Islamic Politics in the Post-Arab Spring Middle East: A social Network Approach

• In Event: Religion and Party Politics

Abstract

We are still coming to terms with the impacts of the Arab Spring uprisings, which spread throughout the Middle East beginning in 2010 and uprooted many regimes. Scholars have examined why they happened, why certain regimes survived, and the nature of regional order in their aftermath. One crucial question is the role of Islam in post-Arab Spring Middle East politics: did the protests create greater space for Islamic expression and Islamist movements or did the nature of the protests reveal political Islam's limits? Most attempts to answer this question have focused on institutions or attitudes; that is, what political systems prevail in the region or what people in the region think about these issues. These studies, however, overlook the dynamic nature of religion, which often intersects with politics through interactions not beliefs. In this paper, I take an alternate approach, analyzing the role of Islam in post-Arab Spring Middle East politics through social network analysis. Using an event dataset of interactions among states and individuals I assess whether ties between Islamist actors are stronger than secular ones, and which seems to wield the most influence in Middle East politics. This paper will contribute to our understanding of contemporary Middle East politics, while also engaging with a growing body of work that emphasizes the social and dynamic aspect of belief systems like religion in order to assess their impact on politics.

Author

• Peter Shane Henne, University of Vermont