Islamism and the rise of Islamic charities in post-revolutionary Tunisia : claiming political Islam through other means?

Abstract

This article contributes to the debate on the transformation of Islamic activism in a context of political change. Drawing on the case of post-authoritarian Tunisia, it reconstructs and explains the trajectories of Islamists' participation in civil society during a period of renewed opportunities and intense political conflict. At the crossroads between the literature on Islamic politics and social movement studies, the study discusses how the Islamist actors' engagement with the associational sphere affects their ideological positions and mobilization capacities. Notably, the article shows how activists engaged in charitable associations have, over time, recast their relations with the party Ennahda, the public authorities and international donors, in order to cope with external pressures arising from a polarized political landscape. Contrary to what could be expected, the change of focus from the political to the associative sphere does not amount to a process of Islamists' de-ideologization, but is rather to be understood as a coping strategy whereby Islamic activists continue to mobilize in conditions where they have some room for manoeuvre whilst Political Islam is difficult to pursue at the party level.