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The Journal for Interdisciplinary Middle Eastern StudiesVolume 6, No.2, Fall 2020, pp. 103-129DOI: https://doi.org/10.26351/JIMES/6-2/1ISSN: 2522-347X (print); 2522-6959 (online)

Islamic Populism: Promises and LimitationsBuket Oztas

Abstract

Shifting attention away from doctrinal debates on Islam toward the political realities of Muslim majority countries, this study investigates the promises and limitations of populism in the Islamic world. Using examples from Egypt, Turkey, and Indonesia, it aims to develop a more nuanced understanding of political Islam, and to shed light on populist forms of politics beyond Western democracies. Central to this ambition is the exploration of whether this recent tide of Islamic populism acts as a corrective that empowers the people, or as a threat that capitalizes on the ill-informed masses to garner support for charismatic leaders.

The cases under scrutiny demonstrate that by weakening the authoritarian structures, producing doctrinally flexible politicians, and incorporating marginalized groups into politics, this new form of populism facilitates democratic transitions in authoritarian and competitive-authoritarian settings. However, the very characteristics of populism that prove successful against the establishment also create significant impediments for democratic consolidation later on. By rejecting plurality and failing to re-establish the formal and informal institutions necessary for democratic governance, these movements often replace one form of authoritarianism with another. Broken promises of inclusion leave a bitter legacy of populism in the political arena, making citizens much more cynical about political processes in the long run.

Keywords: political Islam, populism, democratization, regime transitions

Dr. Buket Oztas – Furman University (Greenville, South Carolina); buket.oztas@furman.edu

104 Buket Oztas

Introduction

The way Islamist groups politicize religion and sacralize politics has been on political

scientists’ radar since Ayatollah Khomeini justified the Iranian Revolution as a struggle

of “the dispossessed” against the traditional and “corrupt” elites.1 Despite such populist

undertones and frequent calls to defend “the oppressed people” against a “political/social

order deemed unjust and immoral” across the Muslim world, the relationship between

populist and Islamist movements has been a neglected area of research.2 So far, there have

been only a few studies addressing contemporary Islamist movements’ mobilization of

the “pure and simple” umma against the “corrupt elites” of secular nation-states,3 and an

even fewer number of studies discussing the supply side of populism in Muslim majority

countries,4 especially with regard to “the question of how to deal with populists” once they

come to power.5

This research aims to fill this gap by broadening the research agenda and providing

scholars with a new theoretical paradigm, and a framework, through which these two

concepts, i.e., populism and politics in Muslim majority countries, can be examined.

Building on Afrasiabi’s terminology6 and Hadiz’s analysis of new Islamic populism,7 this

project situates the concept within the literature and presents a theory of Islamic-populist-

led democratic transitions based on empirical analysis of, and lessons from, Egypt,

1 Fred Halliday, “The Iranian Revolution: Uneven Development and Religious Populism,” Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 36, No. 2 (1982), pp. 187–207.

2 José Pedro Zúquete, “Populism and Religion,ˮ in Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Paul Taggart, Paulina Ochoa Espejo and Pierre Ostiguy (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 445–466.

3 Vedi R. Hadiz, “A New Islamic Populism and the Contradictions of Development,” Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 44, No. 1 (2014), pp. 125–143.

4 Manochehr Dorraj, “Populism and Corporatism in the Middle East and North Africa: A Comparative Analysis,” Chinese Political Science Review, Vol. 2, No. 3 (2017), pp. 288–313.

5 Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser and Paul Taggart, “Dealing with Populists in Government: A Framework for Analysis,” Democratization, Vol. 23, No. 2 (2016), p. 203.

6 Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, “Islamic Populism,” Telos, Vol. 104 (1995), pp. 97–125.7 Vedi R. Hadiz, Islamic Populism in Indonesia and the Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2016).

105Islamic Populism: Promises and Limitations

Turkey, and Indonesia. By focusing on the trajectory of regime outcomes (democratic

transitions in all three cases, followed by a sudden democratic breakdown in Egypt, and

a democratic backsliding in Turkey), this study links this new form of political Islam with

the democratization literature, and investigates the short- and long-term implications

of post-Islamist and populist politics in certain Muslim majority countries. While an

empirical assessment of Islamic populist cases is beyond the scope of this study, the

three different levels of access to power that we see in these countries still illustrate the

particular characteristics of Islamic populism in opposition and in power. Furthermore,

they shed light on the application of populist ideas to non-Western and non-democratic

contexts, and elaborate on the consequences of Islamic-populist rule. Perhaps more

importantly, they show how Islamist actors adapt themselves to new situations and go

beyond the oft-cited dynamics of moderation and radicalization in their multifaceted

struggles for power and influence. As such, these cases contribute to our theoretical

understanding of post-Islamist politics and this new phenomenon of populism in political

Islam. Insights gained from the arguments presented here can be applied to other cases

and expanded into a complex narrative that presents a more nuanced picture of Islam

and politics in the age of populism, especially if democratization is still a goal for the

Muslims across the world.8

Islamic Populism in Comparative Perspective

The term populism has been a constant source of contention and contestation in the

literature, generating a wide variety of definitions and multiple interpretations of its

impact on political life.9 The heterogeneity of the populist movements, along with their

8 Charles K. Rowley and Nathanael Smith, “Islam’s Democracy Paradox: Muslims Claim to Like Democracy, so Why Do They Have so Little?” Public Choice, Vol. 139, No. 3–4 (2009), pp. 273–299.

9 Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, “Populism and (Liberal) Democracy: A Framework for Analysis,ˮ in Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser (eds.), Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 1–26; Kirk A. Hawkins, “Is Chávez Populist? Measuring Populist

106 Buket Oztas

shifting ideologies,10 have made it difficult for researchers to come up with consistent

and analytical definitions that can be applied to a variety of cases. In its broadest sense,

though, the term populism refers to a Manichean worldview that separates the society into

two “homogenous and antagonistic entities” (i.e., the pure people versus the corrupt elite),

and asserts that the “pure people” should determine the country’s political destiny through

the “volonté générale.”11

Islamism, on the other hand, refers to the diverse set of ideological perspectives that

share the view that Islam should inform politics and be a source (if not the source) of

legislation at the local, national, and global level so as to regulate various aspects of

public and private life.12 While Islamist political actors have this “common ideological

and institutional heritage that helps to distinguish them” from their non-Islamist

counterparts, the degree to which they include religious goals in their political programs

and the methods they use to reach these goals vary to a large extent.13 In fact, political

expressions of Muslim faith are so incredibly dynamic that they constantly incorporate

new ideas and identities from the global context and fit them into their local realities.14

Discourse in Comparative Perspective,ˮ Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 42, No. 8 (2009), pp. 1040–1067; Paris Aslanidis, “Is Populism an Ideology? A Refutation and a New Perspective,ˮ Political Studies, Vol. 64 (2015), pp. 88–104; Andrej Zaslove, “Here to Stay? Populism as a New Party Type,” European Review, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2008), pp. 319–336.

