party politics-2013-catalano-408-31.pdf

8/10/2019 Party Politics-2013-Catalano-408-31.pdf

1/25

http://ppq.sagepub.com/Party Politics

http://ppq.sagepub.com/content/19/3/408Theonline version of this article can be foundat:

DOI: 10.1177/1354068811407577

2013 19: 408 originally published online 27 June 2011Party PoliticsSerida Lucrezia Catalano

of Family Code reforms in MoroccoIslamists and the regime: Applying a new framework for analysis to the case

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

Political Organizations and Parties Section of the American Political Science Association

can be found at:Party PoliticsAdditional services and information for

http://ppq.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://ppq.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

What is This?

- Jun 27, 2011OnlineFirst Version of Record

- Apr 23, 2013Version of Record>>

at Jazan University on September 9, 2014ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from at Jazan University on September 9, 2014ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ppq.sagepub.com/http://ppq.sagepub.com/http://ppq.sagepub.com/http://ppq.sagepub.com/content/19/3/408http://ppq.sagepub.com/content/19/3/408http://www.sagepublications.com/http://www.apsanet.org/~pop/http://ppq.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://ppq.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://ppq.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://ppq.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navhttp://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtmlhttp://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtmlhttp://ppq.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/06/17/1354068811407577.full.pdfhttp://ppq.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/06/17/1354068811407577.full.pdfhttp://ppq.sagepub.com/content/19/3/408.full.pdfhttp://ppq.sagepub.com/content/19/3/408.full.pdfhttp://ppq.sagepub.com/http://ppq.sagepub.com/http://ppq.sagepub.com/http://ppq.sagepub.com/http://ppq.sagepub.com/http://ppq.sagepub.com/http://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtmlhttp://ppq.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/06/17/1354068811407577.full.pdfhttp://ppq.sagepub.com/content/19/3/408.full.pdfhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://ppq.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://ppq.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://www.apsanet.org/~pop/http://www.sagepublications.com/http://ppq.sagepub.com/content/19/3/408http://ppq.sagepub.com/


2/25

Article

Islamists and theregime: Applying anew framework foranalysis to the case ofFamily Code reformsin Morocco

Serida Lucrezia CatalanoDepartment of Institutional Analysis and Public Management, Bocconi University,Milan, Italy

Abstract

This paper develops a theoretical framework for analyzing the strategic interactionbetween Islamists pragmatic and dogmatic and the regime when Sharia-based issuesare negotiated. I advance the new notion that pragmatists might be responsive to theIslamist electorate. Within the framework I generate the hypothesis that, if the regimepromotes substantive reforms and the Islamist electorate supports them, then the inter-nal cohesiveness of Islamist parties is weakened. In the case of Family Code reforms inMorocco, empirical analysis confirms that Islamists change of strategy in 2003 fromopposing to not opposing the reforms was due to changed preferences within theelectorate in favour of reform. This change in preferences was matched by deep divi-

sions within the Islamists of the Parti de la Justice et du Developpement and had dra-matic repercussions upon the internal cohesiveness of the party.

Keywords

Islamist moderation, Islamist parties behaviour, preferences, responsiveness to Islamistelectorate

Paper submitted 08 March 2010; accepted for publication 10 January 2011

Corresponding author:

Serida Lucrezia Catalano, Bocconi University - IAM Via Roentgen 1, 20136 Milan, Italy.

Email: [email protected]

Party Politics19(3) 408431

The Author(s) 2011Reprints and permission:

sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/1354068811407577ppq.sagepub.com

at Jazan University on September 9, 2014ppq.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.navhttp://ppq.sagepub.com/http://ppq.sagepub.com/http://ppq.sagepub.com/http://ppq.sagepub.com/http://ppq.sagepub.com/http://ppq.sagepub.com/http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav


3/25

Introduction

Since the early 1990s a growing interest has mounted concerning the relationship

between Islamist parties inclusion in the political process and their moderation,

and several studies have appeared which have strongly contributed to our under-standing of that relationship. Still, many gaps must be filled in order to unpack the

specific mechanisms through which inclusion can eventually constitute a moderat-

ing factor.

