More than a year after the start of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolts, the question of how political Islam will return to regional politics is still open. This article explores the differences between the AKP’s Turkish model and the Tunisian al-Nahda movement. The Tunisian and the Turkish case studies are examined and compared on three levels. First of all the historical and structural contexts of the two countries and the relationship between the state and Islam are taken into account. Secondly the two models of political Islam that have developed in Tunisia and Turkey are analyzed. Finally, the two different views of the social, political and economic life proposed by al-Nahda in Tunisia and by the AKP in Turkey are compared. By examining the structural differences between these two contexts, and consequently by looking at the two distinctive ways of understanding Islam in public life, the article will also demonstrate how and why the “Turkish model”, as represented by the AKP, cannot be applied to Tunisia, although the al-Nahda has itself embarked on a process of “de-radicalization.”

This essay examines the domestic and external roots of Turkey’s activism in the Middle East through the lens of role theory. Within this context, the essay falls into three sections. In the first part, the conceptual tools that are going to be used in decoding the roots of Turkish activism will be examined. The second section will discuss the national role conceptions of Turkish foreign policy elites for the Middle East, while the third section will examine the expectations of external actors about Turkey’s role in the region. In the empirical sections of the essay, the methodology will involve a close examination of both Turkish foreign policy elites’ and external actors’ speeches, which are assumed to deliver cues about Turkey’s role conceptions in the Middle East.

This article looks at the ongoing political changes in two non-democratic regimes moving beyond the ‘authoritarian resilience’ model. Five years after the Arab Uprisings, Jordan and Algeria seem to have resisted the revolutionary wave that has shaken the whole MENA region. According to the old debate informed by ‘authoritarian resilience’ and ‘democratic transition’ models, a series of obstacles in the political, economic or social sphere would prevent a successful ‘transition’ to democracy in some countries more than in others. Despite the criticisms addressed to the classical version of these models, they still influence most of the explanations of what happened after 2011, even though in their ‘upgraded’ version (Haydemann 2007; Heydemann and Leenders 2011). However, given the specific set of challenges and transformations each of the countries is going through, this framework becomes increasingly unsatisfactory. Jordan and Algeria are two profoundly diverse countries, and yet both are quite exceptional cases in their own right. Compared to other Arab monarchies, Jordan stands between the untouched authoritarian Gulf model and the constitutional reformist path followed by Morocco (Yom 2011; Yom and Gause 2012). As for Algeria, it was the only republic in the region to be apparently not affected by the regional turmoil (Volpi 2013). Still, in order to survive the 2011 protests, both regimes were forced to approve a number of ‘facade’ reforms. This article argues that such reforms, despite being mostly formal concessions, seen from a different angle could also be a starting point for more substantial long-term transformations. After all, does a truly “resilient” authority, elite or regime really exist?

The literature about factors that promote growth and change presents models of diffusion that are based on societies’ attempts to learn from the success of other societies and adopt their models. The stepped-up protests and calls for change that led to the Arab Spring were strongly influenced by Arab society’s exposure to the successes of the non-Arab Muslim states in the region: Turkey and Iran. In this article, we identify the focal points of the discussions about the models that the Arab world should adopt from Turkey and Iran, as proposed by leading public intellectuals, leaders, and think tanks, during the period between 2002 and 2012 prior to the eruption of the Arab Spring and during its first stage.