10 This led some scholars to depict populism as “chameleon-like, ever adapting to the colors of its environment” (Bojan Bugaric, “The Two Faces of Populism: Between Authoritarian and Democratic Populism,ˮ German Law Journal, Vol. 20, No. 3 [2019], pp. 390-400).

11 Cas Mudde, “The Populist Zeitgeist,ˮ Government and Opposition, Vol. 39, No. 4 (2004), p. 543. Scholarly work on this issue operates both on the supply side of populism (such as the creation of populist policies, or the advent of populist leaders) and on the demand side (for instance, the voter disillusionment with the mainstream politics and the crises of representation). Both strands of this literature seem to agree that populism is a direct consequence of voters’ disillusionment with mainstream politics, an indication of their distrust in political institutions, and a symptom of a large-scale legitimacy crisis in the society.

12 Emmanuel Karagiannis, The New Political Islam: Human Rights, Democracy, and Justice (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018).

13 Quinn Mecham, Institutional Origins of Islamist Political Mobilization (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), p. 4; Luca Ozzano, “The Many Faces of the Political God: A Typology of Religiously Oriented Parties,” Demcoratization, Vol. 20, No. 5 (2013), pp. 807–830.

14 Thomas B. Pepinsky, “Political Islam and the Limits of the Indonesian Model,” Taiwan Journal of Democracy, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2014), pp. 105–121.

107Islamic Populism: Promises and Limitations

For this reason, scholars have been focusing on the institutional evolution of Islamist

movements,15 analyzing political identities of Islamist actors,16 and using theoretical

frameworks that would look familiar to those working on social movements, political

parties, and regime transitions in both Muslim and non-Muslim contexts,17 rather than

on re-examining the already answered questions, “such as whether Islam and democracy

are compatible, whether inclusion or exclusion is a better strategy for deflating Islamic

challengers, or whether Islamists treat democracy as a strategic or tactical option.”18 Since

Asef Bayat’s seminal work pointing out the failure of many Islamist actors to translate

their vision into tangible policies and meet the needs and demands of their support bases,

many have also suggested that we have been witnessing a paradigm shift from Islamism

to post-Islamism,19 and that even the Islamists themselves have been abandoning their

“nostalgic traditionalism” in favor of alternative modernities and opening themselves to

new social and political realities.20

While the reasons for, and processes of, this “failure of political Islam” has been

discussed in detail elsewhere, it should be noted for the purposes of this research that

this paradigm shift has not led to the disappearance of Islamist politics altogether.21 Even

when Islamist actors convincingly distinguished their platforms from those of radical and

violent fringes, and participated in elections, the process did not result in the moderation

of Islamist actors in all cases, as some scholars and policymakers had expected.22 On

15 Luca Ozzano and Francesco Cavatorta, “Introduction: Religiously Oriented Parties and Democratization,” Democratization, Vol. 20, No. 5 (2013), pp. 799–806.

16 Shadi Hamid, “Arab Islamist Parties: Losing on Purpose?” Vol. 22, No. 1 (2011), pp. 68–80. 17 Ozzano, “The Many Faces of the Political God.ˮ18 Hamed El-said and James E. Rauch, “Education, Political Participation, and Islamist Parties: The

Case of Jordan’s Islamic Action Front,” The Middle East Journal, Vol. 69, No. 1 (2016), p. 52.19 Asef Bayat, “What Is Post-Islamism?” Isim, Vol. 16 (2005), p. 5.20 Mojtaba Mahdavi, “One Bed and Two Dreams? Contentious Public Religion in the Discourses

of Ayatollah Khomeini and Ali Shariati,” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, Vol. 43, No. 1 (2014), pp. 25–52.

21 Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).22 Francesco Cavatorta and Fabio Merone, “Moderation through Exclusion? The Journey of the

Tunisian Ennahda from Fundamentalist to Conservative Party,ˮ Democratization, Vol. 20, No. 5 (2013), pp. 857–875; Jeremy Menchik, Islam and Democracy in Indonesia: Tolerance without Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

108 Buket Oztas

the contrary, some Islamist groups realized that their acceptance of secular rules of the

game would risk alienating their devout supporters, and others decided that addressing

these non-Islamist issues and making them a part of their policy platforms would not

necessarily bring enough votes to succeed in the political arena. Where competition within

the party system and existing institutions prevented “piety-trumping,” but still allowed

Islamist groups to challenge the ruling elites, this post-Islamist phase paved the way for a

different type of “political normalization.”23 Seeking new political frameworks to appeal

to the disillusioned populace and to create an even playing field, some Islamist actors have

simply rebranded themselves as champions of ordinary people, and embraced populism as

a strategy to bring together a diverse group of actors and give a voice to their frustrations

and aspirations. As Hadiz notes, political entrepreneurs like the Freedom and Justice Party

(Ḥizb al-Ḥurriyyah wa al-῾Adala – FJP) in Egypt, the Justice and Development Party

(Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi – AKP) in Turkey, and the Prosperous Justice Party (Partai

Keadilan Sejahtera – PKS) in Indonesia have successfully adapted the populist rhetoric to

the needs and demands of their countries by using the common knowledge and language

of Islam.24 This common knowledge, combined with the idea of the umma, has served as a

basis for a sense of solidarity and has created potent opposition forces even in the absence

of any other identity that can bring diverse groups together.25

Seen from this perspective, Islamic populism constitutes a subtype of populism that

incorporates the well-known populist characteristics, such as a Manichean outlook, attempts

to build direct ties with their supporters, frequent references to the general will and disdain

23 Quinn Mecham and Julie Chernov Hwang (eds.), Islamist Parties and Political Normalization in the Muslim World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014); Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, “The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2002), pp. 51–65.

24 As Halliday notes, “Islam has a reserve of values, symbols and ideas from which it is possible to derive a contemporary politics and a social code” (Fred Halliday, Nation and Religion in the Middle East [London: Saqi books, 2000], p. 133). See also: Hadiz, Islamic Populism in Indonesia and the Middle East.

25 This focus on the political incentives do not imply that all Islamists turned to populism to boost their popularity across the Muslim world, however: as previous research suggests, Islamists differ from other Islamists as much as they differ from non-Islamists; see: Luca Ozzano, “The Many Faces of the Political God.ˮ

109Islamic Populism: Promises and Limitations

towards the elites, whom populists see as the enemy of the people.26 It combines populism’s

“thin ideology” with the well-known Islamist aim to replace the secular-authoritarian

elites of Muslim majority countries with “duly servants of the (religious) people,”27 and

to transform the political arena in the direction of people’s self-defined Islamic interests.28

Far from being an oxymoron, Islamic populism illustrates the malleability of populist

politics as well as the diverse, modern, and global characteristics of political Islam, which

make Islamist politicians adept at following global trends and changing their strategies

depending on local challenges and opportunity structures.29

As was examined in detail elsewhere, the rise of Islamic populism has been, first

and foremost, related to the immersion of Islamist politicians in electoral politics and

their realization that they could use these institutions to their advantage.30 While some

parties, like the Tunisian Ennahda, embraced democratic ideals when they participated

in their countries’ political systems (the upper echelons of the Ennahda, refused to

adopt a Manichean worldview, at least publicly, and to play into the longstanding

secular-religious divide in the country after the Jasmine Revolution of 2011),31 others

started seeing the populist mode of politics as a shortcut to establishing their place and

legitimacy in the system. Lacking strong democratic credentials from the beginning

26 Zúquete, “Populism and Religion.”27 Ionuț Apahideanu, “Religious Populism: The Coup de Grâce to Secularisation Theories,”

South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. 2, No. 1–2 (2014), p. 71.28 Because the references and symbolisms populism relies on must be culturally specific and

meaningful in the given context in order to succeed in political scene, this research asserts that Islamic populism should be examined as a separate category with its own “empty signifiers,” changing social bases, strategies and policy agendas; see: Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason (New York: Verso, 2005).