The present article is an attempt to address one of these gaps in the moderation liter-

ature by focusing on the neglected linkage between Islamist parties and their electors.

Indeed, I investigate to what extent responsiveness to the Islamist electorate can have

an impact on Islamists behaviour and, eventually, on Islamist parties internal cohesive-

ness. More specifically, do changes in the Islamist electorates preferences alter Isla-

mists strategies, thus making negotiable something that was not meant to beconsidered as such on the basis of ideological and doctrinaire Islamic principles?

Furthermore, how does the willingness of Islamists to accommodate processes of social

modernization affect intra-party dynamics?

Sharia-based issues represent a prolific arena to answer to these questions. By

consenting to modifications to Islamic law, Islamist parties might risk jeopardizing

their political appeal, which is intertwined with the mobilizing power exerted by their

religious identity. Moreover, negotiation processes overSharia are likely to generate

tensions within the party rank and file, between those militants who adhere to a strict

observance of religious texts and those who are more favourable to their reinterpreta-tion in light of transformations in contemporary reality.

In the present paper, I will build a theoretical framework in which the main hypoth-

esis underlying the analysis will be generated to explore the interaction between Isla-

mists and the regime when issues concerning the Sharia are tabled for negotiation. In

particular, I will conceptualize Islamists as being either pragmatic or dogmatic, depend-

ing on their respective preferences over the notion of democracy they aim at realizing,

the place that Sharia keeps within that notion, and their willingness to accommodate

changes in their electors preferences.

The hypothesis will be tested by examining the case of the reforms in the Sharia-based Family Code that occurred in Morocco in 2004. The latter have been applauded

as an exceptional event for the relevance and magnitude of the changes enacted. This

case is very interesting because the Islamists of the Parti de la Justice et du Developpe-

ment (PJD) strongly opposed the project of reform after it was proposed by the socialist-

led government, while successively they voted in its favour. By diachronically examin-

ing the Islamist electorates preferences on the Moroccan Family Code reforms, this

paper shows that a change in these preferences caused a faction within the party to

display more favourable attitudes towards the reforms. In turn, this had dramatic reper-

cussions upon the internal cohesiveness of the PJD.

As I will argue in the conclusion, these findings shed light on the linkage between

electoral politics and Islamist behaviour, and allow consideration of the intriguing rela-

tionship between social modernization processes and the prospects of democratization in

the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Catalano 409

http://ppq.sagepub.com/http://ppq.sagepub.com/http://ppq.sagepub.com/http://ppq.sagepub.com/


4/25

Islamist moderation literature: Recovering the role of

responsiveness to the electors

Islamist revivalism has caused growing attention to be given to the role assumed by

Islamist parties in the political liberalization process. More specifically, the inclusion/

moderation hypothesis investigates whether, and through what mechanisms, by entering

the political game and being integrated within formal representative institutions,

parties that were previously excluded might eventually evolve towards less rigid

worldviews (Schwedler, 2006: 3), thus moderating their organizational structures, goals

and visions and/or behaviours, as a result of either strategic calculation or political

learning. Within this body of literature, some area scholars have focused on the

interactions between Islamist and leftist parties for scrutinizing whether and to what

extent cooperation between them within the political game can entail their ideological

moderation (Clark, 2006; Schwedler, 2006; Schwedler and Clark, 2006; Wickham,2004). Others have analyzed the potentialities of civil society actors and voluntary asso-

ciative groups in prompting Islamists political learning (Cavatorta, 2006) or the

coalition-building between secular and religious civil society actors (Cavatorta, 2009;

Cavatorta and Elananza, 2008). Some others have mostly explored the strategies through

which, by creating new sets of political opportunities, the regimes can manufacture the

political space so as to modify actors incentives to behave in a given way (Lust-Okar,

2004, 2005; Schwedler, 2006) and the role of growing ideological, financial, and

economic autonomy of an Islamist party from its Islamist social movement (Wegner and

Pellicer, 2009). Nevertheless, this body of literature has paid less attention to theconstraints and opportunities generated by the Islamists electoral base in crystallizing

oppositional behaviours and/or causing Islamists to support reforms notwithstanding

their religious convictions. Even when electoral politics is considered as playing a large

role in strengthening moderate tendencies at the expense of radical voices (Tezcur, 2010:

74), scarce importance is given to the impact of the electoral game on intra-party

dynamics and the emphasis is, at most, placed on the key effects of electoral engineering

to produce inter-party alliances (El-Ghobashy, 2005: 378).

