Institutional Origins of Islamist Political Mobilization

Quinn Mecham is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Brigham Young University, Utah. His research focuses on political Islam, identity politics, civil conflict, electoral behavior, and democratic development. He is co-editor (with Julie Chernov Hwang) of Islamist Parties and the Normalization of Muslim Politics (2014) and is the author of numerous scholarly articles focusing on topics including opposition in authoritarian regimes, Islamist electoral behaviour, and protest movements. He has taught at Middlebury College, Vermont and George Washington University, Washington DC. He was an Academy Scholar at Harvard University, Massachusetts and served as Franklin Fellow on the policy planning staff of the US Department of State.

'Mecham himself raises the question of the increasing pluralism of political Islam. As the events of recent years have shown, Islamist actors may not necessarily have common goals or visions. Might Islamist mobilization sometimes be productive for the development of civil society or democracy? Is it still useful to consider Islamist political mobilization as a single conceptual category? Such are the questions and conundrums that naturally arise from such an insightful analysis.' Rachel Rinaldo, American Journal of Sociology

• Introduction; 1. Islam and political mobilization; 2. From the sacred to the state: a theory of Islamist mobilization; 3. A political geography of the sacred: variation in Islamist political mobilization across space and time; 4. Explaining low Islamist mobilization: Muslims and politics in Senegal; 5. Voting for welfare and virtue: Islamist electoral mobilization in Turkey; 6. When Islam defines politics: from voting to violence in Algeria; 7. Conclusion; Epilogue; References.