ThirdWorld Quarterly, Vol 18, No 4, pp 729± 742, 1997

Political Islamand the West: anew ColdWar or convergence?

MICHAELE SALLA

Thispaper has twoaims. The ® rst is toargue that US, andmore generally Western,triumphalist explanations for the end of the Cold War will in¯ uence foreign-policyresponses toperceived challenges to Western liberal democratic norms.This in¯ uence will be arguedto bemostclearly identi® ed in terms ofthe USA’sandits Western allies’ response to a contemporarydebate concerning politicalIslam. I willassert thatarguments posited by oneside of thedebate will beviewed more favourably since these arguments are moreconsistent with the triumphalistunderpinning of Western policy makers. The second aim is to suggestthat the debate needs to beextendedso as toaccommodatethe view that politicalIslam offers achallengeto liberal democratic norms at the `ideational’ or`discursive’ levels, rather than solely at the `contingency’ levels. Extending thedebate in thisway challenges Francis Fukuyama’ s thesisthat liberal democ- racyrepresents the `end of history’. Notto extend the debate in thisway, I will argue,is tomake the path clear for the triumphalist underpinning of Western policymaking to exercise decisive in¯ uence in determining policy responses to politicalIslam.

Theessentialist-contingencist debate Therise ofpolitical Islam as aforcein global politics has ledto numerous depictionsof it as athreatto the continued dominance of Western liberal democraticnorms in shaping the political, economic, social and cultural life in vastregions of the planet. 1 PatrickBuchanan for instance has written:`For a millennium,the struggle for mankind’ s destinywas betweenChristianity and Islam; inthe 21st century, it may be so again. For as theShiites humiliate us, theirco-religionists are ®llingup the countries of the West.’ 2 Theend of the ColdWar and the collapse of the USSR has givenadded salience to such assessments andled to claims that the spread of political Islam marks theonset ofanewcold war where the West’ s liberaldemocratic norms are pittedagainst thereligious revivalist norms of politicalIslam. As LeonHadar writes: `the fear ofIslam couldembroil Washington in a secondCold War’ . 3 Itin fact has been pointedout that the very term `cold war’ was ®rst usedby a 14thcentury Spanishwriter to describe the con¯ ict between the Christian and Muslim worlds.4 Notsurprisingly, such claims have led to intense debate over the

MichaelE Sallais atthePeace andCon¯ict ResolutionProgram, School of InternationalService, TheAmerican University, 4400Massachusetts Ave, NW,Washington, DC 20016±8071, USA .