The role of electoral factors as a moderating mechanism has been widely analyzed in

the literature dealing with socialist and Christian democratic parties. For example,Przeworski (1985) and Przeworski and Sprague (1986) argue that the ideological

moderation of socialist parties was contingent upon the acknowledgement of the

minority status of workers within the class structure of capitalist societies. Since a party

homogeneous in its class appeal would be sentenced to electoral defeats, leaders chose to

sacrifice the partys class orientation by diluting the ideological salience of class in

their organization and propaganda in order to seek support among other sectors of

society in their struggle for electoral success. This implied an electoral dilemma: to

be effective in elections socialists had to erode exactly that ideology which was the

source of their strength among workers (Przeworski and Sprague, 1986: 55). Likewise,

as pointed out by Kalyvas (1996), Christian democratic parties in Western Europe had

also to deal with an electoral dilemma. On the one hand, their confessional nature

contrasted with their need to emancipate themselves from religion in order to expand

electorally recruiting the support of nonreligious voters and survive independently

410 Party Politics 19(3)



5/25

of the church. On the other hand, destroying the parties confessional identity would

undermine the mobilizing function of their religious appeal, which conferred on them

political legitimacy and kept their disparate social base together. As a result, party

leaders, instead of discarding religion, deemphasized it by reinterpreting Catholicismas an increasingly general and abstract moral concept that allowed them to be simul-

taneously Christian and secular. Moreover, Mainwaring and Scully (2003) point out

that the ideological moderation of Christian Democratic parties in Latin America was

contingent upon the fact that those parties had simultaneously to play an electoral

game to increase their share of seats and a regime game to increase the like-

lihood that free and fair elections were held and/or respected. In particular, since

Christian democratic ideology failed to resonate with the popular sectors of Latin

America, to expand their electoral base those parties had to give rise to greater prag-

matism, thus prioritizing winning votes over Catholic doctrine, in a similar way to

their Western European counterparts.

Scholars of Islamist politics are increasingly recognizing that Islamist parties are

complex and evolving entities. Structural factors or environmental shocks related to the

socio-political context in which they operate might strongly contribute to their modera-

tion, causing them to throw off their ideological straitjackets (Clark and Young, 2008:

349). However, emphasis on the role of context often disregards the fact that, when the

environment in which Islamist parties operate changes, the preferences of Islamists

electors may also change. In this sense, adaptation to the context could reflect a strategic

response to changes in electors preferences. Furthermore, in common with Christian

democratic and Socialist parties, Islamist parties face a critical electoral trade-off.While ideological moderation might draw off the electoral support of religiously-

inspired constituencies, exacerbating the defence of dogmatic positions might scare

away those voters who are especially attracted to the political or anti-authoritarian stance

of Islamist parties rather than their religious identity.1 Accordingly, preferences of the

Islamists electorate should be given more attention when studying Islamist moderation

mechanisms. Therefore, this paper investigates whether, and under which conditions,

when formulating their strategies, Islamists respond to their electorate, along with the

effects on Islamist intraparty dynamics of trying to reconcile between ideology and pol-

itics. Indeed, Islamist parties are far from being uniform and monolithic entities, as isapparent from the contentious positions that they might hold on some sensitive issues,

such as those related to Sharia, which are referred to as the gray zones2 (Brown

et al., 2006) of their programmes. Those gray zones often result from internal

divergences over the way to conciliate religion and politics. Hence, investigating

Islamists behaviour when those issues are discussed in the public arena might contribute

to disclosing both Islamists relationship with their support base and the internal tensions

within Islamist parties.

