Secular authoritarian regimes and their Islamist rivals in the Middle East and North Africa: Emerging trends in Turkey's party system

Abstract

Secular nationalism grew over 50 years to become a compelling force for political, social, and cultural change in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), but it was Islamism that rose to be its chief rival and, in many Middle East countries, eventually replaced it. The question is: why? And how did Islam gain political momentum? Since independence, the diktat of most single-party countries in MENA has been to implement modernization and secularization. Unlike the secular elites, which sought to overthrow colonialism and the monarchies, the early Islamic reformers sought to establish an Islamic state. MENA's secular regimes led to the massive institutionalization of national identity by nationalizing economies and education, to create a unified ideology from which people could draw a common identity. While eliminating competing ideologies, governments ignored the conservative right in the form of Islamism, which was not expected to pose a serious challenge to them. However, since MENA regimes were mostly authoritarian and forestalled a viable opposition, a social cleavage from below grew as an Islamic movement and eventually presented a serious challenge to them. This article provides an empirical analysis to support the argument that social cleavages in MENA have cultural implications that relate to identity rather than to territory. Hence, latent political cleavages, such as Islamism and ethnic nationalism, served as opportunities to reinforce or reactivate cleavages.