29 Burak Bilgehan Özpek and Nebahat Tanriverdi Yaşar, “Populism and Foreign Policy in Turkey under the AKP Rule,” Turkish Studies, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2018), pp. 198–216.

30 Hadiz, Islamic Populism in Indonesia and the Middle East.31 Kasper Ly Netterstrøm, “The Islamists’ Compromise in Tunisia,” Journal of Democracy,

Vol. 26, No. 4 (2015), pp. 110–124. Later on, the party’s successful transfer of power, and its participation in the governing coalition in 2015, gave further evidence to the party’s reluctance to demonize other actors and adopt a divisive rhetoric to survive in the political arena; see: Rory McCarthy, “When Islamists Lose: The Politicization of Tunisia’s Ennahda Movement,” Middle East Journal, Vol. 72, No. 3 (2018), pp. 365–384.

110 Buket Oztas

and having a lot to prove to their opponents,32 parties like the AKP and the PKS came

to depend on this new form of politics, not just to ensure their survival, but also to

characterize themselves as viable alternatives to the authoritarian or competitive

authoritarian regimes in their countries. Frequent references to “the people” in populist

discourses seemed to confirm their alleged commitments to democratic institutions,

while the lack of ideological precision in populism gave them enough flexibility to

maneuver in the political scene and to interpret the religious ideas according to the

specific constraints and political opportunity structures they faced. In the end, this frame

of reference turned out to be more viable and popular than the original Islamist message:

after all, the authoritarian states they were working against spent way too much time and

energy trying to keep Islamists in check, so they forgot that their populations suffered

from more mundane problems such as high unemployment, crumbling infrastructure,

and lack of accessible healthcare.33 Islamic populists promised to express this collective

resentment, adjust their political agenda on the basis of issues most salient to the large

masses, and to “give power back to the people.”34

Islamic Populism and the Mobilization against the Ruling Elite

Whether it reflects the popular response to changing local or global conditions, or strategic

calculations of Islamist groups to remain relevant in the post-Islamist era, Islamic populism

fuses the Islamists’ desire to establish a political order inspired by, but not directly tied

32 Jillian Schwedler, “Can Islamists Become Moderates: Rethinking the Inclusion-Moderation Hypothesis,” World Politics, Vol. 63 (2011), p. 347.

33 Marina Ottaway and Amr Hamzawy, Fighting on Two Fronts: Secular Parties in the Arab World (Washington: Carnegie Endowment, 2007); Murat Somer, “Moderate Islam and Secularist Opposition in Turkey: Implications for the World, Muslims and Secular Democracy,” Third World Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 7 (2007), pp. 1271–1289; Shadi Hamid, Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle over Islam Is Reshaping the World (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016).

34 William A. Galston, “Populist Resentment, Elitist Arrogance: Two Challenges to Good Democratic Leadership,” in John Kane and Haig Patapan (eds.), Good Democratic Leadership: On Prudence and Judgment in Modern Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 15–31.

111Islamic Populism: Promises and Limitations

to, the Sharia with the populists’ organizational and ideological flexibility, in order to

reach this goal. Unlike its European counterparts that define the people through definite

racial and cultural attributes, it resorts to an organic conceptualization based on purity

and morality, which “identifies Good with a unified will of the people and Evil with a

conspiring elite,” appeals to a larger group of people, and justifies its goals and actions

through their practitioners’ flexible interpretations of sacred texts and words.35

In that regard, Islamic and non-Islamic forms of populism do not constitute two

different discourses or modes of politics: both draw support from marginalized, alienated,

but morally upright groups. Nevertheless, the comparison between the two involves

comparing two different contexts and conjunctures: While populists in the West emerge to

challenge the institutions of liberal democracy, Islamic populists offer their mode of politics

as a solution to the growing disillusionment with the social and economic policies of the

existing governments, as well as to the problems of failed democratization projects in their

countries. Criticizing exclusionary and marginalizing practices and tapping into the rising

levels of religiosity in their societies, they channel the grievances and aspirations of silent

majorities into political action, and challenge the ruling elite with well-known Islamic

references about justice and good governance. As they do so, though, they refrain from

calling for the victory of Islam and advocating the full-scale transformation of all social,

political, and economic structures within their country. Rather, using existing networks,

support bases, and organizational structures of traditional Islamist movements, they create

a new political community, promote an ideology of liberation, mobilize diverse groups

against the entrenched elites, and use the Islamic language and imagery to anchor their

populist politics in the domestic culture.36

It is in this context the question of whether Islamic populism can “proceed from a

reactionary to a foundational project which gives rise to the creation of a new institutional

35 Hawkins, “Is Chávez Populist?ˮ 36 After all, even in the most authoritarian settings, mosques can serve as a public space in

which a “community of individuals regularly associate with one other and have frequent communication” (Mecham, Institutional Origins of Islamist Political Mobilization, p. 60), without being subject to constant state policing and interference. This is just one of the ways in which religious organizations help the regime opponents overcome collective action problems.

112 Buket Oztas

order”37 emerges. After all, scholars and policymakers have long debated the impact

of Islamists on democratization prospects of their countries, and asked if their rise to

power would create grassroots support for democracy38 or result in the ultimate demise

of democratic norms and institutions, as illustrated by Djerejian’s famous “one man, one

vote, one time” theory.39 Nowadays, the widespread use of populist discourse across the

Muslim world raises similar questions, although the idea of Islamic radicals hijacking

the processes of democratization, or the theory of a Muslim political behavior solely

determined by religion, has long been discredited in the literature. In theory, political

actors with Islamist backgrounds, who are well-positioned to make use of populist rhetoric

and action and to channel people’s frustration with the system toward the ruling elites, can

initiate democratic transitions and give voice to the silent majorities. The effects of a

populist regime in power, however, and its wider implications, remain uncertain. Does this

type of populism affect the democratic quality of Muslim-majority countries, especially

when the populist leaders come from Islamist backgrounds?40 Does the populist style of

politics help Islamists adopt more inclusive stances, create new and more meaningful

political identities, and eventually end the hegemony of secular and authoritarian elites? If

yes, can populism be a real transformative force for post-Islamist politics, especially when

it emerges against a non-democratic backdrop? 41

37 Paul Cammack, “The Resurgence of Populism in Latin America,” Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2000), p. 152.