Theoretical framework: Islamists behaviour and Shariareforms

Most Islamist movements show a very heterogeneous composition (Brown et al.,

2006) and/or a double language (Mohsen-Finan and Zeghal, 2006). With an effort

Catalano 411



6/25

of simplification one could say that the former are very likely to be characterized by

the coexistence within their ranks of pragmatists and dogmatists. In particular, I define

as pragmatists those actors who have been more sensitive to political learning, giv-

ing up or re-interpreting towards a less harsh basis the goal of Islamization ofthe society. Their preferred outcome would be to enter the political game in order to

overcome the authoritarian impasse through the gradual procedural implementation

of more democratic rules. On the other side, dogmatists are those who, in the event

that they seized power, would aim at implementing the Sharia all at once and imme-

diately. Indeed, they are interested in a more substantive vision of the order that

should eventually derive from the liberalization game, which they would play with

mere instrumental purposes.3 This heterogeneity and/or double language of Islamist

parties can be puzzling for the regime. Indeed, it might be difficult for the latter to

anticipate which is the prevailing voice (e.g. the sincere or dominant one) within the

Islamist parties. In particular, when the regime decides to open the path to reforms on

Sharia, it is particularly troubled by the dogmatists, for they could radically desta-

bilize the regimes survival. If for dogmatists religion and politics are indistinguish-

able priorities, it turns out that substantive changes in the Sharia might be

unbearable for them and they would mobilize their support base against the reforms

in the event that the latter were endorsed.

By observing the Islamists counter-reaction to a proposed reform, the regime

might better evaluate the internal structure of Islamist parties, thus updating its under-

standing of the equilibrium existing between the political/pragmatic and the religious/

dogmatic factions within those parties. This should allow the regime to overcome itsuncertainty on the consequences of enacting the reforms. Indeed, pragmatists and dog-

matists might react differently to proposals for Family Code reforms, sending different

behavioural signals (Banks, 1991) to the regime. Since dogmatists consider the family

law to involve identitarian issues, they will be more likely to oppose any changes

once they are proposed. On the contrary, pragmatists, who attach a high value to pol-

itics, might be responsive to the attitudes and preferences that the Islamist electorate

has with respect to the reforms, thus deciding to not oppose them if the electorate

backs the change. To this extent, the Islamist electorate would influence pragmatists

behaviour, thus affecting the regimes strategies. Indeed, a strong Islamist oppositionto the proposed reforms is likely to indicate the prevalence of dogmatists within Isla-

mist parties. In contrast, if Islamists do not oppose, the regime will be more willing to

believe that it is facing pragmatists. In addition, due to the fact that dogmatists, as

opposed to pragmatists, are likely not to tolerate substantive changes even after they

have been enacted (they would keep opposing the change ex post, by mobilizing their

support base), it follows that Islamists behaviour within the negotiation path is crucial

for determining the regimes strategy with respect to the magnitude of the change to

endorse.

The overlapping voices within Islamist parties might also be the effect of the fact thatpragmatists and dogmatists fight for control over the party. In this sense, when the

regime is expected to implement a cosmetic change, pragmatists will pay higher costs

for not opposing (would have more incentives to oppose) than it would happen to

be if the regime was expected to endorse a substantive change. Indeed, by signalling




7/25

their type to the regime, they would risk dissociating themselves from the dogma-

tists on a reform that, in the event it were enacted, would be very likely to be

accepted even by the latter.4 On the contrary, if the regime aims at playing substan-

tive change, pragmatists would anticipate that, if such a change were enacted, dog-matists would probably continue opposing it, while pragmatists would not.

Therefore, in order to avoid repressive measures by the regime, it might be conve-

nient for pragmatists to differentiate their behaviour with respect to dogmatists

ex ante that is to say, before the reform is definitely passed. They can be pre-

vented from doing that only if they anticipate that their signalling would turn out

to be unrewarding with respect to their electorate so as to provoke its disaffection.

