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Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism and Political Change in Egypt
Mobilizing Islam explores how and why Islamic groups succeeded in galvanizing educated youth into politics under the shadow of Egypt's authoritarian state, offering important and surprising answers to a series of pressing questions. Under what conditions does mobilization by opposition groups become possible in authoritarian settings? Why did Islamist groups have more success attracting recruits and overcoming governmental restraints than their secular rivals? And finally, how can Islamist mobilization contribute to broader and more enduring forms of political change throughout the Muslim world?
Moving beyond the simplistic accounts of "Islamic fundamentalism" offered by much of the Western media, Mobilizing Islam offers a balanced and persuasive explanation of the Islamic movement's dramatic growth in the world's largest Arab state.
Moving beyond the simplistic accounts of "Islamic fundamentalism" offered by much of the Western media, Mobilizing Islam offers a balanced and persuasive explanation of the Islamic movement's dramatic growth in the world's largest Arab state.
300 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 2, 2016
This is the best book on political Islam that I've ever read. It focuses only on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt between the 1970s through the 1990s, but the method the author employs should be a guide for anyone interested in this subject. She explores the roots of the Brotherhood in the social structure of Egyptian society (i.e., the Brotherhood's base was among poor university graduates), the reasons the social structure took the shape it did (i.e., Nasser and subsequent government's massive education and guaranteed employment schemes, in the absence of revenue to support it, created a bulge of un- and under-employed graduates), and how the organization successfully mobilized adherents (by appealing existentially and emotionally to this milieu). It's a masterpiece of scholarship and deserves to be read widely outside the field, especially by journalists and other commentators.
January 4, 2010
i would love it if michael savage would read this....he might realize that islam does not mean terrorism. but then he would have nothing to talk about, and in these tough economic times i'm not going to wish anyone out of a job...even ignorant jerks.
April 8, 2016
This is a fascinating book about Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood during a very specific time period during its history — a period between the late 1970s and early 1990s when economic shifts, partial openings in the Egyptian system, and changes in Islamic social activism contributed to Brotherhood-affiliated candidates’ surprise wins in a number of newly competitive trade association elections, wins which ultimately presaged another crackdown on the group by the Mubarak regime as it came to see the Brotherhood as a renewed threat. I know only the broad outlines of Brotherhood and Egyptian history, and that history is not the focus here; the questions being analyzed are really applicable far beyond just this specific case study, and it is fascinating to see how the Egyptian case mirrored those with which I am much more familiar.
Broadly speaking, this is a book examining the conditions in which opposition political movements can emerge even in controlled, authoritarian, or “limited access” (pick your preferred terminology) regimes. And it’s about how movements and political organizations are formed even in situations where doing has potentially great costs and risks, and how activists become committed to a political cause and mobilize to achieve their goals despite these costs. It also introduced me to some additional titles in the social movement literature, which I’m looking forward to picking up. My own personal canon of political science top reads has thus far primarily focused on the organizational frame of analysis, and this book was perhaps not as clear as I would have preferred in unpacking how the participants in the more informal or loosely organized Islamist networks made the leap into the Muslim Brotherhood itself. It does however clearly recognize the importance of that (bounded, recognized if not officially authorized) organizational structure, and points to the generational leadership changes within the MB that brought in the younger Islamist activists who had joined the movement in the 1970s, as necessary factors for the formulation of a centralized strategy capable of coordinating voters in such a way as to win trade association elections in the late 1980s / early 1990s.
To briefly summarize, the author points out that in all but the most totalitarian regimes, states lack the ability to completely control political dissent, though they may throw up many barriers to entry in the official system. A number of socioeconomic factors in Egypt contributed to the emergence of opportunities for political activity in ostensibly nonpolitical Islamic institutions at the “periphery” of the formal political system (parallels here with environmental movements in Taiwan, or African American churches in the civil rights movement). These activities were initially too decentralized for the regime to see them as a threat or to effectively control (some parallels here perhaps to Sinno’s arguments about the merits of decentralized organizations in a political environment in which no “safe haven” can be established against retaliation from a hegemonic state). The participants in the Islamist social movement gained both tangible (jobs, services) and intangible (a sense of purpose, solidarity) benefits, as well as political organizing skills that would later inform their participation in formal politics, and that were not accessible to political actors operating under the constraints of the formal system, which limited their ability to conduct mass organizing activities. In the process, the Islamists also developed an ideological framework to justify their action that resonated and helped strengthen their commitment to take the risk of challenging the established Egyptian regime, in a way that other, perhaps equally alienated, Egyptians did not. (Paralleling points also made by Kalyvas and others, the author reiterates that grievances alone are insufficient to explain the success or failure of an opposition movement to an authoritarian regime — it takes organization to overcome the collective action problem, and even moreso when the barriers to entry are high as in an authoritarian regime.) This is described primarily in terms of ideological “frames” the content of which I am less interested in — but the importance of social networks in shaping these frames, and close social and interpersonal bonds in reinforcing them, is emphasized throughout (and parallels points made by Staniland and others).
