| Summary/Abstract |
Islamist parties espouse a socio-political platform that rests on the notion of creating an Islamic order and the application of the Islamic Sharia as a normative/legal and authoritative power structure. Progressive/Democratic Islamists is a term coined by some scholars to account for the emergence of new actors within the Islamic ranks starting from the 1990s in several Middle Eastern countries including Iran, Turkey, Egypt and North African countries. These actors depart from authoritarian political interpretations of Islamic texts, calling for a rationalist interpretation of Islamic idioms emphasizing the compatibility of Islam with democracy, pluralism, human rights and grassroots empowerment. This article analyzes the case of the Strong Egypt party (SEP) in the wake of the 2011 uprising in Egypt. It problematizes the identity of the party and its location in the ideological and political spectrum in Egypt. The article argues that the SEP claims a mixture of cultural conservatism, economic progressivism and political democracy, but that this mixture suffers from lack of depth, sophistication and a genuine social constituency and project.
|