Islamist populism? Exploring the MENA region from a comparative and empirical perspective

ABSTRACT

Based on the Global Party Survey (GPS) database, this research article explores the interaction between populism and Islamism in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) party systems. Drawing on the ideational approach to populism, this analysis shows that Islamist parties do not share a common populist profile. Rather, we can speak of three broad profiles according tSalamanca, Spain, Institute of Iberoamericao the three main dimensions of populism. While the Moroccan Party of Justice and Development (PJD) displays a populism dominated by people-centrism, the Rally of Algerian Hope (TAJ), the Tunisian En-Nahda (EN), and the Jordanian Islamic Action Front (IAF) profiles are dominated by anti-elitism. On the other hand, the Turkish Justice and Development Party (AKP) is heavily influenced by Erdogan’s leadership and its strongman impetus.

KEYWORDS:

• Islamist parties
• populism
• Islamist populism
• MENA region
• comparative politics
• expert survey

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Norris, Pippa, 2020, “Global Party Survey, 2019”, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WMGTNS,HarvardDataverse,V3,UNF:6:ZJDKjnJskyudaqjUu98PPw==[fileUNF]. https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/GlobalPartySurvey

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2023.2203562.

Notes

1. Modernisation encompasses a variety of phenomena, including globalization, the risk society, the post-Fordist economy, the post-industrial society, etc. (Swank & Betz, 2003; Loch & Heitmeyer, 2001; Minkenberg, 1998; Beck, 1992).

2. For more technical details on expert’s survey administration, please see www.GlobalPartySurvey.org.

3. Although more ‘classical’ Islamist political parties differ from Salafist political organizations, we considered relevant to include the Egyptian case in our study.

4. For more information about the party systems and parties under study in this research, please, see details in Annex 0.1.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Government of Spain National R & D & I Plan, Grant PGC2018-098207-B-I00 (Populism, political preferences and political representation: changes in party systems after the Great Recession); the Spanish Ministry of the Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (MINECO), the State Research Agency (AEI) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under Grant CSO2017-84949-C3-3-P (‘Crisis and Regional Change Processes in North Africa: The Implications for Spain’ (CSO2017-84949-C3-3-P); and co-funded by the European NextGenerationEU Fund, Spanish “Plan de Recuperación, Transformación y Resilencia” Fund, Spanish Ministry of Universities, and University of Salamanca (“Ayudas para la recualificación del sistema universitario español para 2021-2022”).