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
P
REFACE
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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.
| 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