0143-6597/97/040729-14$7.00 Ó 1997Third World Quarterly 729 MICHAEL ESALLA varyingmethodologies and assumptions used by the respective authors in reachingtheir conclusions. Whilefar reachingin terms ofvarying foreign policy recommendations and nuancedunderstandings of Islamic culture and history, it is fairto describe the debateas polarisedaround two key methodological approaches. On oneside are the`essentialists’ Ð or`orientalists’ as theyare pejorativelylabelled by their opponentsÐwho use alimitednumber of conceptualcategories and apply these universallyin their analyses of political Islam. 5 Themain methodological assumptionis thatthe Muslim world is `dominatedby a set ofrelatively enduringand unchanging processes andmeanings, to be understoodthrough the textsof Islam itselfand the language it generated’. 6 Theleading scholarly ® gures onthis side of the debate are BernardLewis, Daniel Pipes, Martin Indyk and SamuelHuntington. Lewis, for example, argues that political Islam `offers aset ofthemes, slogans and symbols that are profoundlyfamiliar and therefore effectivein mobilising support and in formulating both a critiqueof what is wrongand a programfor putting it right’ . 7 Atthe other end of debate,`contingencists’ abjure any conceptual framework witha universalapplication as reductionist,and instead emphasise the contingent natureof thefactors behind political Islam. 8 Thisside is ledby scholarssuch as JohnEsposito, Edward Said and James Piscatori.Esposito, for example, argues: Thechallenge today is to appreciate the diversity of Islamicactors and movements toascertain the reasons behind confrontations and con¯ icts, and thus to react to speci®c eventsand situations with informed, reasoned responses rather than prede- terminedpresumptions and reactions. 9 Thedebate is notnew and elements of it can arguably be traced to the ® rst attemptsto studythe social and political life of theMuslim world. Indeed, Fred Hallidayis correctin arguing that the debate is aspecies ofa broader methodologicaldebate in the social sciences. 10 Thedebate took on much of its contemporaryacademic salience with the publication of Edward Said’ s Orienta- lism in1978, which adopted a Foucauldianapproach in challengingthe dominant methodologicalassumptions found in the academic study of the Muslim world. Thedebate gained wider academic and popular recognition in 1993with Samuel Huntington’s`Clashof Civilizations’ thesis, 11 whichborrowed the idea from BernardLewis’ s 1990article, `The roots of Muslim rage’ . 12 Said’s approach,and the support and criticism it has attractedis noteworthy sinceit demarcates the debate in terms oftwo antithetical camps withlittle in theway of a middleground between them. The dif® culty in ® ndingthe middle groundin the debate is attestedto by the paucity and marginal in¯ uence of scholarswho have attempted to advocate a middleground or `third’ position. MarshallHodgson, for instance, has beenconsidered one who has successfully combinedthe two methodological approaches in hisidea that an essential feature ofMuslim civilisation, `is thecontinuous search andstruggle to achieve the Islamicideal in practice’ . 13 Similarly,Halliday argues a `third’perspective, one inwhich analysis occurs `of what actually happens’ in the Muslim world. 14 His suggestionis thatthe debate is largelyabout different `representations’ of the Muslimworld. While one camp focuses onthe role of texts and language in 730 POLITICAL ISLAM AND THE WEST paintingits essentialist picture; the other focuses on`discourses’ about the region.Both camps are thereforecharged with ignoring what is actually occurringin the region. Ithinkthat both Hodgson’ s andHalliday’ s attemptsto ® ndthe `middle ground’or a`thirdposition’ are unconvincing.As far as Hodgsonis concerned, hisnotion of the`cultural unity of Islam’ ,isnot,as LeonardBinder suggests, the middleground position of `pragmatic orientalism’ , buta notionthat is ®rmly locatedin the essentialist-contingencist debate in terms ofan essentialist cate- gorisationthat is sensitiveto cultural variation. It is thereforea variantof scholarlyapproaches that Said recommends in Orientalism ÐwhatBinder sug- gests are instancesof `goodorientalism’ . 15 Ontheother hand, Halliday dichoto- mises humanknowledge in terms of`representations’ or `discourses’ about realityand what is actuallyout thereÐ the real (Muslim) world. 16 Such a dichotomyis acriticalpart of the methodological debate and therefore fails to producea distinctivethird position. Thedebate between essentialists and contingencists is nota sterilemethodo- logicalargument among leading ® guresin an academic discipline, but is criticallyimportant because of theforeign policy directions each camp offers in apost-coldwar world. Both camps inthe debate are engagedin a struggleto capturethe hearts and minds of Western foreign-policy making elites so that policycan be crafted in terms whicheach camp views as themost appropriate responseto politicalIslam. It isnotsurprising that so much hinges on the correct policyresponse to politicalIslam insofaras itisacogentforce sweeping through theMuslim world: rich as itis withpopulation, territory and natural resources. This® nallytakes me backto the Cold War analogy. The Cold War was characterisedby antagonistic political forces ledby two global hegemons: the USAandthe former USSR. Each hegemon viewed the other as theprincipal representativeof, respectively, global economic market forces anda global revolutionaryideology based on Marxism± Lenism. As aconsequence,each hegemonengaged in a con¯ict that covered virtually all spheres ofhuman interaction.The extent of the con¯ ict was demonstratedby children in the `revolutionaryMarxist± Leninist camp’ denouncing their parents to party author- itiesfor `reactionary behaviour’ ; andchildren in the`free world’being indoctri- natedby government-sponsored media representations of the inimical threat posedby the `evil empire’ . TheCold War ended with the dissolution of theUSSR, and led to triumphalist explanationsof its end by USforeignpolicy elites. Former US PresidentGeorge Bush,for instance, argued:

Sovietcommunism provided no match for free enterprise¼ itsrulers [could not] denytheir people the truth ¼ aboutus ¼ Kremlinleaders found that our alliance wouldnot crack when they threatened America’ s allieswith the infamous SS-20 nuclearmissile ¼ theycould not divide our alliance ¼ TheSoviet Union did not simplylose the Cold War, thewestern democracies won it ¼ bythe grit of our peopleand the grace of God, the Cold War isover. Freedom has carried the day. 17 Despitecritical examinations of triumphalistexplanations proffered by Bushand otherUS foreignpolicy elites, it ismorethan likely that the lessons learntfrom 731 MICHAEL ESALLA theCold War experience for foreign policy elites will re¯ ect triumphalist assessments ratherthan more sober and complex academic accounts. 18 As Ralph Summysuggests, triumphalist explanations have recently been elevated to the levelof `unassailable orthodoxy’ . 19 Itis thereforelikely that the foreign-policy approachtaken by the USA andits key Western allies in dealing with the revolutionaryMarxist± Leninist threat, will be replicated to varying degrees in dealingwith future `threats’ . WhatI nowpropose is thattriumphalist explanations for the end of the Cold Warprovide a conceptualunderpinning that will in¯ uence the US foreignpolicy response,and that of its chief allies, to politicalIslam. David Campbell proposes asimilaridea: `For the United States, the current period in worldpolitics can be understoodas beingcharacterised by the representation of novel challenges in terms oftraditionalanalytics, and the varied attempts to replaceone enemy with (an)other.’ 20 Measuringsuch a `conceptualunderpinning’ will predictably be dif®cult because of thediffering programmes, orientations and emphases ofkey USpolicyinstitutes, eg the CIA, StateDepartment, Pentagon, etc, and their equivalentsin the countries in question. 21 Similarly,it would be an oversim- pli®cation to argue that everything ® nallyemerging from the foreign policy apparatusre¯ ected the same `conceptualunderpinning’ . Nevertheless,I contend thatthe widespread knowledge of policies that `successfully’ dealt with the formerMarxist± Leninist threat will prove in¯ uential in the foreign policy that emerges todeal with the threat of politicalIslam. Since determining the precise in¯uence of this conceptual underpinning raises problems,I willsimply refer to thisin¯ uence in terms ofa dispositionof US policymakers to`appreciate’ policiesthat re¯ ect triumphalist explanations for why the Cold War ended. An`appreciation’ of past policies in dealing with the Marxist± Leninist threat willhave a signi®cant impact upon foreign policy assessments ofthe essential- ist±contingencist debate over political Islam. To illustrate my argument, I will nowexamine three key `triumphalist’ foreign policy `lessons’ purportedly learnedfrom the cold war experience by US policymakers, which contribute to theconceptual underpinning of the US foreignpolicy-making apparatus. I will thenanalyse the degree to whichthese three lessons havebeen `appreciated’ by policymakers, in terms oflikely assessments ofthe essentialist± contingencist debateover political Islam.

