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Muslim Democrats in Turkey and Egypt: Participatory Politics as a Catalyst

Partial and limited opening of authoritarian political systems in Turkey and Egypt created new democratic opportunities for Islamists to participate in public life. It also fostered democratic learning by permitting Islamists to compete for power and popular legitimacy. In the process of democratic opening, Islamists have had to address and represent the interests of a group much larger than their own ideological constituency. They have also had to endure repression and party closures in a semi-democratic political framework. However, the democratic learning process coupled with the establishment’s constraints has paved the way for the transformation of Islamists to Muslim democrats. While the process in Turkey is almost complete, in Egypt there are still heated debates on the transformation among the Islamists. This study highlights the importance of the democratic opportunities given to Turkish Islamists and argues that if given similar opportunities, Egyptian Islamism will also transform to a post-Islamist phase.

Muslim Democrats in Turkey and Egypt Participatory Politics as a
The emergence of the AK Party has shown that Muslim politics in Turkey is evolving from an instrumen­talist usage of Islam to a new understanding of practicing Muslims who deal with daily politics.
 

Even though there is no simple causal relationship between the lack of democracy and political extremism, it has been argued that institutional exclusion from the political process and indiscriminate repression make extremist groups inclined to adopt revolutionary1 or even worse terrorist methods. Conversely, political participation (even in semi-democratic autocracies) encourages radical groups to pursue their objectives through peaceful means. Political pluralism, albeit in a limited form, can induce radical and even anti-systemic parties to moderate their political discourses.2 

This paper analyses how and to what extent the processes of exclusion and/or inclusion policies of the regimes, general framework of political and legal structures, politico-legal constraints and opportunities in Turkey and Egypt have influenced the transformation and moderation of Islamisms toward a pluralist discourse in these two countries. Instead of focusing only on the Islamist discourse, the interaction of discourse, context, structure and practice will be examined.3

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