38 Just like populism, democracy is a complex concept, characteristics of which have been discussed extensively elsewhere. This article adopts a Dahlian understanding of democracy, which not only refers to the institutions that limit state power and hold the government accountable to the governed, but also requires mechanisms for people to “formulate their preferences; to signify their preferences to their fellow citizens and the government by individual and collective action; and to have their preferences weighed equally in the conduct of government” (Robert Alan Dahl, Polyarchy; Participation and Opposition [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971], p. 2).

39 Edward P. Djereijan, “The U.S. and the Middle East in a Changing World,” HeinOnline, June 2, 1992, https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/dsptch5&div=246&id=&page=

40 Robert A. Huber and Christian H. Schimpf, “Friend or Foe? Testing the Influence of Populism on Democratic Quality in Latin America,ˮ Political Studies, Vol. 64, No. 4 (2016), pp. 872–889.

41 Vedi R. Hadiz and Richard Robison, “Competing Populisms in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia,ˮ International Political Science Review, Vol. 38, No. 4 (2017), pp. 488–502.

113Islamic Populism: Promises and Limitations

So far, the literature has not answered these questions or presented a systematic

comparison of post-populist politics to see if similar trends exist in Western and

non-Western cases. That is why the following sections propose a theoretical foundation

for such an analysis. By observing Islamic populism in opposition and power, and by

analyzing populist politics at different stages of democratization, this analysis calls for

a more nuanced understanding of populism, especially in authoritarian and competitive

authoritarian settings, and searches for an answer to the question of whether a system built

on populism can create its legitimacy and institutions in the long run.

Islamic Populism: A Corrective, or a Threat?

Admittedly, the perception of populism as a threat or a corrective is intrinsically linked to

the normative assumptions of what democracy is and how it ought to work.42 Those who

emphasize redemptive qualities of democracy view populism as the epitome of democratic

achievements, and refer to its promises to return the power to its “rightful owners,”

bringing much-needed transparency and faith into mainstream politics.43 Because Islamic

populists have the potential to generate an unprecedented enthusiasm for change, draw

previously marginalized and normally apolitical people to the political scene, and make

the system more responsive, equitable, and inclusive through their efforts, scholars in that

camp would appreciate the Islamic populists and their eclectic and flexible political styles.44

On the other hand, scholars who subscribe to a more substantive definition of democracy

view this rise of Islamic populism as a threat, if not an outright disease, and criticize its

practitioners for their tendencies to attack the intrinsic rationality of institutions and to

42 Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, “Exclusionary vs. Inclusionary Populism: Comparing Contemporary Europe and Latin America,” Government and Opposition, Vol. 48, No. 2 (2013), pp. 147–174.

43 Bojan Bugaric, “Could Populism Be Good for Constitutional Democracy?” Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Vol. 15 (2019); David Fontana, “Unbundling Populism,” UCLA Law Review, Vol. 65 (2018), p. 1482; Margaret Canovan, “Trust the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy,” Political Studies, Vol. 47, No. 1 (1999), pp. 2–16.

44 Bugaric, “The Two Faces of Populism.”

114 Buket Oztas

make false promises to fix the most complex problems with the simplest solutions.45 By

rejecting pluralism and sanctifying a vaguely defined concept of the people, they would

argue, Islamic populists risk eliminating constitutional guarantees and minority rights, and

acting as “a menace to democratic life” − even when they succeed in getting rid of the old

guard, and ultimately adapt to their new post-Islamist stances.46

In this regard, the literature presents good theoretical reasons to expect this populist

surge to create both catalyzing and inhibiting effects47 on democratization processes in

the Muslim-majority countries. The evidence from the Egyptian, Turkish, and Indonesian

cases suggests, however, that there exists a much more complex and nuanced relationship

between the two. Indeed, all three cases show that despite not being inherently illiberal

or anti-democratic, the very characteristics of populist politics that help Islamic populists

contribute to a democratic transition eventually turn out to be detrimental to further

consolidation of that democracy in the long run. The opportunities and constraints that

arise at critical junctures, if not addressed on time, become semi-permanent features of

post-transitionary political landscapes and lead to a system that (1) demonizes the elites

whose support is crucial for democracy to be “the only game in town,”48 (2) eliminates

45 J. W. Muller, What Is Populism? (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016).46 William Arthur Galston, Anti-Pluralism: The Populist Threat to Liberal Democracy (New

Haven: Yale University Press, 2018); Yascha Mounk, “Pitchfork Politics: The Populist Threat to Liberal Democracy,ˮ Foreign Affairs, Vol. 93 (2014), p. 27; Paul Taggart, “Populism and the Pathology of Representative Politics,ˮ in Yves Mény and Yves Sure (eds.), Democracies and the Populist Challenge (New York: Springer, 2002), pp. 62–80; Julian Baggini, “The Populist Threat to Pluralism,ˮ Philosophy and Social Criticism, Vol. 41, No. 4–5 (2015), pp. 403–412.

47 Kirk Hawkins, “Populism in Venezuela: The Rise of Chavismo,ˮ Third World Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 6 (2003), pp. 1137–1160; Kenneth M. Roberts, “Parties, Populism, and Democratic Decay,ˮ in Kurt Weyland and Raúl L. Madrid (eds.), When Democracy Trumps Populism: European and Latin American Lessons for the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 132–153; Ignacio Walker, “Democracy and Populism in Latin Americaˮ (Notre Dame, ID: Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies, 2008), https://kellogg.nd.edu/sites/default/files/old_files/documents/347_0.pdf; Kurt Weyland, “Clarifying a Contested Concept: Populism in the Study of Latin American Politics,ˮ Comparative Politics, Vol. 34, No. 1 (2001), pp. 1–22; Canovan, "Trust the People!"

48 Juan J. Linz and Alfred C. Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 5.

115Islamic Populism: Promises and Limitations

the existing institutions that would help to consolidate democracy, and (3) allows populist

leaders to perpetuate the authoritarian structures in the name of representing the people that

matter. That is why, rather than depicting populism as inherently good (i.e., democratic)

or inherently bad (i.e., anti-democratic), this analysis requires an understanding and

explanation of the mechanisms through which populism, both in its Islamic and non-

Islamic forms, affects regime outcomes.

Implications of Islamic Populism for Democratic Transition and Consolidation

In Indonesia, Islamic populism has been associated with calls for good governance, as

the PKS and other Islamic-populist groups explicitly linked themselves to the power-

sharing and income distribution concerns of the post-Soeharto era. Even though they

never reached the success levels of their Egyptian and Turkish counterparts, they still

have managed to unify the umma against “secular, ethnic Chinese, or foreign” elites and

to “Islamize dissent” across the country.49 In Egypt, this subtle formula worked better

than the Muslim Brotherhood’s (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun) “Islam is the solution” stance,

because it sent a simpler message and told the people that since the party was “morally

righteous,” it was going to “be able to deliver better governance.”50 Furthermore, unlike

the Brotherhood’s overtly Islamist message, Islamic populism of the FJP did not alienate

the “ordinary people” or demand that they change. Instead, the depiction of these ordinary

people as “the new messiah that was going to deliver the society to the promised land”51

served a practical political purpose and generated a “suspension of difference,”52 in

49 Hadiz and Robison, “Competing Populisms in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia.”50 Katerina Dalacoura, Neoliberal Governmentality and the Future of the State in the Middle East

and North Africa (New York: Springer, 2016), pp. 61–83.51 Dorraj, “Populism and Corporatism in the Middle East and North Africa.”52 Vedi R. Hadiz and Angelos Chryssogelos, “Populism in World Politics: A Comparative

Cross-Regional Perspective,ˮ International Political Science Review, Vol. 38, No. 4 (2017), pp. 399–411.

