Justice and Development Party and Muslim Brotherhood in the “Arab Spring”: A Failed Post-Islamist Interaction to Transform the Middle East

Year 2016, Volume: 2 Issue: 1, 1 - 16, 01.04.2016

Edip Asaf Bekaroğlu

Abstract

This paper aims at evaluating the presumed impact of the “Turkish model” on the transformation of Islamists in the Middle East through a post-Islamist turn by focusing on the interaction between Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (JDP) and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB). It argues that the process of “Arab Spring” in general and the MB’s government experience in particular played a constitutive role in shaping public and intellectual opinions on the Turkish model. To elaborate on this argument, a media survey and in-depth interviews are conducted. Media survey includes three major newspapers: Hürriyet, Star and Zaman. This media analysis is accompanied by in-depth interviews with nine significant individuals from Turkish political and intellectual elite, who are influential in Islamist circles and the JDP.

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