Given the time in which this book was written and published, I think a subtext (and in the conclusion / postscript, it’s addressed somewhat more directly) of all this is the “can Islamists ever accept democracy” question (which brought me back to my undergrad days in the early 2000s). Because this is more a study of movement organizing than an analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership structure or political strategies, this book can’t really answer that in terms of predicting how the group might seek to restructure the political system to its own benefit, since it never got that far during the time period under focus. The processes of movement formation, the socialization of ideas and construction of organizations, and the attempts to mobilize activists in order to gain representation within the system all seem to me to be very applicable to studies of small-d democracy everywhere, though, even in political systems not as obviously controlled as Egypt’s. Obviously much has happened to the Muslim Brotherhood in the intervening decades, and especially in the past five (I gather the author has a more recent book, which I’ll also look into), but this was still a illuminating read with relevance far beyond the specific Egyptian case.
Broadly speaking, this is a book examining the conditions in which opposition political movements can emerge even in controlled, authoritarian, or “limited access” (pick your preferred terminology) regimes. And it’s about how movements and political organizations are formed even in situations where doing has potentially great costs and risks, and how activists become committed to a political cause and mobilize to achieve their goals despite these costs. It also introduced me to some additional titles in the social movement literature, which I’m looking forward to picking up. My own personal canon of political science top reads has thus far primarily focused on the organizational frame of analysis, and this book was perhaps not as clear as I would have preferred in unpacking how the participants in the more informal or loosely organized Islamist networks made the leap into the Muslim Brotherhood itself. It does however clearly recognize the importance of that (bounded, recognized if not officially authorized) organizational structure, and points to the generational leadership changes within the MB that brought in the younger Islamist activists who had joined the movement in the 1970s, as necessary factors for the formulation of a centralized strategy capable of coordinating voters in such a way as to win trade association elections in the late 1980s / early 1990s.
To briefly summarize, the author points out that in all but the most totalitarian regimes, states lack the ability to completely control political dissent, though they may throw up many barriers to entry in the official system. A number of socioeconomic factors in Egypt contributed to the emergence of opportunities for political activity in ostensibly nonpolitical Islamic institutions at the “periphery” of the formal political system (parallels here with environmental movements in Taiwan, or African American churches in the civil rights movement). These activities were initially too decentralized for the regime to see them as a threat or to effectively control (some parallels here perhaps to Sinno’s arguments about the merits of decentralized organizations in a political environment in which no “safe haven” can be established against retaliation from a hegemonic state). The participants in the Islamist social movement gained both tangible (jobs, services) and intangible (a sense of purpose, solidarity) benefits, as well as political organizing skills that would later inform their participation in formal politics, and that were not accessible to political actors operating under the constraints of the formal system, which limited their ability to conduct mass organizing activities. In the process, the Islamists also developed an ideological framework to justify their action that resonated and helped strengthen their commitment to take the risk of challenging the established Egyptian regime, in a way that other, perhaps equally alienated, Egyptians did not. (Paralleling points also made by Kalyvas and others, the author reiterates that grievances alone are insufficient to explain the success or failure of an opposition movement to an authoritarian regime — it takes organization to overcome the collective action problem, and even moreso when the barriers to entry are high as in an authoritarian regime.) This is described primarily in terms of ideological “frames” the content of which I am less interested in — but the importance of social networks in shaping these frames, and close social and interpersonal bonds in reinforcing them, is emphasized throughout (and parallels points made by Staniland and others).
Given the time in which this book was written and published, I think a subtext (and in the conclusion / postscript, it’s addressed somewhat more directly) of all this is the “can Islamists ever accept democracy” question (which brought me back to my undergrad days in the early 2000s). Because this is more a study of movement organizing than an analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership structure or political strategies, this book can’t really answer that in terms of predicting how the group might seek to restructure the political system to its own benefit, since it never got that far during the time period under focus. The processes of movement formation, the socialization of ideas and construction of organizations, and the attempts to mobilize activists in order to gain representation within the system all seem to me to be very applicable to studies of small-d democracy everywhere, though, even in political systems not as obviously controlled as Egypt’s. Obviously much has happened to the Muslim Brotherhood in the intervening decades, and especially in the past five (I gather the author has a more recent book, which I’ll also look into), but this was still a illuminating read with relevance far beyond the specific Egyptian case.
July 8, 2017
How does politics proceed under an authoritarian regime? This book looks at Egypt, which had an authoritarian but popular regime under Nasser in the wake of an independence struggle. This regime failed to make a transition to a true participatory democracy, and its failure to develop led to broken promises and political apathy on the left. The Muslim Brotherhood first developed in the universities. Students, upon graduation, were unable to find the work that the government had promised, as the numbers of graduates overwhelmed the government's capacity to hire them.
Those students who turned to moderate Islam became an organizing and proselytizing network despite bouts of persecution from the government. It then becomes easy to understand how the Arab Spring provided hope for Islamic movements to rapidly develop a large base. Moreover, we see the complexity of how the repression of popular Islamic movements leads to US supported authoritarian regimes and Islamic fundamentalism oppositions.
Those students who turned to moderate Islam became an organizing and proselytizing network despite bouts of persecution from the government. It then becomes easy to understand how the Arab Spring provided hope for Islamic movements to rapidly develop a large base. Moreover, we see the complexity of how the repression of popular Islamic movements leads to US supported authoritarian regimes and Islamic fundamentalism oppositions.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews