Instrumental Motives of Norm-Oriented Networks: Legitimacy, Resonance, and Visibility

• In Event: 594 - Section on Political Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 17. NGOs as Political Actors

Abstract

This paper examines the instrumental benefits of civil society discourse for Muslim civil society organizations and their pursuit of conservative agendas. Since early 1990s, informal religious communities in the Muslim world have been reestablishing themselves as formal NGOs, position themselves as civil society actors, and use the liberal norms of contemporary world politics while maintaining conservative agendas. Such Islamist organizations simultaneously draw from the communitarian and liberal interpretations of civil society, and refer to its associational definitions as much as its reactionary characteristics. This paper problematizes this conflict and asks: Why are the Islamist networks adopting the organizational models and discursive elements of liberal civil society? I argue in this paper that framing transnational religious solidarity projects as transnational civil society networks provides Islamist groups additional channels of power. Faith-based networks effortlessly negotiate across the conservative/liberal divide and make instrumental use of the liberal civil society discourse’s ideational tools towards their conservative goals. In this process, the civil society discourse and identity allow Islamist networks to claim legitimacy as credible political actors, to frame their messages in ways that resonate with the norms of transnational non-state politics, and to attain public visibility in international platforms.

Author

• Zeynep Atalay, St. Mary's College-California