ABSTRACT
Hamas’s decision to participate in the electoral process in 2004–2005 marked the beginnings of a shift away from its unilateral strategy of armed resistance towards employing a DRS that incorporated political participation as a form of resistance. To understand the scope, limits, and causation of this transformation, and the role that Hamas’s DRS plays, requires a theoretical framework that not only deals with the vagaries of Hamas’s political participation but also ties these into Hamas’s key organisational goal of realising a sovereign Palestine. This chapter aims to provide such a framework to demonstrate how and why Hamas’s political participation agenda is inextricably intertwined with its state-building agenda. The chapter begins with an examination of some of the relevant state-building literature to explain the causation of these shifts. It then analyses the pertinent aspects of the inclusion-moderation literature that will provide an understanding of the respective scope and limits of these shifts.