Political Islam asa monolithic threat First,the USA andUSSR craftedtheir foreign policies in terms of`threat perceptions’of the other as thefront of a monolithicpolitical force that needed tobe contained wherever possible and destroyed when the circumstances allowedÐrespectively, global capitalism and Marxism± Leninism. The end of the ColdWar led to triumphalist claims by the foreign policy elite that the real `hero’was HarryTruman, the architect of thepolicy of containment.According toZbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter:

TheCold War eventuallyended because the West succeeded in combining ® rm 732 POLITICAL ISLAM AND THE WEST

containmentwith an active offensive on human rights and a strategicbuildup of its own,while aiding the resistance in Afghanistan and Poland ¼ Inthat regard the historicalcredit for fashioningthe winning strategy and for forgingthe victorious coalitionmust go to one man above all: Harry Truman.He committedAmerica becausehe understood the stakes. Eisenhower then built on Truman regarding NATO;Carterbuilt on Nixon regarding China; Bush built on Reagan regarding the arms race.22

Containmentwas predicatedon the perception of Marxism± Leninism as a monolithicthreat that needed to be opposed on all fronts. Accommodation was notpossible since this only allowed the USSR andits allies the opportunity to manipulatethe political life of anycountry so foolishas toincorporateMarxist± Leninistelements. Asfar as politicalIslam is concerned,the monolithic perception of the Islamic threatand parallels with Marxism± Leninism is championedby `essentialists’ suchas DanielPipes who writes:

fundamentalistIslam isa radicalutopian movement closer in spirit to other such movements(communism, fascism) thanto traditional religion. By nature anti- democraticand aggressive, anti-semitic and anti-Western, it has great plans. Indeed,spokesmen for fundamentalistIslam seetheir movement standing in direct competitionto Western civilisation and challenging it for globalsupremacy. 23

SimilarlyHuntington writes of an Islamo± Confucian alliance capable of chal- lenging`Western interests, values and power’ . 24 Notsurprisingly, `contigencists’ view with alarm such representations of politicalIslam, and are especiallyconcerned with media portrayals of political Islam as amonolithicthreat. Esposito for example writes, `we must move beyonda monolithicworldview that sees Muslimsand the Muslim world (both governmentsand social movements) as aunity’. 25 As LeonHardar puts it, the USPresidentshould be advised against going `abroad in search ofmonsters to destroy’ 26 Whileboth `essentialist’ and `contingencist’ camps are vyingfor the ears of USandother Western elites, it is the`essentialists’ who have front running thanksto the underlying invocation of the foreign-policy lesson deriving from thetriumphalist cold war assessment that`containment worked’ . Suchan assessment worksas aforeignpolicy incantation that is theappropriate potion tobe applied for all similar threats to the global politic. The essentialist argumentthat political Islam presentsa monolithicthreat is thusmore likely to be`appreciated’, thancontingencist warnings of theself-ful® lling nature of such apolicy.Consequently, it is likelythat a versionof thecontainment policy will beapplied to political Islam interms ofsupport provided for any regime that opposespolitical Islam onits territory. Essentialists such as Pipesexplicitly call forsuch a policyand indeed go as far as dismissingany distinction between `moderate’and `extreme’ Islamic fundamentalists. 27 Thistakes me tothesecond foreign-policylesson. 733 MICHAEL ESALLA

