This led journalists and scholars to speak of a ‘bipolarisation’ of the political party arena in Morocco. This article aims to empirically verify such assertion by analysing the characteristics of the party system that emerged out of the Moroccan 2016 elections. Findings reveal that, despite the high party system fragmentation and the ideological and political differences between the PJD and PAM, the Moroccan party system cannot be classified as bipolar for three main reasons: there are no alliances or coalitions of opposing parties that are stable over time, and that alternate in the government; third political parties possess political ‘blackmail’ and coalition potential in the process of government formation; and the direction of party competition is centripetal, given the need for parties to be moderate if they wish to gain influence within the political system. The authoritarian nature of the political regime and the ‘executive monarchy’ form of government are the core factors that account for the absence of bipolarisation within the Moroccan party system.

Moroccan foreign policy after the Arab Spring: a turn for the Islamists or persistence of royal leadership?

ABSTRACTThis article explores the power balance between the Moroccan monarchy and the Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD) particularly within the field of Foreign Policy, in order to determine the extent to which the foreign policy decision-making process has changed since the 2011 constitutional reforms. More specifically, it investigates how the limited duality between the king and the government works in practice, beyond the legal text. Our contention is that both the revisited architecture as well as the implementation of the 2011 Constitution minimise the agency of the government and preserve the preponderance of the king and his entourage in matters of foreign policy. We examine this dynamic through a two-step analysis which, first, determines the patterns of Morocco's foreign policy with regards to its traditional allies in Europe and the Gulf and its growing relationship with non-traditional partners like China and, second, investigates whether these patterns apply to the kingdom's most recent foreign policy decisions in 2016 and 2017. We do this by undertaking an in-depth analysis of the kingdom's rapidly-changing relationship with Africa and Russia. This analysis allows us to closely examine and shed light on the main strategies of Morocco's foreign policy in a turbulent regional and international context; the central role of the king and the ambiguous decision-making process; and the relevance of new actors (technocratic and economic elites) and novel tools (economic and cultural diplomacies).

A real electoral duel between the P.J.D. and the P.A.M.? Analysing constituency-level competitiveness in the 2016 Moroccan elections

ABSTRACTThis article examines electoral competitiveness between the two main contenders in Morocco’s 2016 legislative elections, i.e. the Islamist Party of Justice and Development (P.J.D.) and the pro-monarchy Party of Authenticity and Modernity (P.A.M.). In contrast with electoral results at the national level, which reflect a high parliamentary competitiveness between these two parties, the analysis of competitiveness at the local constituency level (92 electoral districts) leads to quite different conclusions. The degree of local standard competitiveness between the P.J.D. and the P.A.M. was generally very low and, in most of the districts, the Islamists held a large advantage over the P.A.M. Other third parties also played a significant role and became the voters’ first or second choice in some districts, with the effect of increasing parliamentary fragmentation and decreasing competitiveness between the P.J.D. and the P.A.M. Thus, the proportional system used in a large number of districts contributed to achieving the monarchy’s aim of avoiding a predominant party. Also, the central role played by the loyalist National Rally of Independents (R.N.I.) in blocking the coalition government talks after the elections questions the idea that the Moroccan party system is becoming polarized between the P.J.D. and the P.A.M.

Islamist Women as Candidates in Elections: A Comparison of the Party of Justice and Development in Morocco and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt

This paper examines the legislative recruitment of women from conservative Islamist parties. It questions the common assumption that generally all Islamist parties are equally hostile to political participation and representation of women. For this purpose, two of the electorally most successful Islamist groups in the MENA region are compared, namely the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and its Moroccan offshoot, the Party of Justice and Development (PJD). The article seeks an explanation for diverging trends in female candidacy between these conservative religious movements, using the traditional supply and demand model of candidate selection. It argues that the less centralized and the more institutionalized parties (as is the case with the PJD) seem to be better equipped to facilitate women’s candidacy than the more oligarchic ones (the MB). In order to fully grasp the reasons behind the diverging trends in the nomination of female candidates from both Islamist parties, cultural factors are scrutinized as well. The article highlights the limits of the supply and demand model of candidate selection, which cannot explain instances of unexpected change in recruitment strategies based on external interference. Furthermore, it does not provide us the means to assess the impact of individual candidates’ ‘feminist credentials’ on overall female representation.