Indeed, in this case, they would be more likely to decide to oppose ex ante, hoping

that this strategy might eventually affect the magnitude of the reform by discoura-

ging the regime from enacting a substantive change. This line of reasoning suggests

that, if the regime pushes for a substantive change, and the Islamist electorate backs

that change, pragmatists would have more incentives to reveal their type by not

opposing the reforms. Therefore, this line of reasoning suggests the following

hypothesis:

When the regime pushes for enacting substantive changes, the more the Islamist electorate

is gained by the pro-reformist front, the more the regime divides Islamist parties by isolating

the dogmatists in their opposition, thus causing them to stand out as opponents of the

reforms and to become clearly visible.

The 2004 Moroccan Family Code reforms

The first campaign for the reforms of the Moroccan Family Code the so calledMoudawana

was launched by some womens rights organizations in March 1992. In order to overcome

the tensions generated by the Islamist counter-reaction to the campaign, and to avoid the

debate escaping from his control, King Hassan II5promptly intervened by emphasizing the

purely religious character of the issue: asAmir Al Mouminin6 (Prince of the Believers), he

was the only one who could rule on the Family Code. In October 1992, the king created a

commission of Ulemas whose work culminated in some cosmetic modifications that did notmodify the general discriminatory spirit of the family law. These modifications were

approved by royal decree and promulgated by King Hassan II on 10 September 1993 without

having been previously discussed in parliament.

After his ascension to the throne in 1999, King Mohammed VI immediately stressed

the need to promote womens status. A few months before, in March 1999, the Moroccan

government had presented the Plan dAction National pour lIntegration de la Femme au

Developpement (PANIFD [National Action Plan for the Integration of Women into

Development]), which included a project for reform of the Moudawana. Islamist

movements were unanimous in considering the PANIFD as being contrary toIslamic law and the principles of Islamic religion. Among them was the Parti de

la Justice et du Developpement (PJD [Justice and Development Party]), which had

been acknowledged as a legitimate political party in the event of the 1997 legislative

elections. In order to avoid the plan being overshadowed, human rights organizations,

Catalano 413



8/25

left-wing political parties and the womens rights movements organized a mass

demonstration on 8 March 2000 in Rabat. On the other side, the Islamists prepared a

counter-demonstration in Casablanca that mobilized many more participants and had

a stronger echo. The government opted for abandoning the PANIFD by asking for thekings intervention in the name of Article 19 of the Constitution. On 27 April 2001

Mohammed VI announced the setting up of the Consultative Commission for the Revi-

sion of theMoudawana. In fact the commission was trapped into a gridlock. In his dis-

course of the throne on July 2002, Mohammed VI set December 2002 as the deadline for

the commission to present the final law reform project. The commission could not

reach a final agreement by the deadline and, when the president of the commission, Driss

Dahak, asked to postpone it, the king replaced him with MHamed Boucetta on 20 Jan-

uary 2003. Through this change of presidency Mohammed VI wanted to show his com-

mitment to reform, and for this reason he was retaliating against Dahak for not having

met the deadline that had been initially fixed. Nevertheless, the king while continu-

ously restating the need for substantive changes to be enacted did not personally

embrace the issue by promulgating the changes and he took further time by appointing

the new president. The kings delay in enacting the reforms proves the extent to

which the consequences of substantive changes were deemed uncertain and potentially

destabilizing, even more so after the PJD had given proof of its force in the 2002 legis-

lative elections.7

Mohammed VI announced the reforms in October 2003, a few months after the

terrorist bombings in Casablanca on 16 May 2003 (hereafter 5/16). After having

been approved unanimously within the two chambers of the parliament, the changeswere finally adopted in January 2004. The new Family Code embodied very important

substantive changes. For example, the obligation for a woman to have a legal guardian

to conclude a marriage contract was abolished, the practice of polygamy became vir-

tually impossible, the family was now recognized as being under the conjunct super-

vision of both spouses (and not uniquely of the husband), judicial divorce (instead of

repudiation) became the main way to end marriage, women were granted rights of

custody of their children in cases of divorce or remarriage, and so on.

