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The Moderation of the Ennahda Movement

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The Moderation of the Ennahda Movement The Moderation of the Ennahda Movement A case study of moderation within an Islamic political party Author: Karl Fahlvik Human Rights Bachelor Program Bachelor Thesis, 12 credits Spring Semester 2021 Supervisor: Jon Wittrock 1 Abstract The purpose of this thesis is to try to understand the moderation process of the Tunisian Islamic political party Ennahda between the years of 2011-2016. This case is studied within the context of the democratisation process that took place in Tunisia, in the five years after the Arab spring and the idea that political Islam might provide a path to democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. The theoretical framework chosen for understanding this process was in form of a theory about under which circumstances religious political parties politically moderate. The method used was a qualitative content analysis. The analysis was conducted by dividing the chapters into thematic topics that emerged out of the material with the framework then being applied to those themes. The research found that the theory provided theoretical understanding for why the Ennahda Movement became more moderate, especially when looking at factors regarding political entrepreneurship. However, other factors such as a dedication to democratic values, non-violence, and a willingness to change throughout its history, also proved important in the case of moderation within the Ennahda Movement. Keywords: Political Islam, Arab Spring, Tunisia, Ennahda, Democracy, Moderation. Word count: 13 127 2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 4 1.1 Aim of Research and Research Question ......................................................................... 4 1.2 Relevance to Human Rights ............................................................................................. 5 1.3 Delimitations .................................................................................................................... 6 2. Historical background and Previous Research ...................................................................... 6 3. Theory ................................................................................................................................. 10 3.1 Analytical framework ..................................................................................................... 10 3.1.1 Political Entrepreneurship ........................................................................................ 12 3.1.2 Institutions ................................................................................................................ 12 3.1.3 Ideology ................................................................................................................... 13 3.1.4 Party Constituents .................................................................................................... 14 3.2 Critique of the Theory .................................................................................................... 14 3.3 Operationalization of theory ........................................................................................... 15 4. Methodological Approach ................................................................................................... 16 4.1 Research Design ............................................................................................................. 16 4.2 Research Method ............................................................................................................ 17 4.2 Positioning Myself .......................................................................................................... 19 5. Material ............................................................................................................................... 19 5.1 Presentation of Material .................................................................................................. 20 6. Analysis ............................................................................................................................... 20 6.1 The Re-emergence of Ennahda ....................................................................................... 21 6.2 Ennahda and the Muslim Brotherhood ........................................................................... 23 6.3 The Rise of Salafist-jihadism ......................................................................................... 25 6.4 The Bardo Crisis and the Constitutional Drafting Process ............................................. 27 6.5 The 2016 National Congress .......................................................................................... 31 7. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 32 References ............................................................................................................................... 35 3 1. Introduction After the Arab Spring scholar such as Oliver Roy and Eugene Rogen argued about a possible revival of political Islam and the possibility of it being democratic (Roy, 2012; 12-13) (Rogen, 2013; 338-341). Tunisia, where the revolution started, would soon be the proving grounds for this theory. An Islamic religious political party called Ennahda quickly emerged as the leading party and formed a democratic coalition government with secular parties. The party was initially seen with scepticism, and many feared it would lead the country back to its authoritarian past. The fear was not unreasonable, other political organisations under the same ideological banner had been Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the religious regime in Iran. Ennahda has since then gone through a moderation process and during its national convention in 2016 the party went further in separating its religious activities with its political. The party leader Rachid Ghannouchi wrote in the magazine Foreign Affairs that: “Ennahda has moved beyond its origins as an Islamist party and has fully embraced a new identity as a party of Muslim democrats. … is no longer both a political party and a social movement. It has ended all of its cultural and religious activities and now focuses only on politics.” (Ghannouchi, Foreign Affairs 2016). During the years between 2011 and 2016 Ennahda has had to reinvent itself, form coalitions with secular actors and sacrifice parts of its own religious agenda to protect the democratic transition. This thesis will try to understand Ennahda’s moderation process through the political events and circumstances Tunisia experienced in the years after the revolution. By conducting this research, this thesis hopes to further the understanding of how political Islam was transformed in Tunisia which could provide a path for a new way to understand political Islam and even democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. 1.1 Aim of Research and Research Question The aim of this research is to understand how the Ennahda Movement in Tunisia changed over the years from 2011, in the aftermath of the Arab spring and the Jasmine Revolution, to 2016, where the party declared themselves Muslim democrats and they abandoned the terminology and ideology of political Islam. Understanding this process is important in gaining knowledge on how the ideology of political Islam might change within a democratic system and the prerequisites for such a change. As political Islam is sometimes described as a 4 possible path for achieving democracy in the Middle East and North Africa, by scholars such as Oliver Roy and Asef Bayat (Cavatorta, Torelli, 2021; 1-2) therefore understanding the case of Ennahda means gaining knowledge of one possible path of democratization in the MENA region and understanding what such as process might require. Tunisia is currently the only majority Muslim country in the MENA region who are a considered a democracy (Freedom House, 2021) and the Ennahda Movement has during this process achieved a self-proclaimed moderation. Understanding the circumstances of Ennahda’s moderation can therefore provide a path for understanding both how the ideology of political Islam is affected in a democratic system but also understand democratic transitions in the Middle East and North Africa. This thesis will also test Elman and Warner's analytical framework for understanding when religious political parties moderate, in a democratic system, by applying the case of Ennahda to it. Furthermore, it should be clarified that this thesis is not looking to answer questions on whether or not Islam is compatible with democracy or liberal values. Instead, it is merely looking at the circumstances that affected the political evolution of the Ennahda Movement between the years of 2011 and 2016 in a hope to understand how the ideology of political Islam can be affected within a democratic system. The research question is the following: - How can Ennahda’s moderation process, between the years 2011 and 2016, be explained theoretically? 1.2 Relevance to Human Rights This research field is deemed relevant to human rights and human rights studies as it examines democracy and religious actors within the creation of a democratic system. Understanding Ennahda’s role in the Tunisian democracy and how that process affected them but also how they tried to implement their view of what an Islamic democracy entails means gaining a new perspective of the phrase “the will of the people shall
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