“Islam and Resistance”: The Uses of Ideology in the Foreign Policy of Hamas

Even though Hamas remains a non-state actor tapping into the register of political Islam, the sources of its international practice are fundamentally the same ones organizing the foreign policies of states: defending its interests as perceived by the movement’s leaders and advocating the values and constitutive norms of this politico-religious player’s ideology. This dual observation remains valid even when its foreign policy defines itself both in relation to the occupying power and by interactions with other actors.

The Foreign Policy of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood

How the Muslim Brothers in Egypt have ceased the opportunity provided by the Arab Spring to put their ideology in the field of international affairs into practice? What have been the diplomatic rationale that have determined the Morsy presidency’s foreign action and discourse? It turns out that their ideological stances have led them to nurture a very specific understanding of the role of Egypt in the Middle East. This attempt to build, under very specific constraints, an Islamist diplomacy has reinforced the weaknesses of Morsy’s power. The desire to break up with Mubarak’s legacy has allowed a new turn in the field of foreign policy that has made Morsy’s power appearing more interested in promoting the Umma’s interest than the Egyptian one.

The Islamists and International Relations: A Dialectical Relationship?

Islamism now dates back a hundred years. Concern over members of this political and religious movement relates to their putative and potential radical - or even violent – behavior when confronted with cultural otherness. Such behavior takes root in their assumed wish to redesign the world in their image. From its inception in the 1920s to its more recent manifestations, the Islamist movement strove to lift Muslim societies out of their alleged civilizational lethargy. In so-doing, it has paid substantial attention to the state of international affairs, as well as to potential ways to act on it. If the State remains undeniably Islamist movements’ privileged arena for action, considerations for Muslim countries’ environment; devising strategies aiming at the completion of a “motherland of believers” (al-oumma); thoughts on an interstate order within an Islamic frame of reference - remain prominent concerns to them. From its outset, Islamism has always insisted on the duty to serve religion as a whole - and thus everyone identifying with it. Its end goal therefore overrides geographical, historical and political borders – those being perceived as divisive and weakening the face of Islam. In addition, Islamists consider the current international order as one consciously designed by non-Muslims. In such views, the latter nurse an ontological enmity towards Islam because of its revisionist potential. The Arab revolutions initiated in 2010 have been experimental fields of the oppositional – even revolutionary – dimensions of Islamist ideology. These enable interrogations to be raised on Islamism’s practice and possible evolutions. In other words, how do Islamist movements translate fundamental diplomatic and relational principles into practice with other actors of the international system? If Islamist forces are indeed maintaining special relationships with the outside world mainly driven by the wish to shower the planet with Islam-serving behavior, is it however analytically relevant to identify a specific Islamist practice of international affairs? There are two objectives tied to this presentation. First, it will attempt to shed light on how Islamist activists, leaders and theorists view the world. In so-doing, Islamist speeches and intellectual output will be scrutinized. Then, answers will be provided to the following question: when Islamist officials have had the chance to approach national decision-making arenas - this is the case in some countries that have experienced the Arab Spring – how did they manage to put up a foreign policy agenda centered around an Islamic framework? This question is central for through it one can attempt to measure the empirical outreach of the Islamist ideology.

The Islamists of Morocco’s Party of Justice and Development and the Foreign Policy Problem: Between Structural Constraints and Economic Imperatives

How Moroccan Islamists have come to a vision of international affairs compliant with the Monarchy’s view of the Moroccan interest? This chapter sheds light on the evolution of the Party for Justice and Development’s discourse in the domain of international relations and foreign policy. Becoming state-builders at the head of a State that they could not reform the way they initially wanted has made Moroccan Islamism more moderate although initial ideals are still present.

Identity of the State, National Interest, and Foreign Policy: Diplomatic Actions and Practices of Turkey’s AKP since 2002

On what conceptions of international affairs and world order is based the AKP foreign policy at the head of Turkey? This chapter examines the pillars of the AKP’s foreign action and discourse. It shows that the Islamist movement has been trying over the last several years to promote a new identity for Turkey in order to reconcile both national interest and defence of the Muslim people across the Middle East. However, in contrast to the official discourses, some crisis such as the Syrian crisis have been reshaping this panislamic ambition to make it always more realistic.

A Fighting Shiism Faces the World: The Foreign Policy of Hezbollah

Close to thirty years after Hezbollah’s birth, the study of its foreign policy has in the main constituted a subordinate subject to the study of Western foreign policies, which has been content to view it as subcontracting on behalf of more important regional actors. Hezbollah’s interaction with the world, thus limited to a series of anti- Western and anti-Israeli terrorist initiatives carried out on the orders of the Syrian and/or Iranian regimes, becomes a favored way for getting at the real nature of the organization, so that Hezbollah sees itself summed up as an essentially violent organization whose field of action is by nature extra- national. Indisputably, Hezbollah’s foreign policy reflects a series of elements that reveal the organization’s true identity; however, it is really nothing more than an evolving strategy hinging on other means of action, in the service of an order of priorities that are definitely Lebanese-centered: For Hezbollah, as for quite a few other political actors, its foreign policy is above all a domestic policy. In order to understand the latter’s relationship to the world and its strategic choices in that regard, it is necessary first of all to discard certain received ideas, and then to return to the reasons that brought the party into being and refocus on the principal goals it makes its own.

The Foreign Policy of Tunisia’s Ennahdha: Constancy and Changes

How Ennahda’s activists have been seeing the world for several decades? Through the mean of interviews and fieldwork conducted for several years amongst Ennahda’s supporters, sympathizers and activists, this chapter highlights how world politics is perceived and framed. According to which rationale, some of them have been led to see it in terms of enmity when others now identify with a more moderate stance?