`Hotwars’ andeconomic exhaustion Thesecond lesson to bedrawnfrom the Cold War was thatits `hot’ aspects were foughtout by the two hegemons’ respective proxies in the Third World. Vietnam,Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Mozambique are buta fewof the countries thatwere devastated by these proxy wars. The triumphalist lesson learned here was thatthe debilitating cost of these was acriticalfactor in the eventual collapseof the USSR, and the discrediting of Marxism± Lenism as aviable alternativeeconomic model to free marketeconomics. 28 Consequently,the foreignpolicy of the USA andits allies in meetingsimilar global threats will be tominimisethe political cost to themselvesin terms oflivesand resources while participatingin any proxy wars, and instead to highlight the necessity of supportingtheir clients, and the economic and political costs totheiropponents. Theunderlying assumption is thatthe economic resilience of the USA andits Westernallies will ® nallydrive their `ideological’ opponents into economic exhaustionand ® nalcollapse. This assumption receives its starkest theoretical expositionin Francis Fukuyama’ s essay, `Theend of history’ , 29 andreceives practicalexposition in the current US policyagainst The Islamic Republic of IranÐrepresented as animportant sponsor of political Islam. 30 Interms ofthe purported new `cold war’ between the `West’ and `political Islam’ ,theMuslim world will be the site of any `proxy wars’ . Therespective proxieswill be Muslimstate elites wishing to maintain authoritarian control with thesupport of theWest, and Islamic political movements that are opposedto the continuedrule of a politicalregime deemed to have failed in its development policies,to have fostered endemic corruption, and to have become a pliable instrumentof Western governments. Thisis mostgraphically exempli® ed in Algeria where the government installedafter a militarycoup is currentlyengaged in a bloodycivil war with Islamicmilitants. The Algerian government is directlysupported by Francein its militarycampaign. Meanwhile, other Western governments have given tacit supportby not exerting diplomatic pressure onthe Algerian government to honournational elections, in whichthe Islamist opposition were on theverge of winning,and to end political repression and human rights abuses. `Essentialists’here argue that the West is correctin supporting the Algerian government,and indeed all Muslim governments that are `forced’to repress Islamicmovements militarily. Pipes argues: `Governmentsin combat with the fundamentalistsdeserve US help.We should stand by the non-fundamentali sts, evenwhen that means accepting,within limits, strong-arm tactics (Egypt, the PLO),theaborting of elections (in Algeria), and deportations (Israel).’ 31 The `contingencists’, onthe hand, argue for accommodation; and, in the case of Algeria,emphasise that electoral outcomes should be honoured irrespective of whichpolitical parties and programmes emerge victorious. The argument used hereis that,if a democraticpolitical culture is tobe promoted in the Muslim world,this cannot be done by violent repression of opposition movements. For instance,Esposito argues: `ifattempts to participate in the electoral process are blocked,crushed, or negated as inNorth Africa, the currency of democracy as aviablemechanism for political and social change will be greatly devalued in theeyes ofmany’ . 32 734 POLITICAL ISLAM AND THE WEST

Contingencistsfurther argue that in many Muslim countries political Islam representsthe only `safe’ formof political opposition in authoritarian political systems whichroutinely jail or intimidate opposition leaders, control and manipulatethe media, and which oversee failed development policies. Nazih Ayubi,for example, argues that it is acombinationof the failed development policiesof state elites, and the repression of opposition parties, that is largely responsiblefor the popularity of political Islam. 33 Theimplication is that,since Islamistpolitical parties consistently promote a democraticpolitical culture, initialsupport for them will eventually ® ndits way to secular opposition parties.34 Thetriumphalist foreign policy lesson of the Cold War that economic exhaustionwill eventually lead to thecollapse of `ideological’ opponents, again favoursthe universalist analysis in situations where Islamic opposition parties are lockedin a politicalstruggle with a government.Even if Islamist military activitiesare con®ned to small groups engaged in terrorist acts, as is currently thecase inEgypt, political Islam as awholewill be the likely target of state repressionor cooptation. As aconsequence,the West is likelyto provide militaryand economic support to the governments in question in order to crush Islamicmilitancy, while providing diplomatic cover for widespread political repressionand human rights abuses.

Theantithetical natureof political Islam andliberal democraticnorms Thethird triumphalist lesson to bedrawnfrom the Cold War is thatthe principal antagonistssaw themselvesas representingantithetical political forces thatcould notbe reconciled. This was exempli®ed in 1950 by National Security Council documentnumber 68, which was adoptedby the Truman Administration as an authoritativerationale for US foreignpolicy. The document described the USSR as `animatedby a newfanatic faith, antithetical to our own, and seeking to imposeits absolute authority over the rest ofthe world’ . 35 Similarviews were propagatedby the USSR concerningUS imperialismand global capitalism. Put simply,each side viewed itself as theembodiment of a uniqueparadigm that couldnot be combined with the other in a Hegeliansynthesis. In this sense, as GeorgeKennan argued in 1931,`there can be nomiddleground or compromise betweenthe two’ . 36 Marxism±Leninism was depictedin terms ofcentralised attemptsat running the economy and controlling the social life of its citizenry. Onthecontrary, the West’ s liberaldemocracy was depictedin terms ofminimal governmentintervention in both the economic and social spheres. Thistriumphalist lesson is exempli®ed in Fukuyama’ s theoryregarding the collapseof liberal democracy’ s mainrivals on the ideological landscape:

Thecentury that began full of self-con® dence in the ultimate triumph of Western liberaldemocracy seems at its close to be returning full circle to where it started: notto an ª endof ideologyº or aconvergencebetween capitalism and socialism, as earlierpredicted, but to anunabashed victory of economic and political liberalism. 37 735 MICHAEL ESALLA