The fact that the reforms were enacted after the terrorist attacks suggests that, after

those events, the king became confident that he would not incur an Islamist counter-reaction ex post.8 Indeed, 5/16 and the consequent enactment of the anti-terror law

enhanced the regimes power to influence the PJDs internal dynamics and to silence

the dogmatists within the party. To be sure, in the aftermath of the Casablanca attacks,

Mustapha Ramid, the leader of the parliamentary group of the PJD, and Ahmed

Rassouni, the president of the Mouvement Unite et Reforme (MUR [Movement for

Unity and Reform] ), who were the two key exponents of the PJDs dogmatist branch,

retired. In the following pages I will explain what made it possible for the king to selec-

tively target the dogmatist leaders.

Islamist electorates preferences

The PJD strongly opposed the PANIFD after it was presented in 1999 but accepted

the Moudawana reforms in 2003 once the king finally announced them and during




9/25

their endorsement in parliament in 2004. Is there any evidence that there had been

an increase in the pro-reformist electoral front in order to justify a switch of strategy

in the PJD, from opposing the reforms to not opposing them, thus witnessing the

adoption of a pragmatic behaviour on behalf of the party? I define the Islamist elec-torate as the percentage of actual and potential Islamists electors; that is to say, as

the sum of citizens who are currently affiliated with the movement and those who

constitute the floating electorate and who are likely to be attracted by it, namely,

the potential electorate. In this sense, when their electorate is taken into account, the

cost for pragmatic Islamists of opposing, rather than not opposing, the reforms

depends on the beliefs that they hold on the ratio of (actual and potential) pro-tra-

ditionalists to the total electorate (both pro-traditionalists and pro-reformists). In

order to find an operationalization strategy for testing the potential responsiveness of

the PJD to its electors I advance the following:

The higher the ratio of actual and potential pro-traditionalist electorate to the total actual and

potential Islamist electorate, the more likely it is that pragmatic Islamists will decide to

oppose; pragmatists opposition is an increasing function of that ratio.

Hence a proxy for the Islamist pro-traditionalist electorate is calculated as follows:

} % Pr o - traditionalists

% Pr o - traditionalists % Pr o - reformists

% Actual Islamists0

Pro - traditionalist elctorate % Potential Islamists0

Pro - traditionalist electorateTotal %

Since it is not possible to construct reliable partitions of the (actual and potential) PJDs

electorate by looking at the electoral scores, I will instead investigate surveys on Mor-

occan peoples preferences with respect to the reforms. In particular, among the people

who participated in the surveys, anti-reformists are considered as a substitute for the

Islamists actual pro-traditionalist electorate, those who are uncertain are a substitute for

the Islamists potential pro-traditionalist electorate,9 and finally pro-reformists are those

who are very likely not to vote, or to stop voting for Islamists.

The first survey appeared in the Moroccan newspaperLEconomistein March 200010

when the debate on the PANIFD was reaching its peak. The second,11 also appearing in

LEconomiste, was administered after the reform on the Family Code was announced.

The graphs in Figures 1 and 2 show the extent to which the percentage of pro-

traditionalists dropped considerably in 2003 compared with 2000. In this sense, the

PJDs strategy of opposing the reforms in 2000 (when the percentage of pro-tradition-

alists was highly significant and the electorate was somewhat divided over the

PANIFD) and not opposing them in 2003 (when the percentage of pro-traditionalists

decreased significantly) appears to reflect the weight of the pro-traditionalist electorate

with respect to the Family Code reforms. It is not possible to evaluate the extent to whichthe increased repressive capability of the regime after 5/16 might have led the partici-

pants in the survey to express a higher level of support for the reforms than the support

the reforms were effectively winning. Anyway, it must be noted that the latter effect

ought not to be overstated, since the general trends in peoples preferences regarding

Catalano 415



10/25

many items of the Family Code do not undergo as much variation12 as do their prefer-

ences regarding the Family Code as a whole.

So far, the pro-reformist front seems to have de facto enlarged over time. Indeed, peo-

ple have turned out to be more and more sympathetic towards the improvement of

womens status and the need to endorse the change. Therefore, the analysis above con-firms that PJDs shift in behaviour (from opposing to not opposing) after 5/16 corre-

sponds to a shrinking of the pro-traditionalist front. This finding supports the

hypothesis that the party might have behaved pragmatically, thus being responsive to the

electors preferences.

