Islamist radicalisation the challenge for euro-mediterranean relations

ii |
 
R
ICHARD 
Y
OUNGS 
&
 
M
ICHAEL 
E
MERSON
 
volume that presented an analysis of how Islamist political parties viewed 
European foreign policy. That book was based on interviews conducted 
with some of the main Islamist parties espousing democratic norms across 
nine MENA states. Its conclusions were sobering. They revealed Islamists’ 
continuing mistrust of European intentions, disappointment with the EU’s 
failure to live up to its claim of being serious about promoting democratic 
reform in the Middle East and the perception that EU initiatives such as the 
European Neighbourhood Policy are more about excluding and containing 
Islamism than they are about inclusion and engagement.  
In this follow-up volume, we broaden our analysis to consider some 
of the trends within political Islam that appear to be less benign for 
European interests. We are interested here in the relationship between the 
‘moderate’ and ‘less moderate’ ends of the Islamist spectrum. Two distinct 
dimensions of the latter present challenging, but different, policy 
considerations for the EU: first, those Islamist groups still committed to or 
actively engaged in violence; and second, those strands increasingly 
committed to a disengaged, apolitical form of doctrinally-pure Islam. This 
second trend may not be violent, but is invariably hostile in its doctrine to 
both the West and democracy, apparently uncompromising in its 
ideological principles and often reluctant to channel demands and 
articulate interests through the political process. Experts differ on the 
question of whether this second trend can be described as radicalisation. 
But it is clear that both dimensions – violent and quietist – raise important 
and difficult policy dilemmas for European policy-makers.  
An assessment of these dilemmas forms the backbone of this book. To 
this end, the book examines the following questions: 
•
 
How does EU policy affect the balance between moderate and less 
moderate strands of political Islam in the MENA region? 
•
 
Does the EU need to engage more specifically with the moderates? Is 
this the best means to assist de-radicalisation? Or is a selective focus 
on the moderates actually contributing to the growing exclusion, 
frustration and thus re-radicalisation of some Islamists? 
•
 
If this latter interpretation is correct, how far and in what way should 
the EU be engaging with the less moderate end of the Islamist 
spectrum? Should it set any conditions for such engagement, and if so 
what kinds of conditions? If it sets no conditions, can EU engagement 
really contribute towards de-radicalisation or is it of little significance  
 

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P
REFACE 
|
 
iii 
for trends in political Islam? If re-radicalisation is actually a misnomer 
and of no particular concern to European interests, what policy 
implication does this more critical reading have for EU strategy in the 
MENA region? 
This volume proceeds in three parts.  
First, Robert Springborg provides an overview of the mismatch 
between trends in re-radicalisation, on the one hand, and European 
readings of political developments in the Arab states of the southern 
Mediterranean, on the other.  
Second, a series of regional experts dissect trends in the MENA region 
and reflect on what these mean for European policies. Ibrahim El Houdaiby 
investigates the roots of persistent radicalism in Egypt; Khaled Al-Hashimi 
examines the factors driving Hamas’s radicalism at the individual, social, 
governmental and international levels; and Omayma Abdel-Latif charts the 
fluidity in Salafism. Senem Aydin Düzgit and Ruşen Çakir question 
whether Turkey is really the successful case of de-radicalisation it is often 
presented to be.  
In the volume’s third part, European experts delve deeper into the 
nature of EU policies. Ana Echagüe argues that fears that the EU is 
contributing to re-radicalisation are exaggerated. Kristina Kausch critiques 
the EU’s failure to fulfil its commitment to engage with moderate Islamists. 
Nona Mikhelidze and Nathalie Tocci explore whether the EU’s engagement 
with opposition groups in other regions provide any helpful lessons for the 
Middle East.  
In the volume’s conclusion, Muriel Asseburg seeks to relate the 
intricacies of internal trends within Islam to the design of European 
strategies. A common theme running throughout the volume is that the EU 
needs far more fine-grained and bespoke policies that better respond to the 
fact that radicalisation, de-radicalisation and re-radicalisation are all 
occurring in the MENA region and are driven by a multiplicity of different 
factors.  

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P
ART 
I. 
T
HE QUESTION
 

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| 1  
 
 
1.
 
I
S THE 
EU
 CONTRIBUTING TO
 
RE
-
RADICALISATION
? 
R
OBERT 
S
PRINGBORG
 
his opening chapter provides an overview of the main questions 
explored by this volume: whether re-radicalisation is occurring; 
whether it is doing so because democratisation is not; and whether 
the EU could do more to facilitate democratisation or at least liberalisation, 
or could provide some solace or even support to Islamists so that they do 
not re-radicalise. Leaving aside the EU’s role for the moment, the possible 
link between ‘freedom’ and ‘terror’ is one that has already stimulated 
considerable research, much of which indicates a negative correlation, i.e. 
the less freedom in a political system, the more likely it is to spawn 
terrorism. A recent empirical study conducted by the Rand Corporation, 
for example, of how “political reform influences calculations regarding 
political violence in six Arab states”, found that “political openings can co-
opt and moderate opposition forces” and “cosmetic reforms and 
backtracking erode regime legitimacy and contribute to political violence”.
1
  
It would appear, therefore, that the implicit assumptions about re-
radicalisation are well grounded, suggesting that the EU should give 
careful consideration to how it might help reverse the de-liberalisation, re-
radicalisation process and possibly even leverage it into a liberalisation–
moderation one. The purposes of this chapter are to investigate the contexts 
within which potential EU interventions might occur, most particularly  
 
                                                      
1
 D. Dassa Kaye, F. Wehrey, A.K. Grant and D. Stahl, More Freedom, Less Terror? 
Liberalisation and Political Violence in the Arab World, Rand Corporation, Los 
Angeles, CA, 2008. 
T 

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