Theimplication is thatpolitical Islam issimplyjust another ideological alterna- tiveto be comprehensively vanquished and discredited on the treadmill of history.What this triumphalist position dismisses is thepossibility of conver- gencebetween the liberal democratic paradigm as expressedas aset ofnorms practisedand propagated by the West, and political Islam. However, there has beenconsiderable support for the idea that Western liberal democracies and Marxist±Leninist states didin factconverge in anumberof criticalareas, thereby suggestingthat some degreeof convergence might be predicted in the case of politicalIslam andWestern liberal democratic norms: a`newconvergence thesis’ . Therehave been at least three strands to the argument that Western liberal democraciesand Marxist± Leninist states converged.The ® rst is theWeberian ideathat the extensive role of the bureaucracy in administratingmodern societies was commonto both `paradigms’ , therebysuggesting a convergencein this respectas societiesbecame more urbanised and industrialised. The second strand isthatthe development of thewelfare state and Keynesian economics suggested aconvergencein both paradigms’ expectations of appropriate government interventionin the economic sphere. The ® nalstrand is basedon the idea that therole of the state in both paradigms was fundamentallysimilar: the accumu- lationof resources andcapital that made Marxist± Leninist states versionsof state capitalism. 38 Essentialists,at best, would strongly qualify a convergencethesis between politicalIslam andliberal democratic norms, and indeed go as far as discrediting all Islamicversions of democracy, arguing that this is merelya temporary expedienton the road to totalitarian government. Certainly, this is anidea that Lewisproposes:

For Islamicfundamentalists, democracy is obviouslyan irrelevance, and unlike the communisttotalitarians, they rarely use or even misuse the word. They are, however,willing to demand and exploit the opportunities that a self-proclaimed democraticsystem by its own logic is bound to offer them.At thesame time, they makeno secret of their contempt for democraticpolitical procedures and their intentionto govern by Islamic rules if theygain power. 39 Onthe other hand, contingencists are far moresympathetic to the idea of convergencein terms ofindigenousIslamic versions of democracy,and go as far as suggestingthat Islamic texts and practices based on the electoral principal of shura (consultativecouncil) give explicit support for Islamic versions of democ- racy.Furthermore, contingencists would argue, the unique constellation of social,economic and political factors that accompanies the rise ofpoliticalIslam suggeststhat the policies of Islamic regimes would differ widely and could not begenerallysubsumed under the category of `totalitarian’ . The`Islamic totalitar- ianism’espoused by essentialistassessments ofpoliticalIslam wouldnot then be aforegoneconclusion. Despitethese antithetical approaches to the convergence thesis, both contin- gencists,explicitly, and essentialists, implicitly, agree that such a thesisis not relevantinsofar as theliberal democratic paradigm is concerned.The contingen- cistargument that Islamic versions of democracyare plausible,is afar cryfrom 736 POLITICAL ISLAM AND THE WEST advocatinga changein the liberal democratic paradigmÐ as understoodand practisedin theWest. Both sides ofthedebate are primarilyconcerned with the outcomeof political Islam interms ofits impact on Muslim societies and on shapingthe policy orientation of Muslim governments and future `Islamic governments’, andwith the appropriate Western response. The view that there mightbe some convergencebetween political Islam andliberal democracy, in thesense ofaffecting the way liberal-democratic norms are conceptualisedand practiced,is notseriously considered in the debate. Put simply, the relationship betweenliberal democracy and political Islam is unidirectional:political Islam eitherresponds to liberal democratic norms by demonstrating their consistency withthe Islamic heritage; or reacts tothem as contraryto the Islamic heritage. Theessentialist-contingencist debate therefore fails directly to challenge the triumphalistcold war lesson that political Islam andthe West’ s liberaldemoc- racy,at least as far as theserepresent distinct normative paradigms, represent irreconcilablepolitical forces. The policy implication is thatWestern foreign policyelites are correctin interpreting political Islam as, atbest, a temporary hiccupin the spread of the liberal democratic paradigm; and, at worst, a totalitarianform of government in activeopposition to liberaldemocratic norms. Inconclusion, I haveargued that, as far as the® rst twotriumphalist lessons are concernedÐa`monolithic threat perception’ and participation in `hot wars’ as ameans ofusheringin economicexhaustionÐ essentialist analyses of political Islam are morelikely to be `appreciated’ by Western policy makers. As far as thethird lesson is concernedÐthe antithetical nature of political Islam and liberaldemocracyÐ both camps inthe debate can be adopted by policy makers withoutseriously challenging the idea that, at the ideational or discursivelevels, politicalIslam andliberal democracy are antithetical.This takes me tomy secondaim in this paper. To highlight a criticalde® ciency in the essentialist± contigencistdebate, and to propose a newconvergence thesis.