116 Buket Oztas

which the false dichotomy between the “good” and “bad” Muslims disappeared, and a

homogenous moral majority emerged in its stead. This inclusionary effect revitalized the

political opposition and mobilized the underrepresented segments of the society against a

common enemy, i.e., the ruling elite.

A similar dynamic played out in Turkish politics as well: while the Islamist politics of

the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi – RP) did not (or could not) succeed in transforming the

political scene of secular Turkey, the AKP and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan moved

away from the exclusive Islamist rhetoric and the RP’s reliance on the doctrinal aspects of

political Islam, in favor of mainstreaming Islamic social doctrines and adopting the idea

of moral conservatism.53 Erdogan rebranded himself as “the man of the people” (milletin

adami) and claimed to represent the “pure” (ak) masses against the secular/authoritarian

elite that had dominated Turkish politics since 1923. More recently, Indonesian general

Prabowo Subianto’s political campaign for the presidential elections in 2019 portrayed

him as the “champion” of the “virtuous Muslim” people whose needs and demands have

been ignored by political elites for decades.54 In both cases, the populist leader’s skillful

use of Islamic symbolism, appeals to the common people, and promises to stand by them

evoked intense emotional responses from the “silent majorities,” and made it possible for

them to feel dignified and proud at last. This heterogeneous follower base, in turn, gave

Islamic populists a distinct advantage in reaching out to apolitical or formerly marginalized

groups, assigning them a new political identity and mobilizing them around a common

goal. It also demonstrated that populism did not have to be exclusionary at all times.

Looking at populism from this perspective, and understanding its implications in the

context of the establishment it mobilizes against, demonstrates the emancipatory and

empowering potential of populist politics across the Muslim world. Primarily through the

diffusion effect and their charisma, populist leaders encourage “political practices that

53 Ihsan Yilmaz and Galib Bashirov, “The AKP after 15 Years: Emergence of Erdoganism in Turkey,” Third World Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 9 (2018), pp. 1812–1830, https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2018.1447371

54 Vedi R. Hadiz, “Indonesia’s Missing Left and the Islamisation of Dissent,” Third World Quarterly (2020), pp. 1–19, https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2020.1768064

117Islamic Populism: Promises and Limitations

facilitate identity formation, organizational capacity, and therefore, collective action.”55

When effective, these movements bring different segments of society together through

the common language of morality, delegitimize the existing regime institutions even in

the eyes of pro-regime groups and individuals, and defend the popular will against the

established politicians. In more extreme cases, populists manage to weaken the authoritarian

institutions or to overthrow the existing power structures altogether. Nevertheless, in other

cases, the existing institutional structures prevail, and the elite dominance in political life

makes it clear that support for the Islamic-populist message does not always translate into

their access to political power, as the Indonesian case illustrates.

Although this level of inclusion and the removal of the old regime elites positively

correlate with the country’s democratic prospects at the transitionary stage, both Egyptian

and Turkish cases show that Islamic populists’ “moment of direct appeal to the people is a

brief one.”56 These countries’ experiences with Islamic populism in power clearly indicate

that the factors that are essential to the genesis of democracy may not be essential to its

functioning.57 After all, populist leaders’ evocation of Islamic principles of equality and

justice often help the challengers mobilize the masses against the elites and initiate the long

and arduous processes of democratization, but their anti-elite sentiments and Manichean

outlooks that encourage people “to risk their lives in opposition equip them poorly for the

wrangling and deal-making of democratic politics.”58 Popular grievances and aspirations

conveyed in the language of Islam rarely translate directly into a political agenda, and they

often fail to revolutionize the political space through the political alliances that Islamic

populists form during this transitionary stage.59

55 Hadiz and Chryssogelos, “Populism in World Politics,” pp. 399–411.56 Cammack, “The Resurgence of Populism in Latin America.”57 As Rustow explained in his seminal article, masses can bring down the dictators and dismantle

the institutions of the old regime, but determining the new rules of the game and solving the infamous “boundary problem” of politics require different skill sets; see: Dankwart A. Rustow, “Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model,ˮ Comparative Politics, Vol. 2, No. 3 (1970), pp. 337–363.

58 Lisa Anderson, “What We Got Right – and Wrong: Political Science and the Arab Spring,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 21, 2013, https://www.chronicle.com/article/Arab-Spring-Awakening/136691

59 Shadi Hamid, Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

118 Buket Oztas

Indeed, when they achieved their goals and came to power, both the FJP and the AKP

retained “the controversial commitments that brought them to power in the first place,”60

and made sure that the former elites were excluded from the decision-making, democracy-

building, or constitution writing processes, even though the very process of democratic

consolidation requires unity and consensus around the new rules of the game.61 Once

established, these arrangements limit the choice-set for all politicians, and condition their

behavior. They also make it possible for diverse groups to work together, share political

rights and duties, and to accept decisional outcomes even when the decisions do not serve

their interests, simply because there is so much trust in the procedure.62 Both in Egypt and

Turkey, however, the demonization of former elites effectively prevented those elites’

comprehensive integration into the system, and eliminated the possibility of reaching a

tacit consensus about rules and codes of political conduct.63 Under these circumstances,

the Islamic populist challengers either replaced the old guard and created their own elite

safely entrenched behind the sophisticated mechanisms of governance, as they did in

Turkey, or avoided the elite transformation process completely, and provoked the former

elites to such an extent that those elites ended up acting with deep insecurity and taking

extreme measures (such as a coup d’état) to protect themselves, as they did in Egypt. In

the end, “these democratic transitions” turned out to be “short-lived swings in regime

60 Anna Grzymala-Busse, “Global Populisms and Their Impact,ˮ Slavic Review, Vol. 76, No. S1 (2017), pp. S3–S8.

61 Andreas Schedler, “What Is Democratic Consolidation?,ˮ Journal of Democracy, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1998), pp. 91–107; Julio Samuel Valenzuela, “Democratic Consolidation in Post-Transitional Settings: Notion, Process, and Facilitating Conditionsˮ (Notre Dame, ID: Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies, 1990), https://kellogg.nd.edu/documents/1344; John Higley, Richard Gunther and John Higley,, Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

62 Many scholars view political pacts favorably due to their ability to strengthen otherwise fragile democracies and to deepen democratic practices, by limiting the excesses of majority rule and incorporating the elites who are not so enthusiastic about democratic practices into the political scene; see: William Kornhauser, Politics of Mass Society (New York: Routledge, 2013); John Higley and Michael G. Burton, “The Elite Variable in Democratic Transitions and Breakdowns,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 54, No. 1 (1989), pp. 17–32.