Shariaand Islamist divisions: Internal dynamics of the PJD

before 5/16

The high correlation of the enhanced repressive capability of the regime after 5/16 with

both the shrinking of the pro-traditionalist front and changes in the PJDs behaviour

could invalidate the possibility of drawing definitive conclusions on the extent to which

the mechanism of the Islamists responsiveness to their electorate might effectively be at

28%

12%14%

23%18%

40%

65%

20032000

Disagree Mitigated Opinions Don't Know Agree

Figure 1.Preferences on Family Code over time.

0,56

0,76

0,44

0,24

0

0,2

0,4

0,6

0,8

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Pro-traditionalists

Pro-reformists

Figure 2.Proxies for Islamist electorates preferences over time.




11/25

work. Therefore, in order to overcome the impact of the anti-terror legislation, I will

analyze the period before 5/16, when the repressive costs imposed by the regime were

quite close to the level they had when the reform path was opened in 1999 because the

anti-terror law had not entered into effect. To be sure, when the PANIFD was proposed,the PJD was unanimous in condemning it, and after the Moudawana reforms were

enacted it was equally unanimous in accepting them. Thus it becomes crucial to inves-

tigate whether there were some signals of disagreement within the PJD with respect to

the strategy to adopt towards theMoudawanareform alreadybeforethe enactment of the

anti-terror legislation. That is exactly what I will do next.

After 5/16 there was much upheaval within the MUR the associative and

charitable association of the PJD. The president of the MUR, Ahmed Rassouni, was

forced from office. Rassouni was well known for his dogmatic and moralizing

approach, advocating the Islamization of Moroccan society, and was a critical oppo-

nent of the Moudawana reforms and of the royal prerogative of arbitrating on ques-

tions concerning the Sharia. He was replaced by Mohamed Hamdaoui who

immediately declared that, unlike his predecessor, he would not interfere with the

political activity of the PJD. Rassounis declarations while in office had created

a certain embarrassment within the PJD. This is confirmed by the fact that, on 19

April 2003, Abdelkrim Al Khatib, the leader of the PJD, backed the creation of a

new association, the Movement Vigilance et Vertu (MVV), to be presided over

by Mohamed Khalidi, member of the PJDs general secretariat and Al Khatibs

right-hand man. The initiative of Al Khatib was an evident attempt to make the PJD

less dependent on the MUR.13 Indeed, as Khalidi himself declared, the MVV wascreated in order to return to the principles of the party and to remediate to all the

excesses that some militants of the MUR have prompted with their declarations and

attitudes.14

On the other side, Rassouni had shown a mounting unease towards the PJD. In an

interview that appeared in Aujourdhui le Maroc15 on 12 May 2003 he stated:

The fact that the members [of the MUR] represent more than 70 percent of the PJD is a

failure for me. Indeed, it ought to be the contrary: the representatives of the MUR ought not

to exceed 30 percent within the PJD. . . . In fact, the party has taken from us not only ourcadres but monopolises even the most important of our efforts. The best elements have gone

intopolitical affairs, something that has consumed them.

That was the main reason why Rassouni proposed the idea of limiting MURs backing

of the party, which he considered as being split between two factions: On one side, there

are those who have a political vision; on the other, there are those who have an Islamic

referential and impose some conditions, namely, that the candidates respect Islamic prin-

ciples.16 What is more, Rassouni openly reinstated his criticism of the kings preroga-

tive as Amir Al Mouminin:

When I read the Moroccan Constitution, I find out that the prerogatives that have been

attributed to the king are beyond a human beings capacity. . . . The present king, given his

formation, cannot assume the prerogative of (issuing) Fatwa . . . hence he must delegate it.17

Catalano 417



12/25

The latter statement was connected to the previous attacks Ra ssouni had launched

against theMoudawanareforms and the kings privilege to have the last say about them.

