Political engagement patterns of Islamist movements : the case of the Nizam

Abstract

Focusing on the Nizam/Selamet Movement, this dissertation studies why and how there are variations in the political engagement patterns of “moderate” Islamist movements operating within the same institutional/political context. Specifically, covering a period from the 1960s through the 1970s, this study examines why and how the Nizam/Selamet Movement emerged and established a political party; produced goals and ideational elements distinct from contemporary and past Islamist movements in Turkey and showed considerable flexibility in its choice of allies, strategies and policies, including formation of a coalition government with the archenemy of the Islamists, the Republican People’s Party. Drawing on the Nizam/Selamet case, this study argues that Islamist movements are complex social phenomena that emerge and survive through an incremental process entailing interacting, complex and even undetermined sets of cognitive, relational and environmental factors. The answer to the research question thus lies in unearthing these configurations through descending up and down the macro (political field), meso (network and organization) and micro (properties and trajectories of the movement elites and activists) echelons at both national and local levels of the political field and the movement. A historical dimension is also necessary to highlight intra- and extra-movement factors at different life phases of the movement (accumulated resources and inherited constraints), which shape the form and substance of its political engagement; and to take into consideration the influence of one stage over the other.