63 Hamid, Temptations of Power; Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, Democratic Transition and the Rise of Populist Majoritarianism: Constitutional Reform in Greece and Turkey (New York: Springer, 2017).

119Islamic Populism: Promises and Limitations

instability,”64 demonstrating, once again, that the outcome of the elite displacement65

heavily depended on the populists’ ability to move from this conflictual mode of politics to

the establishment of a new political order in which democracy is the only game in town.66

Perhaps not surprisingly, Islamic populists’ low tolerance for the former elites also goes hand

in hand with their tendency to destroy the institutional basis for the old ruling elites’ authority.

Despite their relatively modest electoral performances, for instance, Indonesian Islamic

populists have attempted to erode the existing national institutions by deliberately passing local

government by-laws, known as perda Sharia, that have questionable legality and clearly violate

the central government mandates.67 Seeing themselves as the one and only representatives of

the “people” and exploiting the resentment against the political establishment, Islamic populists

call for the elimination of “inherently elitist” and “biased” political institutions of the past68

and rely heavily on plebiscitary instruments and unmediated links between the leaders and the

followers instead. When these tools do not suffice, they use informal institutions built around the

populist leader’s charisma or make decisions on a case-by-case basis, but generally refrain from

building stable institutions that would last beyond the populist leader’s lifetime or the populist

party’s time in power.69 Unfortunately, both mechanisms inhibit the development of meaningful

party politics and strong parliaments, which are known to strengthen and consolidate fragile

64 Higley and Burton, “The Elite Variable in Democratic Transitions and Breakdowns,” p. 28.65 Michael Albertus and Victor Menaldo, Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).66 Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation.67 Merle Calvin Ricklefs, Islamisation and Its Opponents in Java: A Political, Social, Cultural

and Religious History, c. 1930 to the Present (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2012).68 Here, the term institutionalization refers to the process of creating “a structure, or code, or

regulated pattern of behavior which becomes ‘legitimate’ and ‘functioning’ within a social context, and which is relatively stable and persistent over time” (Giovan Francesco Lanzara, “Self-Destructive Processes in Institution Building and some Modest Countervailing Mechanisms,” European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 33, No. 1 [1998], pp. 1–39).

69 This is not to say that Islamic populism, by definition, is against institutions. Yet, all three cases show that Islamic populists’ vision of a direct democracy contradicts the pluralist institutions and procedural aspects of democratic regimes when it comes to minority representation, constitutional guarantees and unelected bodies such as the bureaucratic institutions or the Courts, which tend to be more secular than their elected counterparts.

120 Buket Oztas

democracies.70 In fact, it is this inability (or unwillingness) to institutionalize a new system,

combined with President Mohamed Morsi’s attempts to take up sweeping powers through a

decree in late 2012, that explains the ultimate failure of the FJP to hold onto political power and

retain its political influence after el-Sisi’s coup d’état in 2013. A similar dynamic explains why,

in the absence of legislative and judicial institutions to increase governability and legitimacy

in the system, Turkish politics has turned into “a perpetual referendum, where the sovereign

people [are] urged to vote for or against a variety of issues, technical and otherwise,”71 ranging

from the war on the southern border to the country’s adoption of a presidential regime.72

In this regard, while the populists’ diagnosis is almost always correct (certain

authoritarian institutions indeed require a change), the cure they offer often carries the risk

of doing more damage, especially if they have no plans to re-institutionalize politics or to

replace old institutions with more inclusive and representative ones. This is not to say that

Islamic populism, by definition, is against institutions: on the contrary, both qualitative and

quantitative evidence shows that populist movements are perfectly fine with the institutions

that serve their interests and help them achieve their extensive goals.73 Nonetheless, once

70 In the broader democratization literature, there is a well-established school of thought that regards the development and deepening of a country’s institutional structure as integral to the survival of democracy and its consolidation. Fish’s famous “strong legislatures, strong democracies” thesis, for instance, demonstrates how weak legislatures undermine horizontal accountability and hinder democratization by undermining the development of political parties; see: M. Steven Fish, “Stronger Legislatures, Stronger Democracies,ˮ Journal of Democracy, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2006), pp. 5–20. O’Donnell also show that these rules, norms, and practices exist not just to restrict the power and influence of the executive, but also to constitute, reinforce, and perpetuate this very power delegated by the people. Institutions, in this regard, help protect the people from the discretionary and arbitrary use of political power and balance the minority interests with the will of the majority; see: Guillermo A. O’Donell, “Delegative Democracy,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 5, No. 1 (1994), pp. 55–69.

71 Ian Budge, “Direct Democracy: Setting Appropriate Terms of Debate,ˮ in David Held (ed.), Prospects for Democracy: North, South, East, West (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993), p. 138.

72 Larry Diamond, “Consolidating Democracy in the Americas,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 550, No. 1 (1997), pp. 12–41; Grigoriadis, Democratic Transition and the Rise of Populist Majoritarianism.

73 Carlos De La Torre, “Populism and Nationalism in Latin America,ˮ Javnost, Vol. 24, No. 4 (2017), pp. 375–390; Kirk A. Hawkins and Bojana Kocijan, “Codebook for Measuring Populist Discourse: Populist Discourse Project at Central European University,ˮ Paper presented at the 2019 EPSA Annual Conference in Belfast, Northern Ireland, June 20–22, 2013.

121Islamic Populism: Promises and Limitations

they make this argument and characterize political institutions as a means of protecting the

elite interests at the expense of the masses, the decision to eliminate them altogether becomes

easy and justifiable. By destroying trust in institutions, decreasing the relevance and power

of the political parties, and emphasizing the importance of popular will – usually at the

expense of equal rights and liberties, they tend to undermine the possibility of changing the

political system for the better and establishing more democratic forms of government. In

the end, democracy as a method of government refers not to “whatever the people at a given

moment may happen to decide” but to “a set of arrangements for securing their control over

the public decision-making process on an ongoing basis.”74 Yet, by hollowing out, if not

completely eliminating, the intermediary associations (such as political parties or interest

groups), they promote a very specific notion of politics in which no group or institution

has the right to constrain or challenge the will of the ultimate sovereign, i.e., “the people.”

Power to the People?

“Neither the pure people nor the corrupt elite are actual entities,” however, because

in modern systems, it is hard to speak of a “general will” let alone a single political

entity that can represent all the people.75 Rather, both are “imagined communities”

defined by an “empty signifier,” which refers to “what [the people] are” but not to “who

they are,”76 − but such arbitrary but polarizing identities serve populist purposes well.

Moreover, this redefinition of the people, and its association with religious identity

in particular, is where Islamic populists emphasize the Islamic component of their

political stance the most: within the Manichean framework of populism, they become

74 David Beetham, “Max Weber and the Legitimacy of the Modern State,ˮ Analyse & Kritik, Vol. 13, No. 1 (2016), p. 58.

75 Jurgen Habermas, “Three Normative Models of Democracy,” Constellations, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1994), pp. 1–10.

