Current Analysis

Manufacturing the AKP in Turkey

The AKP's decades-long electoral success in Turkey has been made possible by their strategic alliance with the country's small industrialists. Utku Balaban analyzes the connection between Islamism and industrialization since the rise of these urban manufacturers in the 1980s and explains the nuances

Utku Balaban • 15 min read

MER Article

Understanding the Diversity of Political Islam

The complex phenomenon of political Islam has inspired much sensational and alarmist writing, both popular and scholarly. Since the early 1980s, however, MERIP contributors have provided an antidote with in-depth and nuanced analyses of the impact Islamic movements have had on popular struggles for democracy and women’s rights and

Francesco Cavatorta • 4 min read

Current Analysis

Understanding the Diversity of Political Islam

Francesco Cavatorta examines MERIP's 50 years of covering the complex phenomenon of political Islam and finds that much of it is based on field research, participant observation, interviews and ethnography. The result has been a rich diversity of approaches that comprehend the plural nature of Islam

Francesco Cavatorta • 4 min read

MER Article

The Crisis of Religiosity in Turkish Islamism

In 2017 İhsan Fazlıoğlu, an Islamist professor of philosophy at Istanbul Medeniyet University, was visited by a group of concerned teachers and parents from the İmam Hatip high school (a government-funded secondary school that trains Muslim preachers) he once attended. The visitors wanted his advice

Mucahit Bilici • 9 min read

MER Article

The Destructive Dreams of AKP Urbanism

The Gezi Park protests were the first time that the AKP faced significant public resistance from below to their urban transformation project. The term “below” is important because the AKP’s legitimacy rests on the claim that it enjoys widespread support from below. The protests, however, revealed an

Ayse Çavdar • 11 min read

Current Analysis

McJihad, the Film

The themes of Adam Curtis’ new documentary Bitter Lake [http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bitter-lake] should be well known to those familiar with his body of work: power, techno-politics, science, managerialism and the media. The film uses the contemporary history of Afghani

Jacob Mundy • 13 min read

MER Article

Potholes in the Road to Revolution

Nearly four years later, the dusty road between Sidi Bouzid’s main thoroughfare and the humble residential quarter where Mohamed Bouazizi grew up is still blemished with the same potholes. He was not known in his hometown by that name. Though international media outlets immortalized this moniker aft

Michael Marcusa • 7 min read

Current Analysis

On Memes and Missing Girls

Michelle Obama tweeted a photo of herself on her official account last week using the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, joining the Twitter campaign on behalf of the hundreds of schoolgirls [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/14/nigeria-talks-boko-haram-kidnapped-schoolgirls], most of them Christia

Jillian Schwedler • 5 min read

MER Article

The Muslim Brothers Take to the Streets

On August 14, 2013, supporters of deposed President Muhammad Mursi were massacred at two protest camps in Cairo and Giza. In the subsequent four months, the Muslim Brothers have regrouped to launch a wave of popular protest the likes of which has not been seen in Egypt since the January 25 revolutio

Neil Ketchley • 14 min read

MER Article

Gender and Counterrevolution in Egypt

The 18 days of revolution beginning on January 25, 2011 united Egypt. A wide range of citizens, men and women, veiled and unveiled, young and old, middle-class and working-class, stood behind the goals of ending the 30-year rule of Husni Mubarak and stopping the planned succession of his son to the

Mervat Hatem • 16 min read

Featured

Between Grievances and State Violence

On June 16, 2012, female students at the University of Khartoum mounted a demonstration that released a wave of protest on campuses and major towns across Sudan. The young women exited the university gates chanting “Freedom, freedom,” demanding the “liberation” of their campus from the grip of the N

Khalid Mustafa Medani • 20 min read

MER Article

Copts Under Mursi

Throughout his 2012 presidential campaign, Muhammad Mursi was keen to emphasize that he would be a president for all Egyptians, not just supporters of the Society of Muslim Brothers, and that he believed in equal citizenship for all, irrespective of religious affiliation. The majority of Egypt’s Cop

Mariz Tadros • 11 min read