Of Monarchs and Islamists: The ‘Refo-lutionary’ Promise of the PJD Islamists and Regime Control in Morocco

The article engages the literature on political parties in semi-authoritarian regimes to examine the state and Islamists’ strategies in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab uprisings in Morocco. The pace of state reforms and the regime’s institutional flexibility pre-Arab spring, the cosmetic reforms in the new constitution, and the 2011 legislative elections so far have insulated the Moroccan regime against any meaningful constitutional and institutional changes. However, the electoral contests produced an opportunity for the Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD) to enter the Moroccan political scene at the helm of the government. Using extensive field research and interviews with PJD members, I argue that the party is pursuing a pragmatic ‘refolutionary’ strategy within the regime’s constitutional rules of the game, aiming to mitigate the authoritarian features of the government while tackling, with limited success, Morocco’s major socio-economic issues. Ultimately, the regime’s control over the political system continues to influence Moroccan politics. The monarchy has a long tradition of managing opposition parties through cooptation and confinement, allowing opposition parties some stake in power, while the king and the palace’s shadow government of advisers are firmly in control.

The Moroccan Monarchy and the Islam-oriented PJD: Pragmatic Cohabitation and the Need for Islamic Political Secularism

This paper aims to analyze the political relationship between the Moroccan monarchy and the moderate Islam-oriented Party of Justice and Development (PJD), which has been in power since 2011. The research methodology involves an in-depth case analysis and relies on a substantial number of primary and secondary sources such as official speeches, official political statements, journal articles and newspapers. The study finds the relationship between the PJD and the monarchy inconsistent, similar to the PJD’s relationship with other political parties. The paper argues that adopting an approach based on an Islamic political secularism that considers Morocco’s specific political realities may ease tension between the PJD on the one hand and the monarchy and other parties on the other.

The infusion of Islam into pluralistic politics: The need to explore the Islamist identity beyond ideological boundaries – The case of the Moroccan Party of Justice and Development

This article analyzes the discourse of the Moroccan Party of Justice and Development (PJD) on the plan to integrate women into development. Analysis is grounded in Paul Chilton’s two main analytical approaches, namely, the strategic use of language and the dimension of deixis. The latter provides a central theoretical construct and is a valuable tool for analyzing identity in the context of the PJD since political actors from this perspective are situated with respect to a particular time, place, and group. The deictic and strategic components of the selected corpus are assessed, thereby digging deeply into the representational dimension of language use by the party as well as the construction of reality about particular meaning categories and events. The aim is to explore the Islamist discourse beyond the taken-for-granted assumption that it is mainly premised on ideology, which ultimately reduces the Islamist experience to an ideological frame that is dissociated from the context where it lies situated. The current article presents a case study of the Moroccan Islamist PJD from this perspective to help de-emphasize the ideology with which research on political Islam has been mainly concerned. This in turn highlights the processes of meaning making and identity building as well as contributes potentially to more analytical gains in the study of political discourse.

Cultural production and cultural patronage in Morocco: the state, the Islamists, and the field of culture

This article analyses patronage as the context and framework for the functioning of cultural production in postcolonial Morocco. In particular, it focuses on the ideological and the political underpinnings of different state patronage schemes before and in the aftermath of the Arab Spring and the accession to government of the Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD). The argument is that the power struggle between the state (spearheaded by the monarchy) and the PJD translates in the field of culture into a debate about al-fān anādhīf (‘clean art’) versus obscurantism. While the PJD activists proclaim al-fān anādhīf as the conceptual framework for assessing art and cultural production, their secular opponents accuse them of plotting to curb creative freedom and institutionalize an obscurantist cultural project. The article discusses the ambivalent relationship between cultural workers and state institutions, contextualizes the politics of state patronage as it relates to music festivals and film, highlights a sample of alternative forms of patronage, and reflects on the future of cultural production in the post-Arab Spring environment. ملخصتتناول هذه الورقة مسألة الرعاية باعتبارها سياقا وإطارا لاشتغال الإنتاج الثقافي في مغرب ما بعد الكولونيالية. وتركز بالخصوص على الأسس الإيديولوجية والسياسية لمختلف مشاريع الرعاية التي تدعمها الدولة في فترة ما ما قبل و ما بعد الربيع العربي ودخول حزب العدالة والتنمية للحكومة. وتدافع الورقة على الأطروحة التالية وهي أن صراع السلطة بين الدولة بزعامة الملكية والإسلاميين بقيادة حزب العدالة والتنمية تتم ترجمتها في الحقل الثقافي من خلال التقاطب الذي يحصل بخصوص الفن النظيف والظلامية. فبينما يسعى الإسلاميون إلى إشاعة مفهوم الفن النظيف كإطار لتقييم الإنتاج الثقافي، يتهمهم خصومهم بالعمل على تقويض حرية الإبداع والعمل على مأسسة مشروع ثقافي ظلامي. وتناقش الورقة كذلك العلاقة الملتبسة بين العاملين في الحقل الثقافي ومؤسسات الدولة، وتقف عند سياقات سياسة رعاية الدولة في علاقتها بمهرجانات الموسيقى والسينما، وتتطرق إلى نماذج من أشكال الرعاية البديلة مع إبداء بعض الملاحظات بخصوص مستقبل الإنتاج الثقافي في أجواء ما بعد الربيع العربي.‏

Islamist opposition in authoritarian regimes: the Party of Justice and Development in Morocco

What electoral mobilization choices do Islamist opposition parties make? How do they relate to authoritarian incumbents? Which key factors influence the choices these parties make? This explores the answers to these questions by studying the path of the Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD) in Morocco from 1992 to 2007.