76 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso books, 2006); Cas Mudde, “Populism in Europe: A Primer,” Open Democracy, May 12, 2015, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/populism-in-europe-primer/

122 Buket Oztas

the privileged group, doing God’s work here on earth and resisting their “Godless

enemies.”77 Following the dictum of Vox Populi, Vox Dei, and equating their voice with

“the voice of God,”78 Islamic populists elevate those who support them to the status of

the only honest, moral, and virtuous segment of the society, and exclude others who

do not belong.79

Under these circumstances, the aforementioned suspension of difference, achieved

through the alliances populists forge from diverse groups, does not last long, and it often

gives way to exclusionary politics, in which the religious people become the incarnation

of all virtue, whereas others are seen as “a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral

superman: sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving.”80 In Egypt, this

tendency manifested itself through the FJP’s insistence that the group, and its supporters

alone, deserved to rule in the post-Mubarak period, after years of the Muslim Brotherhood’s

heroic struggle against the Mubarak regime.81 Even in Indonesia, where Islamic populism

could make only limited inroads into state power, this dichotomy has been so stark and

so prevalent that the incumbent president Joko Widodo ended up choosing a conservative

senior Muslim cleric (Ma’ruf Amin, the president of Indonesian Ulama Council) as his

running mate during his re-election campaign in 2019, in an attempt to appeal to the

growing Islamic populist base and to protect himself against the attacks on his perceived

lack of religiosity.82

77 Zúquete, “Populism and Religion,” p. 445.78 Hawkins, “Is Chávez Populist?ˮ p. 1043.79 Under these circumstances, the antagonistic “other” does not simply refer to the dominant

and “corrupt elite,” but also to ordinary “people” who happen to have different interests and worldviews than those of the Islamic populist groups.

80 Carlos De La Torre, “Introduction: Power to the People? Populism, Insurrections, Democratization,” in Carlos De La Torre (ed.), The Promise and Perils of Populism: Global Perspectives (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2015), pp. 1–30; Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics (Vintage, 2012), https://verdict.justia.com/2015/05/21/the-return-of-the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics. This type of separation is necessary in order to serve as the “other” in the construction of the mythical notion of the “people.”

81 Hadiz, Islamic Populism in Indonesia and the Middle East.82 Hadiz, “Indonesia’s Missing Left and the Islamisation of Dissent.”

123Islamic Populism: Promises and Limitations

Not surprisingly, protecting the rights and liberties of opponents ceases to be a

constitutional duty or moral responsibility for populists under these conditions.83 Those

who find themselves outside of this populist circle become “somehow less than real” and

“their status as members of the political community” gets questioned by the real people

supporting populist movements.84 Turkish President Erdogan’s word choices reflect this

point nicely, as he frequently asks his opponents “We are the people, who are you?” and

refers to his “people” always in the singular (by using the word millet), but addresses his

opponents in the plural (bunlar –“these”),85 illustrating that the never-ending process of

defining “the people” is, in and of itself, a political act. Within this framework, outgroup

members (i.e. non-Islamists or non-populists) reap the political system’s benefits only if

they accept the dominance of Islamic populists and share their values. If they do not have

the same links to these symbolic resources that Islamic populists rely on, or if they interpret

the traditional values differently, they automatically become a part of the evil conspiracy

against the “good, hardworking and pious people,” because, again, in Erdogan’s words,

“those who do not want to take a side in [this] debate” deserve to be “eliminated from the

process altogether.”86

Contradicting their inclusionary, even emancipatory, promises from the

transitionary stage, then, the use of populist divisions by Islamist politicians

when they are in power leaves little room for reasoned debate, negotiation, and

compromise, even though those practices form the basis of democratic institutions all

over the world. If held, elections cease to be regular events that decide who governs

the country for the next four or five years, but turn instead into total wars between

83 Instead, it turns into a non-issue or, if the leader is feeling generous, into a demonstration of the moral superiority of the people in the face of undeserving opponents and “traitors.”

84 Muller, What Is Populism? As the Turkish and Egyptian cases demonstrate, this possibility affects everyone, not just the members of the political opposition or minority groups, because even those who are in the majority now can lose their status if the boundaries of this imagined community changes, or if they change their mind.

85 Betul Eksi and Elizabeth A. Wood, “Right-Wing Populism as Gendered Performance: Janus-Faced Masculinity in the Leadership of Vladimir Putin and Recep T. Erdogan,” Theory and Society, Vol. 48, No. 5 (2019), pp. 733–751.

86 Ibid.

124 Buket Oztas

the forces of the good and the evil. Likewise, criticism directed at the populist

leader constitutes an attack on the entire nation and receives disproportionally harsh

responses from all relevant authorities. The subsequent erosion of trust, both at the

institutional and interpersonal levels, transforms the politics into a zero-sum game,

in which any attempt to start a conversation with the other is seen as weakness and

even the betrayal of the common cause.87

Combined with the exclusivity embedded in the notion of “the people,” this

“disingenuous contempt for rule-based institutions” inevitably creates a political

atmosphere where grandiose promises and personalization of politics act as the only

modus operandi.88 It is not a coincidence that in the successful cases of Islamic populism,

charismatic leaders (Erdogan and Morsi) have been much better known than the parties

they represented (the AKP and the FJP, respectively). Without an institutional structure to

sustain democratic gains, political success becomes mostly contingent upon the Islamic

populist leader’s ability to deliver their promises and fundamentally to change the “evil”

aspects of everyday politics. As the short tenure of the FJP illustrates, however, social

and economic problems Islamic populists attempt to solve require a creative vision and

enormous courage to implement some unpopular policies. Unfortunately for the people to

whom they claim to give voice, the leaders do not always rise to the challenge. Furthermore,

their emphasis on popular will rarely comes with a genuine desire to empower the people,

to give them the control of the political agenda, and encourage them to participate fully in

politics.89 Instead of letting people take control of their own lives, for instance, both Morsi

and Erdogan compared their role to “that of the benevolent patriarch of the family whose

word is law,”90 assumed the responsibility of governing the country on their behalf, and

“produced a travesty of empowerment by subjecting the people to [their] dictates.”91 That

87 Giovanni Sartori, The Theory of Democracy Revisited, Part One: The Contemporary Debate, Vol. 1 (Washington: CQ Press, 1987).

88 Anderson, “What We Got Right – and Wrong.ˮ 89 Mudde, “The Populist Zeitgeist.”90 Jacob Hoigilt, “Egyptian Comics and the Challenge to Patriarchal Authoritarianism,”

International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 49, No. 1 (2017), pp. 111–131.91 Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, “The Ambivalence of Populism: Threat and Corrective for

Democracy,” Democratization, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2012), p. 192.