Takingthe `newconvergence thesis’ seriously Ifthe`new convergence thesis’ is tobetakenseriously, then analysis of political Islam mustnot be restrictedto exigencies in theMuslim world, but extended to includeits relevance for the way liberal democratic norms are conceptualised andpractised. This would extend analysis of the relationship between political Islam andliberal democratic norms from a unidirectionalmodel where political Islam is eithera reformistresponse to or reaction against liberal democratic norms,to a bidirectionalmodel where liberal democratic norms are subjectto a critiquefrom a politicalIslamist perspective. To do otherwise is toadopt the precedingcold war triumphalist lesson about the irreconcilability of liberal democracy,as adistinctWestern paradigm, and its `ideological’ alternative: politicalIslam. Itisthereforenecessary toexpandthe debate concerning the study of political Islam beyondthe methodological approaches of the `essentialist’ and `contingen- cist’camps, and into the `ideational’ or `discursive’realmsÐ depending on one’s metatheoreticapproach. That is tosay, political Islam shouldbe seen as representinga paradigmthat is indirect competition with liberal democracy in 737 MICHAEL ESALLA terms ofthe universal appeal and scope of their respective norms. This would leadto the dismissal of Fukuyama’ s assessment thatpolitical Islam is unlikely `totake on any universal signi® cance’ 40 onthe grounds that it is normative prescriptionsof the world’ s differentreligious traditions that in fact contest liberaldemocratic norms. In Fukuyama’s terms,this would constitute the `return ofhistory’ since the liberal democratic paradigm has notbeen accepted as the laststage of thehistorical development of ideason governanceby largesections oftheglobal population: those who believe religious norms, whether drawn from theIslamic or other religious traditions, should be part of the policy-making process.For example, with regard to Catholicism and liberalism, James Kurth writes:`We are likelyto see agrowingawareness offundamental differences betweenthe liberal and the Catholic ideals and between US, andpapal foreign policies.This would represent not only the return of history; it would be somethingof a returnof antiquity as well.’ 41 Thestudy of political Islam wouldconsequently take into consideration its relevanceas aregionally-basednormative critique of Westernliberal democratic normshaving universal scope, thanks to af® nitieswith the tenets of other religioustraditions, in both foreign and domestic policy making. This would replicatethe way in which Marxism± Leninism provided a theoreticalcritique thatinspired numerous political parties and programmes in the West, and ultimatelyaffected the way liberal democratic norms were conceptualised and practisedin the West. PoliticalIslam wouldconsequently not be viewed solely as anobject of politicalanalysisÐ as Hallidayputs it, `a malaisein Middle Eastern society derivingfrom the exigencies of theMuslim world’ 42Ðbutwould also be viewed as offeringa theoreticalcritique of the West’ s liberaldemocratic norms. Viewing politicalIslam inorganic terms as a`malaise’, merelysuggests its relevance at the`contingency’ level, rather than at the `ideational’ level. Such a view replicatesthe essentialist belief that political Islam isbuta temporaryaberration onthe ideological landscape. This is anideological path already traversed by Westernstates whoare eagerto help,but who are handicappedby theircolonial past.Moving beyond the organic metaphor for the study of political Islam as a malaiseof the Muslim body politic, suggests it needs to be studied in terms of acoherentcritique of the liberal democratic paradigm that can be signi®cant for theunderstanding and conceptualising of liberal democracy at the normative level. Atthis point, contingencists may very well object that this is toimpose a reductionistframework upon political Islam, insofar as itis predicatedon a coherentor distinct Islamist critique of Western liberal democratic norms. This wouldarguably facilitate the cold war triumphalist lessons ofa monolithic perceptionof political Islam andof legitimating a policyof opposing its manifestationat all costs. I believesuch an inference would be incorrect, since itwould not be possible to combine the triumphalist lessons ofa monolithic perception,and of opposing the manifestation of politicalIslam atall costs, with theconvergence thesis I haveproposed. In thissense, thethree triumphalist cold warlessons Ihavedescribed are interconnectedto theextent that they either run togetheror fall together. As far as theobjection itself is concerned,the ® rst pointto be considered is 738 POLITICAL ISLAM AND THE WEST whatthe objection implies. It suggests,as contingencistswould largely contend, thatpolitical Islam is infact a widearray of contingency-based responses to regionalproblems. In this sense thereis nosingle coherent paradigm or discursiveformation that might be calledpolitical Islam. There are infactmany versionsor discourses of political Islam. On the other hand, liberal democracy is conceptualisedby many of the same theoristsas acoherentparadigm or discursiveformation that arguably has universalscope. 43 Suchan objection, if accepted,would suggest a qualitativedistinction between political Islam and liberaldemocracy as subjectsof theoretical analysis. Political Islam wouldthus correspondto the rhetoric used by social movements in distinct regions of the Muslimworld without any internal coherency or consistencyamong its different manifestations,while liberal democracy would arguably remain a coherent politicalparadigm with contested universal application. I thinkthis conclusion needsto beavoided,since it invitesan organic metaphor to be used in discussing politicalIslam interms ofamalaisein¯ icting the Muslim body politic. The use ofsuch metaphors suggest that political Islam has littleto inform us aboutthe liberaldemocratic paradigm, and does not represent a viablechallenge to liberal democraticnorms. 44 Finally,to dismiss theconvergence thesis at the ideational ordiscursivelevel is toinvite triumphalist cold war lessons ontheirreconcilabil- ityof politicalIslam andliberal democracy, thereby making it possiblefor other coldwar lessons tobe applied in the framing of policy responses topolitical Islam. Just as theWestern liberal democracies and Marxist± Leninist states achieved adegreeof convergence in their respective views of the proper extent of governmentintervention, role of the bureaucracy and size ofthe market sectorÐa convergencethat Western policy elites were unwilling to concede in theirtriumphalist analyses of the collapse of Marxist± Leninist statesÐ so tooI believea `newconvergence thesis’ can be proposedbetween political Islam and Westernliberal democracy as rivalparadigms or discourses with universal appeal.In this sense, politicalIslam wouldbe viewed as thepromulgator of a universalmoral order; similar in perspective, if not content, to other religious traditionsand to policy making based on natural law arguments. Whileit isnotmy purpose here to describein detailthe convergence between liberaldemocratic norms and political Islam, I canattempt to delineate its main contoursin the normative realm. In the social arena, convergence might be re¯ected in terms ofan incorporation, to some extent,of (Islamist) religious normsin the domestic policy-making process. This would suggest that there is anunderlying normative framework embodied by religiousnorms that cannot be ignoredby policy makers. In the political arena, there would be an effort to entrenchreligious norms in the constitutional framework in terms ofeither explicitclauses `protecting’religious norms and/ ora constitutionalmechanism designedto preserve the religious normative framework. And in the economic sphere,a moreextensive state welfarism and a moreequitable international tradingsystem wouldbe probable normative outcomes. This would parallel the socialjustice ethic of papal encyclicals issued to celebrate anniversaries of the 1891document, RerumNovarum ,themost recent of which is the1991 encyclical CentesimusAnnus .Thusconvergence might lead to Western govern- 739 MICHAEL ESALLA mentstaking on reforms thatincorporate aspects ofthe programmes of political Islam; andby takinga moreethical approach to internationaltrading inequities. 45

