ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the role and effects of Islamism on the political economy of the region. It examines Islamism as a social movement, investigating its social bases and the coalitions of actors it represents. The chapter explores three modes of social activism: social welfare, electoral contestation, and political violence. It investigates Islamists' ideas about how to cope with many problems presented by their political economies. The chapter reviews the behaviour of Islamists when they have actually wielded state power—in Iran, Turkey, and Sudan and, more recently, in Tunisia, Egypt, and Morocco. The experiences of Islamist political parties across the Middle East and North Africa region show that the forms and patterns of collective action by social movements to a large degree depend on state policy. The political consequences of Islamic banking may well be more important than the immediate economic impacts.
