Islamist Opposition in Authoritarian Regimes: The Party of Justice and Development in Morocco

Comparing Islamist Strategies in Jordan and Morocco

123 Comparing Islamist Strategies in Jordan and Morocco How can the opposition make progress in the contest with a hegemonic authoritarian regime? As argued throughout this study, an opposition party has to choose its mobilization intensity and will aim to optimize its strategies on two levels: the regime level, where it has to choose how much to challenge the regime in the form of electoral boycotts and general mobilization against the regime’s preferences; and the electoral level, where it has to choose how much to invest in trying to win flawed elections by targeting and convincing (new) constituencies to join or support it. An opposition needs to confront the incumbent regime to keep its appeal and perhaps change the rules in its favor—but it also needs to have enough support from the population to put pressure on the regime and win elections . The two levels are strongly intertwined: the choices on one level will affect the outcome on the other. The heuristic model used in this book to study the Moroccan case is not intended to predict how an opposition party will deal with the problems of electoral participation in authoritarian regimes. It identifies the forces shaping the strategies of an Islamist opposition party toward the regime and in the electoral arena: organizational development, the party’s relationship with an ISMO, and institutional constraints. The empirical chapters of this book study the path of the Moroccan PJD within the framework of this model. This chapter aims to go beyond that in-depth study and ask two main questions: Can the Islamist opposition’s key choices be explained by drawing on these factors? And to what extent can variation in different Islamist parties’ key choices be explained by variation in these factors? A comparison of the PJD with the Jordanian IAF, founded in 1992 by the Muslim Brotherhood, looking 124 | Islamist Opposition in Authoritarian Regimes systematically at key differences in their choices and configurations, helps to answer these questions.1 The comparison with Jordan is useful primarily because, among MENA regimes, Jordan has a basic institutional setup that is closest to Morocco’s: Jordan is also an authoritarian monarchy that holds elections, has some degree of political pluralism, and allows political organization. Both thus differ from hegemonic party autocracies such as Egypt or Tunisia and from closed monarchies such as Saudi Arabia. Although institutional differences have affected the two parties’ choices, this basic similarity in the regime type assures that the effect of these differences is not so large that it overrides everything else—that different choices are not just due to core systemic differences.2 A note of caution is appropriate at this point. The factors this analysis draws on are obviously very broad and can be used in an arbitrary way to explain this or that choice. In addition, as shown in the Moroccan case, highly case-specific factors may affect an opposition party’s strategies, such as the power balance of factions in the party’s starting configuration, other opposition parties’ attitude and legacies, and unexpected political events (such as the Casablanca attacks of 2003), to name only a few. A regime’s choices regarding the change of rules and policies will similarly affect an opposition party’s approach. For instance, an incumbent’s particular policy choice may make the opposition more ready to confront that incumbent than it would otherwise be. As discussed in this chapter, the peace treaty with Israel is such a policy choice in Jordan. The consequences of such events and regime choices cannot be accounted for in a comparison unless they present comparable challenges to the parties in question. Nevertheless, I hope to provide more general insights about the role of institutions , organizational development, and the relationship with an ISMO by tracing two types of choices back to particular configurations of these factors: (1) the basic choice whether to play a direct regime game or one via elections—that is, broad differences in the two parties’ general orientation; and (2) the PJD and 1. The analysis in this chapter is based on my own field research in Jordan in 2007 as well as on Clark 2006, Jonasson 2004, Lucas 2005, and Schwedler 2006. 2. The impact of core systemic differences—especially of monarchies versus “republics”—on Islamist strategies has been addressed in other studies (for instance, Ferrié 2005; Pellicer and Wegner 2008). Comparing Islamist Strategies | 125 IAF’s choices...