A paradox of democracy? Islamist participation in elections

Middle East Report

Volumn 28, Issue 209, 1998, Pages 25-29

  Schwedler, Jillian ^a  

^a NEW YORK UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEMOCRACY; ELECTION; ISLAMISM; POLITICAL PARTICIPATION; POLITICAL SYSTEM;

MIDDLE EAST;

EID: 0032443194     PISSN: 08992851     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3012731     Document Type: Article

References (7)

1. This article draws on two years of field research supported by the Social Science Research Council, the Fulbright Commission, and the American Institute for Yemeni Studies. I wish to thank those who provided comments on earlier drafts.
2. "Islamist" refers to the subset of Muslims (followers of the Islamic faith) who seek to promote an Islamic agenda for social, political and economic reform. All Islamists are therefore Muslims; not all Muslims are Islamists.
3. For example, Judith Miller argues that "free elections seem more likely than any other route to produce militant Islamic regimes that are, in fact, inherently antidemocratic." "The Challenge of Radical Islam," Foreign Affairs 72/2 (Spring 1993), p. 52.
4. Gudrun Krämer, "Cross-Links and Double Talk? Islamist Movements in the Political Process," in Laura Guazzone, ed., The Islamist Dilemma: The Political Role of Islamist Movements in the Contemporary Arab World (Ithaca, NY: Ithaca Press, 1995), p. 42.
5. Algeria's FIS did not even win a majority, though it may have if the electoral process had not been suspended.
6. Paul Salem, "Skirting Democracy: Lebanon's 1996 Elections and Beyond," Middle East Report 203 (Spring 1997), p. 28.
7. Augustus Richard Norton reports that Hizballah won seven seats in the 1996 contest. See his "Hizballah: From Radicalism to Pragmatism?" Middle East Policy 5/4 (January 1998), p. 156.