Greening ofthe West? Environmentalconcerns have made such an impact upon Western policy making thatthe `greening’ metaphor has beenliberally used to describe this process. Similarly,I suggestthat the `green’ of political Islam, in thesense thatreligious revivalismis aglobalphenomenon and concern, can lead to a similarpolicy impactupon normative behaviour in Westernsocieties. This is exempli®ed in the ideathat the Catholic Church and its Protestant Evangelical counterparts will be engagedin a greatstruggle in the next century `with the United States, which, bycarrying liberalism to its individualist extreme, represents the idolatry of the self’ .46 Consequently,rather than political Islam beinga dangerousmonolithic forcethat has tobe contained in the same wayas Marxism±Leninism, it representsa regionalvariation of aglobalreligious revivalism that promulgates anormativeperspective critical of liberal democratic norms. 47 Just as Marxism± Lenismdrew attention to the de® ciencies of unfettered capitalism, and thus provideda cogenttheoretical critique that supported the creation of the welfare stateand more comprehensive efforts to address theinequities of the global economicsystem, so toopolitical Islam drawsattention to the de® ciencies of liberaldemocracy in the normative sphere, and provides a theoreticalway for religiousrevivalist norms to enter the mainstream of the global body politic. Findingthe likely points of convergence between Western liberal democratic normsand political Islam (as withany regional variation of theglobal religious revival)is likelyto be just as controversialand dif® cult as itwas between Westernliberal democracy and Marxism± Leninism. For example, there will be noeasy solutionto the problem of how secularism can accommodate religious normativeframeworks. Despite these dif® culties, the appropriate response to politicalIslam liesnot in a renewedWestern policy of `containment’ , which opposesthis `threat’ wherever and whenever it raises itshead, and which posits aclearconceptual divide between two irreconcilable political forces; butin a genuineattempt to recognise how Islamist critiques of the West’ s liberal democraticnorms represent a legitimatereopening of questions concerning the appropriatepolitical framework for (post)modern societies. Islamist critiques are essentiallyattempts to reopen the `end of history’ debate through the notion of a`newconvergence thesis’ . Suchefforts will not be easy,given the triumphalist coldwar assumptions that underpin Western foreign policy making.

Notes 1 Fora de®nitional discussion of political Islam, see William Shepard,`Islam andideology: towards a typology’, InternationalJournal of Middle East Studies ,19,1987 pp 307±335. 2 Quotedin John Esposito, TheIslamic Threat: Myth or Reality ,Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1992, p 175. 740 POLITICAL ISLAM AND THE WEST