125Islamic Populism: Promises and Limitations

is why this process either resulted in a quasi-authoritarian structure (Egypt under Morsi)

or delegative democracy (Turkey under Erdogan), where the system lacks proper checks

and balances and an elected leader governs as they see fit.92 As Edwards notes, this is just

one of the ways in which “the populist experiments” that “often begin with great euphoria

and support ultimately fail, hurting those groups – the poor and the middle class – that they

were supposed to favor.”93

Figure 1: The implications of Islamic populism for democratic transition and consolidation

In the end, as populist movements instrumentalize and foster divisions in the name of

representing the pure people, democratic gains slowly give way to mere majority rule

and confrontational mode of politics. Even when they succeed in bringing the formerly

marginalized groups into the political scene and overthrowing the ruling elite as a result,

they still run the risk of resulting in a more profound crisis of legitimacy – especially

when these newly included groups realize that the promises made by the populists are

92 O’Donell, “Delegative Democracy”; Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation.

93 Sebastian Edwards, Left Behind: Latin America and the False Promise of Populism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), p. 8.

126 Buket Oztas

not being kept, or that the problems of their countries are much too complex to be solved

with the simple slogans populists tend to offer. Being disillusioned with leaders, political

parties and other institutions of power, the “people” either turn towards cynicism and

become disinterested in politics or embrace patron-client relationships and increase their

tolerance for authoritarian forms of government.94 The epithet reis (the boss) used to refer

to President Erdogan comes to be quite telling in that regard.

The way populists rule once they come to power has important implications for

all political systems, but the mechanisms described above create bigger problems and

more severe consequences in the countries of the Islamic world, where the existence of

different ethnic, religious and linguistic groups renders the divisive “us” versus “them”

rhetoric particularly controversial and conflictual. Islamic populists’ heavy reliance on

majoritarian systems, combined with their inability (or unwillingness) to institutionalize

the policy, widen fault lines and polarize societies even further. By doing so, they not only

further erode the formal institutions they considered to be dysfunctional (e.g., the media,

judiciary and bureaucracy), but they also undermine the informal norms and institutions

that were designed to build trust, respect, and accountability into the system. Given the

absence of strong liberal traditions and leftist challenges, the opposition either adopts

authoritarian styles to combat the Islamic populists, or they embrace the populist mode of

politics themselves, turning the political scene into a competition between different types

of populism.95 In those situations, political systems in question do not simply witness a

one-off instance of populist rise-and-fall; instead, they come to be defined by populist

politics for years to come.

94 Manochehr Dorraj and Michael Dodson, “Neo-Populism in Comparative Perspective: Iran and Venezuela,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2009), pp. 137–151.

95 Hadiz and Robison, “Competing Populisms in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia.”

127Islamic Populism: Promises and Limitations

Conclusion

Because the literature on populism is just starting to “extend beyond its main focus of

Western Christendom, as well as beyond the parameters of liberal democracies, and

into other hybrid regimes,” it hasn’t yet addressed, much less explained, the impact of

populist movements across the Muslim world.96 Likewise, the literature on political

Islam has barely discussed this form of normalization of Islamist politics or only recently

started to address the long-term implications of Islamic populism, even though more and

more Islamist parties and politicians have been adopting policies and rhetorical devices

that are similar to those of the populist parties across the world. The set of arguments

presented here aim to fill this lacuna by providing a more nuanced explanation of the

promises and limitations of contemporary populist regimes in Muslim majority countries,

and generating several additional questions for future research. As Dorraj notes, “such

a theoretical synthesis and the conceptual convergence” of Islamism and populism are

necessary to understand contemporary political developments and regime outcomes in

countries like Turkey, Egypt, and Indonesia, as the “elements of both ideologies dominate

the political landscape and mold its form and content.”97

Even though the broad-brush depiction of Islamic populism presented here cannot

capture all of its aspects and significant variations at the local levels, the cases under

scrutiny still help us to explore and theorize the relationship between Islam and

populism from a comparative perspective. The cases under scrutiny not only illustrate

the different manifestations of populism, but also demonstrate how successful Islamist

politicians can be, even in this post-Islamist era, in appealing to the “common people”

and retaining their political salience and relevance across the Muslim world.98 They

also indicate that Islamic populism, especially in opposition, can bring diverse groups

96 Zúquete, “Populism and Religion,” p. 460.97 Dorraj, “Populism and Corporatism in the Middle East and North Africa,” p. 295.98 This focus on the political incentives do not imply that all Islamists turned to populism to

boost their popularity across the Muslim world: as previous research suggests, Islamists differ from other Islamists as much as they differ from non-Islamists. The following sections will make it clearer that only certain opportunity structures create the impetus for the adoption of Islamic populism.

128 Buket Oztas

together around Islamic symbolism and a constructed language of the oppressed,

paving the way for a political struggle against an entrenched elite in authoritarian and

competitive authoritarian settings.

Nevertheless, these experiences with Islamic populism also demonstrate that the

long-term implications of such populist politics do not always turn out to be so positive.

While Indonesia has yet to see an Islamic populist government, its political scene has

already been defined by “newer Islamic expressions of socio-political discontent,”

and perhaps more importantly, shaped by “competing populisms.”99 Both in Egypt

and Turkey, the Islamist groups that have come to power through populist goals

and strategies have failed to keep their lofty promises of empowering “the people,”

especially because their anti-elite and anti-establishment stances helped to dismantle

the existing norms, procedures, and patterns of behavior, but fell short of establishing

new institutions to deepen and broaden democratic gains, give power back to the people,

and create just and durable order to benefit them.100 This failure has not only deepened

citizens’ disappointment and mistrust in the political system, but has also led to violent

regime transitions (Egypt) or to gradual democratic backsliding (Turkey), creating an

“anything goes” approach to politics,101 and resulting in further alienation and political

apathy among the citizenry.102

This closer look at Islamic populism should provide a good starting point for further

analyses of populism in Muslim majority countries, as well as empirical research on the

relationship between democracy and populism in general. The arguments presented above

assert that it is possible to draw meaningful conclusions from cases that are not frequently

analyzed in the literature. They also show that we can learn a lot not only about whether

“populism works as a threat or a corrective for democracy,” but also about “when, why,

and how” populism creates these effects.103 We can bring the study of the democratization

99 Hadiz and Robison, “Competing Populisms in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia," p. 500.100 Daron Acemoglu, Georgy Egorov and Konstantin Sonin, “A Political Theory of Populism,”

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 128, No. 2 (2013), pp. 771–805.101 Huber and Schimpf, “Friend or Foe?”102 Özpek and Tanriverdi Yaşar, “Populism and Foreign Policy in Turkey under the AKP Rule.”103 Kaltwasser, “The Ambivalence of Populism.”

129Islamic Populism: Promises and Limitations

in the Islamic world back to the mainstream political science concepts and theories, and

provide an alternative to the theories based on Islamic/Middle Eastern exceptionalism,

which rarely explains the fascinating variety of regime outcomes in the Middle East

and beyond.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA)

for their generous provision of a research grant in 2019.

About the Author

Buket Oztas is an Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Furman

University in Greenville, South Carolina. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from

the University of Florida in 2016. Her expertise is in comparative politics, and her research

focuses on changing institutional dynamics in the Middle East, with a particular focus

on the interplay between political Islam and democratization; she is also engaged in an

ongoing research initiative on the agenda-setting powers of the European Commission

co-authored with Dr. Amie Kreppel, begun while a graduate student.