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| Volume XV, Spring 2008, Number 1 |
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BOOK REVIEW
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Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen
, by Jillian Schwedler. Cambridge University Press, 2006. 252 pages. $80, hardcover.
Will Smiley
Graduate teaching assistant, history department, University of Utah.
Does political participation lead Islamist parties to be more moderate? By now a vast literature exists on this question, fueled especially by the success of Hamas and Hezbollah. Jillian Schwedler's Faith in Moderation is a useful contribution to this debate precisely because she does not claim to present an overall answer. Instead, she uses detailed case studies of Islamists in Jordan and Yemen to critique the moderation thesis. While Schwedler's analysis seems incomplete on one important point, Faith in Moderation has a great deal to offer to the theoretical debate on this issue.
Schwedler insightfully observes that the vast literature on the "inclusion-produces-moderation" thesis is overly linear and simplistic, and that it marginalizes the importance of "stalled" transitions — political openings that do not lead to full democracy. Furthermore, it fails to explain how parties "moderate," or even what "moderation" means. Schwedler aims to address the first two problems by rejecting a teleological discourse in which all political situations exist somewhere along a road to democracy, and the third by providing a better working definition of "moderation." She points out that "limited political openings restructure public political space, even when transition processes seem to have stalled" (p. 77). Such restructured space can lead Islamists to "moderate," which Schwedler carefully defines for her purposes as "movement from a relatively closed and rigid worldview to one more open and tolerant of alternative perspectives" (p. 3).
Schwedler narrates and discusses in detail the institutional effects of Jordanian and Yemeni political openings in the late 1980s. In both countries, state and Islamist elites have long had close ties, which the latter exploited by transforming themselves to take advantage of opportunities the government deliberately presented by allowing political participation. Such transformations created Islamist political parties: the Jordanian Islamic Action Front (IAF) and the Yemeni Congregation for Reform (Islah). In neither case, of course, did openings lead to full democracy, so both countries' transitions have been seen as "stalled." The heart of Schwedler's book is her answer to the question of why the IAF has "engaged a democratic narrative as integral to the movement's larger Islamist agenda" (p. 172) while the Yemeni Islah party has not. Schwedler identifies three reasons. First, she points to "the relation of the regime to public political space." The Jordanian monarchy stands outside the electoral process, but "President Salih's party must at least pretend to win elections" (p. 194). This has given the IAF more freedom to ally with other parties and to act as an opposition, because such actions do not directly threaten the regime's power. Islah, on the other hand, has had to maintain good relations with the ruling General Popular Congress party to avoid being seen as a rival and pushed out of the legal political realm.
Second, Schwedler contrasts the "internal structure and decision-making practices" of the two parties (p. 195). Islah's leaders have been the same people for the last 15 years and have frequently been willing to differ with each other or with the party's official line. The IAF, by contrast, has stronger discipline, keeping its leaders true to the party line even when they disagree and turning over offices regularly. This has helped it create a model of democratic activity while propagating pro-moderation ideas through the party.
Finally, Schwedler argues that the development of such ideas is the "most pivotal" factor. The IAF has sought to justify political participation in terms of its core Islamic values, while the Islah generally has not. The result is that Jordanian Islamists have internalized a democratic narrative to a greater degree than those in Yemen.
Schwedler's explanation is convincing and quite thorough when dealing with her first two institutional factors. But her discussion of each party's intellectual commitment is a bit weaker. This is especially disappointing since she not only views this as the most important factor but also sees such an "ideational" angle as notably lacking in other literature. Certainly Faith in Moderation provides ample evidence that the IAF has made this commitment to a greater degree than Islah, but Schwedler does not unpack the why here as thoroughly as she does in the rest of her argument. She attributes the difference between the parties to leadership decisions, but even with the historical background she provides as an explanation for these decisions, one is left feeling that her discussion could have been more thorough.
A bottom-up, sociological approach might have been useful here. Schwedler's work is quite strong in explaining how "restructured political space" produces "new organizational structures, such as political parties, trade unions, and other interest groups" (p. 26), but weaker in considering the reciprocal process. Yet it seems likely that just such an examination could have helped explain the IAF's greater commitment to justifying its participation. As it is, this factor seems imperfectly integrated with the rest of Schwedler's argument, despite its importance.
Nevertheless, Faith in Moderation is a very important contribution to the literature on Islamic moderation. Schwedler's explicit renunciation of any attempt to predict moderation, or to prescribe means of achieving it, allows her to concentrate on the particulars of her case studies, and then to use this data to critique the general theory of how moderation works. Her rejection of a simple line from inclusion to moderation, her focus on the precise conditions under which inclusion has and has not produced moderation, and her incorporation of both institutional and ideological factors, make her work quite useful.
As Schwedler notes, her conclusions cannot be applied directly as a template to other situations — not least because many current policy debates revolve around whether to allow pre-existing parties to enter politics, whereas the IAF and Islah were created by political openings. And of course, Schwedler notes, neither the IAF nor Islah has much chance of becoming the government. But the broad implications of her theoretical arguments are such that those researching and thinking about Islamist political participation cannot afford to ignore Schwedler's work.
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