When Victory Is Not an Option

Brown examines the organization, operation, and impact of Islamist movements in semi-authoritarian states, or systems in which opposition parties are permitted to participate but not win, arguing that while these movements become 'politicized' (i.e., they are participants in politics and elections), they are so in a limited way.... He provides an excellent framework for understanding the recent political dynamics of the Arab world. * Choice * Brown's book... captures the main dynamics of Arab politics today, and it serves as a guideline to predict the future of Arab Islamists. This theoretically deep, empirically rich, and politically insightful book is a must-read for students of Middle East politics. -- Ahmet T. Kuru * Political Science Quarterly * His metaphor of 'Islamist' survival, that they survive 'as a cat-and-mouse game so long as the cat allows the mouse to live and the mouse remains a mouse' (p. 240) is prophetic as well as salient. The value of Brown's approach is that he compares and contrasts movements across the Middle East and not just on one organization or country. -- Daniel Martin Varisco * Contemporary Islam * This is an important book not only for its rich empirical exploration of the Muslim Brotherhood in four settings (Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, and the Palestinian territories) but also for its insights into semiauthoritarian regimes, which allow opposition groups just enough room to organize and compete but not enough to win elections or form governments. Relying on extensive contacts with Brotherhood leaders, Brown explains how they saw advantagessuch as gaining the right to legal assembly and being allowed to propagate their views and deliver basic services to the needyto playing a game they were destined to lose. -- John Waterbury * Foreign Affairs *

Nathan J. Brown is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University. He is the author of several books, including The Dynamics of Democratization; Palestinian Politics after the Oslo Accords; and Constitutions in a Nonconstitutional World.

Preface1. Partially Political Movements in Semiauthoritarian Systems 2. Running to Lose? Elections, Authoritarianism, and Islamist Movements 3. Beyond Analogy Mongering: Ideological Movements and the Debate over the Primacy of Politics 4. The Model and the Mother Movement 5. The Model in Practice in Four Semiauthoritarian Settings 6. Can Islamists Party? Political Participation and Organizational Change 7. Ideological Change: Flirtation and Commitment 8. Arab Politics and Societies as They Might Be 9. Islamist Parties and Arab Political Systems as They AreBibliography Index