Left–Islamist Opposition Cooperation in Morocco

This contribution studies the different preferences of Moroccan Islamists and leftists for cooperating with each other. The Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD) has been actively seeking an alliance with the leftist Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) since 2007. The USFP's national leadership has avoided any form of cooperation with the Islamists at the national level, but had to tolerate government coalitions at the local level. We find that the most important driver behind the USFP's reluctance to ally with the Islamists is its co-optation. The asymmetry in electoral strength and differences in the type of electoral support the two parties enjoy also appear to be important reasons behind the different party preferences. For the PJD, its superior electoral support and the higher degree of programmatic support it enjoys suggest that it expects to be successful in democratic elections, while the opposite seems to be the case for the USFP. Ideology, by contrast, was found to be of little importance in determining the positions of the national PJD or USFP leadership towards cross-party cooperation. The analysis is based on original field research conducted in Morocco and on data from the World Values Survey.

Islamist moderation without democratization: the coming of age of the Moroccan Party of Justice and Development?

This article studies a novel factor relevant for the moderation of an Islamist party: the degree of dependency on a social movement organization. This question is examined in a case study analysing the evolution of the relationship between the Moroccan Islamist party, Party of Justice and Development (PJD), and its founding social movement organization. Over time, the PJD has been gaining autonomy, becoming more moderate and simultaneously gaining strength. Contemporaneously, liberalization in Morocco has been partially reversed, partly as a result of the rising Islamist strength. These findings suggest that it is the strength of the Islamist opposition, rather than its ideological rigidity, that makes MENA rulers reluctant to liberalize. We study the implications of these findings for European Union policy towards Islamist parties in the MENA region.

Voter Preferences, Electoral Cleavages and Support for Islamic Parties

Increasing scholarly attention has recently been focused upon the origins and fortunes of Islamic parties. This paper examines the individual determinants of support for these parties utilizing the fifth wave of the World Values Survey. It is argued that the distribution of individual preferences along political cleavages like left‐right, secularism‐Islamism, and regime‐opposition are critical explanatory variables. The cases under investigation are Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey and Party of Justice and Development (PJD) in Morocco. The results of the multinomial logit show that Islamic parties obtain support from a broad spectrum of voters and this support base is best understood in relation to the distribution of voter preferences for rival parties. Furthermore, left‐right and Islamism appear to be the most important cleavages in the electoral markets under investigation.

Workshop: Europe's Legacy? From Colonialism to Democracy Promotion: The Case of the Mediterranean

In a constantly evolving socio-political context, Mediterranean countries have recently witnessed the rise of new actors such as Kifaya in Egypt, the Party of Justice and Development (PJD) in Moroc...

Morocco's Islamists and the legislative elections of 2002: the strange case of the party that did not want to win

The Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD) contested the legislative elections held in Morocco in September 2002 and was expected to do well. However, despite a favourable electoral climate, the PJD's electoral chances were complicated by, first, a call to boycott the elections from Morocco's largest Islamist movement and, second, the party's own reluctance to be seen to perform too well and thus invite an adverse reaction from the Moroccan regime. The party appeared to deliberately limit its campaign but still tripled its representation and became the third largest party in the Parliament. It decided not to join the new governing coalition, preferring to become, for strategic reasons, the largest opposition party.

A Turbulent Morocco: A Khutta, A Mudawwana, A Reform Movement and Rivalry Frames

Morocco, March 13, 2000: Hundreds of thousands of women poured into the streets of Morocco's two main cities for rival demonstrations over government plans to bolster women's rights. In Casablanca, Islamic parties headed by the Party of Justice and Development (PJD) and AI Adl Wa II Ihsan party, both of which occupy seats in Parliament, rallied with around 300 000 followers chanting slogans against the government's suggested reforms and calling for their repeal. In Rabat, a couple of thousand people from feminist groups and political parties such as AI lstiql al and AI Taqaddom Wa AI Ishtirakiyya gathered in support of these reforms. With slogans such as "Yes for the emancipation of women and no for their alienation," "Men and women equal before God, equal before the Law," and "For the dignity of women," they hailed the complete adoption of the government's plan.