Bloomsbury Islamists and the State: Legitimacy and Institutions in Yemen and Lebanon (Library of Modern Middle East Studies)

In the wake of the Arab spring of 2011, the role of Islamist parties in the Middle East has taken on a new importance and significance. But in contrast with the commonly-held belief in the West that Islamist groups are often aimed at challenging not only the incumbent regimes, but also the authority of the state itself, both Islah of Yemen and Hezbollah of Lebanon are legal political organizations, with aspirations to work within state structures. Here, Stacey Philbrick Yadav assesses the idea that inclusion in formal state institutions generates a moderation of Islamist aims. She therefore highlights how Islamist commitments to the authority and institutions of the state can be made through appeals to sources of legitimacy at both the local and transnational level. This book will thus appeal to both researchers of Islamism in the Middle East as well as those studying the political situation in Yemen and Lebanon. Islamists, long assumed to be the primary drivers of opposition politics, have been central to political uprisings, but not always in the ways that observers might have anticipated, nor with the kind of uncontested dominance aimed at or capable of upending entrenched regimes. Islamist participation instead can strengthen state institutions, even as they are critiquing the existing regimes.