The ‘incomplete’ failure of political Islam: The Justice and Development Party and the Freedom and Justice Party as case studies

Abstract

How would Islamists succeed to sustain their rule in spite of their lack of an Islamic blueprint for governance? I draw on an original fieldwork study conducted in Turkey and Egypt from 2010 to 2013 to advance a theory linking Islamists’ rule sustainability and political leverage vis-à-vis the state establishment. In contrast with post-Islamism, the results contended that Islamists sustain their rule if they have a high political leverage based on the adoption of a three-fold strategy comprising identification, differentiation, and alliance mobilisation. Based on 45 open-ended and semi-structured interviews conducted with members of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party and Egypt’s Freedom and Justice Party, findings significantly hold in authoritarian and hybrid regimes in the Middle East.