3 LeonHadar, `Whatgreen peril?’ , ForeignPolicy ,72(2),1993, p 27. 4 See DavidCampbell, WritingSecurity: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity , Manchester:Manchester UniversityPress, 1992,p 34. 5 Iwilluse FredHalliday’ s distinctionbetween `essentialists’ and`contingencists’ in describing the debate: `Review article: thepolitics of ª IslamºÐ asecondlook’ BritishJournal of Political Science ,25(3),1995, p 400. 6 Ibid, p 401. 7 BenardLewis, `Rethinkingthe Middle East’ ForeignAffairs ,71(4),1992, p 116. 8 Hallidayrefers tothree strandsof the contigencist position, `Review article: thepolitics of ª Islamº’ , pp 401±402. 9 Esposito, TheIslamic Threat ,p169.See alsoHadar, `Whatgreen peril?’ ,p31. 10 FredHalliday, ` ªOrientalismºand its critics’ , BritishJournal of Middle Eastern Studies ,20(2),1993, pp 145±146. 11 See Jacinta O’Haganfor discussion over the debate concerning the `civilisations’ argument in international relations.`Inter-civilisational con¯ ict: a critiqueof the Huntington thesis’ , WorkingPaper 1994/ 1 , Depart- ment ofInternational Relations, Australian National University, pp 1±19. 12 BernardLewis, `Theroots of muslim rage’ , AtlanticMonthly ,266(3),1990, pp 47±56. 13 LeonardBinder, IslamicLiberalism: A Critiqueof Development Ideologies ,Chicago,IL: Universityof ChicagoPress, 1988,p 107. 14 Halliday,` ªOrientalismºand its critics’ ,p150 15 See EdwardW Saul, Orientalism ,London:Routledge & KoganPaul, 1978 pp 326±328; and Binder, Islamic Liberalism, pp 97±103. 16 Hallidayasserts hisown `enlightenment’ pedigree in ` ªOrientalismºand its critics’ p146. 17 Quotedin Ralph Summy, `Challenging the emergent orthodoxy’, inRalph Summy & MichaelSalla (eds), Whythe Cold War Ended: A Rangeof Interpretations Connecticut:Greenwood Press, 1995,pp 5±6. 18 See Summy& Salla, Whythe Cold War Ended . 19 Summy, `Challengingthe emergent orthodoxy ’ , p 1. 20 Campbell, WritingSecurity , p 8. 21 Fordiscussion of the various departments involved in the US foreignpolicy-making process, see JANathan & J K Oliver, ForeignPolicy Making and the American Political System ,Boston,MA: Little, Brown, 1987. 22 ZbigniewBrzezinski, `The Cold War andits aftermath’ , ForeignAffairs ,71(4),1992, pp 45± 46. 23 DavidPipes, `There are nomoderates: dealingwith fundamentalist Islam’ , TheNational Interest , Fall 1995, p 48. 24 Samies Huntington,`The Clash of Civilizations’ , ForeignAffairs ,vol72, no 3, 1993, p 45. 25 Esposito, TheIslamic Threat , p xiv. 26 Hadar, `Whatgreen peril?’ ,p41. 27 Pipes,`There are nomoderates’ ,pp48± 57. 28 Fordiscussion of the economic cost of the Cold War as acritical factor inthe demise ofthe USSR see chapters byDennis Phillips, Keith Suter Rick Kuhn in Summy & Salla, Whythe Cold War Ended . 29 FrancisFukuyama, `The end of history’ , TheNational Interest ,Summer 1989,pp 3ff. 30 TheUS governmenthas passed legislationthat punishes foreign-based companies that do businesswith Iran. Companiessuch as Siemans ofGermany, andBHP of Australia are unableto participate in projects in Iran andthus join US basedcompanies who have already been banned from working in the Islamic Republic. 31 `There are nomoderates’ ,p57. 32 Esposito, TheIslamicThreat ,p189.See alsoJohn Esposito & James Piscatori,`Democratisation andIslam’ , MiddleEast Journal ,45(3),1991, pp 427±440; and Hadar, `Whatgreen peril?’ ,p42. 33 Nazih Ayubi, PoliticalIslam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World ,London:Routledge, 1993, pp 175±77. 34 Cf,Hadar, `Whatgreen peril?’ p38. 35 Quotedin Campbell, WritingSecurity , p 25. 36 Ibid, p 27. 37 `Futuyama,The end of history’ , p3. 38 Fordiscussion of this argument, see RickKuhn, `Whose Cold War?’ ,inSummary & Salla, Why the Cold War Ended,pp153±170. 39 `Islam andliberal democracy’ , AtlanticMonthly ,269(2),1993, p 91.See alsoPipes, `There are no moderates’ ,p49. 40 Futuyama,`The end of history’ , p14. 41 `TheVatican’ sforeignpolicy’ , TheNational Interest ,Summer 1993,p 41. 42 Halliday,`Review article: thepolitics of ª Islamº’ ,p413. 43 Forsuch a viewof the universal application of liberaldemocracy, see Esposito& Piscatori,`Democratisa- tionand Islam’ , 44 Suchmetaphors may alsobe candidates for the Orientalist dogmas which Said discusses in Orientalism , pp 300±301. 741 MICHAEL ESALLA

45 Fordiscussion of an ethical approachto North± South problems, see NorthSouth: A Programmefor Survival:The Report of the Independent Commission on International Development Issues underthe Chairmanshipof Willy Brandt ,London:Pan Books, 1980. 46 Kurth,`The Vatican’ sforeignpolicy’ , p52. 47 Forfurther discussion of `global fundamentalism’ see BronislawMisztal &AnsonShupe (eds), Religionand Politicsin Comparative Perspective: Revival ofReligious Fundamentalism in East and West , London: Praeger,1992.

Religion State & Society EDITOR Dr Philip Walters, Keston Research, Oxford, UK Religion, State & Society is a unique source of information and analysis for individuals and institutions involved in a wide variety of ways with communist and formerly communist countries. It is still the only English-language academic publication devoted to issues of church, state and society in these countries. Responding to the new situation in Russia and Eastern Europe, the journal explores its conviction that the experiences of religious communities in their encounter with communism will be central to the evolution of the new Europe and of the Western world in general in the next century. Tackling social, cultural, ethnic, political and ecclesiological problems is in future going to be a cooperative effort, in a way hitherto impossible, involving the religious communities of both East and W est. Religious communities in W estern Europe, the USA, Australasia and Latin America will have much to learn from the way in which their counterparts in the East have tackled such problems in the past, and vice versa Volume 25, 1997, 4 issues. ISSN 0963-7494 . Carfax Publishing Company PO Box 25 · Abingdon · Oxfordshire OX14 3UE · UK Tel: +44 (0)1235 521154 · Fax: +44 (0)1235 401550 E-mail: [email protected] · WWW: http://www.carfax.co.uk

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