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Can Islamists Become Moderates? Rethinking the Inclusion-Moderation Hypothesis

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AshourOmar. 2009. The De-Radicalization of Jihadists: Transforming Armed Islamist Movements. New York: Routledge Publishers, 205 pp.

BayatAsef. 2007. Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn. Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 320 pp.

BrowersMichaelle L.. 2009. Political Ideology in the Arab World: Accommodation and Transformation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 210 pp.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

Jillian Schwedler
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Email: jschwedler@polsci.umass.edu.
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Abstract

Recent years have seen a surge of studies that examine the inclusion-moderation hypothesis with reference to political Islam: the idea that political groups and individuals may become more moderate as a result of their inclusion in pluralist political processes. Most of these interventions adopt one of three foci: (1) the behavioral moderation of groups; (2) the ideological moderation of groups; and (3) the ideological moderation of individuals. After a discussion of various definitions of moderate and radical, the concept of moderation, and the centrality of moderation to studies of democratization, the author examines the scholarship on political Islam that falls within each approach. She then examines several studies that raise questions about sequencing: how mechanisms linking inclusion and moderation are posited and how other approaches might better explain Islamist moderation. Finally, she offers a critical analysis of the behavior-ideology binary that animates many of these models and suggests some fruitful paths for future research.

Type
Review Article
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 2011

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