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Studies 18 November, 2013

Islamists in a Stage of Transformation: From Instrumental to Philosophical Democracy - The Case of the Moroccan Justice and Development Party

Keyword

M'hamed Djabroun

Moroccan researcher on the fields of history and islamic political thought.

The revolutions of the Arab Spring are creating new intellectual and political realities that force factions and political currents, such as the Islamic movement, to re-invent themselves and revise their precepts and visions. The notion of “democracy” may be the focal point of this revision as it represents the culmination of the revolutionary movement’s goals, through which the democratic values of the revolution are to be translated into concrete political measures and political and legal rights.

For the Islamic movement, this new situation represents an opportunity to shift from an instrumental and formal concept of democracy (manifested through electoral tools, political pluralism, and the peaceful alternation of power) to the philosophical essence of democracy (represented through the concept of freedom, legislation, and equality on the basis of citizenship). This paper seeks to examine the preparations undertaken by the Islamists to seize this opportunity, in terms of intellectual production, innovation, and renewal, as seen in the Moroccan Justice and Development Party.

 

*This study was originally published in the third Edition of tabayyun (Winter 2013, pp. 193-208). Tabayyun, published by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, is a peer-reviewed academic quarterly journal devoted to philosophical and cultural studies.

This article was translated from Arabic by the ACRPS Translation and English Editing Department. The original Arabic version can be found here.