A mérsékelt iszlamista mozgalmak szerepe az "arab tavaszt" követő politikai átmenetben (The Role of Moderate Islamist Movements in the Political Transition Following the Arab Spring)

Abstract

Up to January 2011 authoritarian political regimes in the Middle East had widely been considered stable due to the armed forces, the underdeveloped political institutions, the economic embeddedness of the regimes, the neo-patrimonial structure of the Arab societies and, eventually the characteristics of Islam. Middle Eastern political systems are often considered to belong to a special sub-group of non-democratic regimes called “liberalized autocracies”. The 2011 events show that there is a new, as yet non-defined political structure emerging. Although there are different interpretations of the developments, there is a consensus on the determinant role of the Islamist organizations in the development of the new political structure. The results of the Egyptian and Tunisian parliamentary elections show that the secular political parties could not attract the public, while in Tunisia the long forbidden Hizb an-Nahda could form a government. In Egypt Hizb al-Hurriya established by the Muslim Brotherhood in 2011 won almost half of the parliamentary mandates, and to a great surprise, the Salafi Hizb an-Nour also received 24.3% of the votes. On the basis of the above developments the thesis of the Islamist re-organization of the Middle East, i.e. of a new wave of Islamism was elaborated, according to which the main political winners of the revolts in the Arab countries are the Islamist organizations, which could step in and fill in the political vacuum. While some speak of an Islamist autumn or Islamist winter as the result of the Arab Spring, others prefer the term Islamic revolutions.