Neither participation nor revolution: the strategy of the Moroccan Jamiat al-Adl wal-Ihsan

Scholars and students of Islamist movements are divided over the issue of Islamists' commitment to democracy and a number of studies have attempted to discover the true nature of Islamist parties. This paper rejects this approach and argues that the behaviour of Islamist parties can be better understood through an analysis of the constraints and opportunities that their surrounding environment provides. Specifically, the paper aims at explaining the choice of the Moroccan Jamiat al-Adl wal-Ihsan neither to participate in institutional politics nor to undertake violent actions to transform the regime. This is done through an examination of its relations with the other political actors. The paper argues that Jamiat al-Adl wal-Ihsan's behaviour is as much the product of rational thinking as it is of ideology and provides evidence to support this claim. Such findings are important not only in the Moroccan context, but contribute to a growing literature claiming that Islamist movements should be treated as rational political actors operating under 'environmental' constraints and opportunities

Democratic Values and the Microfoundations of Arab Support for Peace with Israel

The Arab Spring and the short-lived political ascendancy of Islamist movements reignited the debate about what greater popular participation in foreign policy decision-making would entail for the prospects of peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Building on the developing body of individual-level investigations into the Democratic Peace thesis and contributing to the wider debate about the relationship between peace and democracy in the Middle East, this paper utilizes 2010–2011 Arab Barometer data to establish the determinants of public support for a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict across the Arab world. The results reveal that emancipative political values such as support for gender equality and secularism help predict greater support for peace with Israel. These findings demonstrate that contrary to the claims of skeptics, democratization and peace can reinforce each other in the Arab world