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:: Issues > Political Islam Studies | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() Islamism: Can the U.S. prevent Islamist Victories?
A recent article from the FAO Journal answers affirmatively, and attempts to identify mechanisms to “defeat Islamists at the ballot.”
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Sunday, February 21,2010 11:28 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Co-written by Khairi Abaza of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and Dr. Soner Cagaptay from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the piece dismisses the notion that engaging or empowering moderate Islamists can be a useful counterbalance toward those who subscribe to a more extreme Islamist brand. “The term ‘moderate Islamist’ is offensive to all Muslims,” the authors claim. “It does not matter how Washington qualifies Islamists; once it acknowledges them as partners, parties who believe in liberal democracy will see this as a sign that Washington has allied itself with the Islamists,” which ostensibly creates an environment of disaffection and perhaps stagnation. Using the history of post-WWII U.S. policy toward Italy as a guide, Abaza and Cagaptay analyze the tools used by U.S. officials to discourage and eventually reverse the proliferation of popularly-elected Communist politicians, and modify them to fit a Middle Eastern context. This leads them to four general recommendations:
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tags: Political Islam / Parliamentary Elections / Sectarianism / Democracy Promotion / Engaging / Islam and Democracy / Islamist Movements / US Foreign Policy
Posted in Political Islam Studies |
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