Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen

Extract

Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen. By Jillian Schwedler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 252p. $80.00.

Many attribute the failure of democratization in the Islamic world to the existence of antidemocratic Islamist movements. Why should democratization move forward when the main beneficiaries would allow for “one person, one vote, one time”? Jillian Schwedler in Faith in Moderation refutes this common argument head-on. Schwedler, however, is not merely content in presenting two Islamist parties as “moderate” to show how Islam is not monolithic. She has a more analytical project in which she urges us to unpack many of our assumptions about regime transitions in the Middle East and in general. Her argument targets the linkage between the inclusion of Islamist opposition groups in politics and the effects of their participation in moderating their ideology and behavior. Her treatment of this topic, based in social movement theory, deserves our attention.