In his turn, Abdelkrim Al Khatib stated he was astonished by those declarations.18 The

rest of the story is well known: a few days later, on 16 May, the Casablanca bombingsoccurred, and Rassouni retired as president of the MUR on 11 June.

Those episodes imply an important consideration. Tensions between some expo-

nents of the MUR more specifically, those who appeared as the most dogmatic

and resistant to the Moudawana reforms and others of the PJD were already arising

before 5/16. The creation of the MVV in April 2003 provides further evidence of the

fact that those tensions were producing divisive effects. The timingof the creation of

the MVV and of Rassounis declarations is noteworthy. Those events occurred, first,

when the issue of the Moudawana reform had come back onto the scene. Indeed, in

January 2003, Mohammed VI relaunched the work of the commission for the Family

Code reform by appointing a new president, Boucetta, who declared that the reform

would be enacted within a few months. Those events also occurred just a few months

before the 2003 municipal elections were scheduled to be held. Those signs of con-

trasts, precisely when the party needed to be run cohesively and to unify its resources,

constitute a further proof of the fact that, by backing the creation of the MVV, Al

Khatib deemed that it could be a suitable electoral move to signal to the electorate

the increasing independence of the party from its dogmatist branch. This appears to

be further confirmed as Mohamed Khalidi, the president of the MVV, declared that

the latter was created in order to strengthen politics without compelling the members

to belong to a movement [the MUR] which had an exclusive spiritual connotation19

and to interrupt the Islamization of the party by reinforcing the candidatures of mod-

ernist militants.20 By contrast, the declarations of Rassouni against the pragmatist

shift of the PJD attested the extent to which some members of the party sought a

deeper attachment to religious values.

Islamist electorates preferences and Islamist

divisions before 5/16

In the previous section I argued that the divisions between pragmatists and dogmatistswithin the PJD were exacerbated during the 2003 municipal election campaign. This

indicates that some exponents of the party were willing to signal to electors the partys

drive towards a less ideological stance already before 5/16. Is there any evidence that

changes in the preferences of the Islamist electorate had also effectively occurred already

before5/16? In order to provide this evidence, I will compare21 some items of the World

Values Survey (WVS) for Morocco before and after 9/1122 (see Table 1). In particular, to

create a measure for gender equality (GE), I consider the arithmetical average of the

answers on the four following questions and then I compute the proxy for the pro-

traditionalist and pro-reformist Islamist electorate23

which I will indicate as GE

. Morespecifically, the items that I will consider are:

on the whole, men make better political leaders than women do;

a university education is more important for a boy than for a girl;




13/25

Table1.

Attitudestowardspolitical,educat

ionalandeconomicequalityin

Moroccobeforeandafter9/11.

Topic

Answer(%)

MEAN

Menmakebetter

politicalleadersthan

womendo

Universityeducationis

mor

eimportantfora

bo

ythanforagirl

Whenjobsarescarce,

mensho

uldhavemore

righttoajobthanwomen

Husbandandwife

shouldnotboth

contributetoincome

Pre-9/11Post-9/11

D

Pre-9/11

Post-9/11

Pre-9/11

Post-9/11

Pre-9/11

Post-9/11

Pre-9/11

Post-9/11

Agree

56.6

3

45.2

8

11.3

5

60.6

59.5

50

23.9

86.9

77.5

29

20.2

Disagree

33.7

3

47.7

13.9

8

19.5

25.5

38.4

71

7.9

16.5

69.1

77.8

Dontknow

9.63

7.03

2.6

19.9

15.0

11.5

5.1

5.2

6

1.9

2.0

GE

0.61

0.48

0.13

0.71

0.67

0.5

6

0.26

0.9

0.78

0.3

0.21

1-

GE

0.39

0.52

0.13

0.29

0.33

0.4

4

0.74

0.1

0.2

0.7

0.8

Source:WVS.

419



14/25

when jobs are scarce, men should have more right to a job than women;

husband and wife should not both contribute to household income.24

Table 1 shows a consistent shrinking of the pro-traditionalist front (values forGE

were 0.61 and 0.48 in the pre-9/11 and post-9/11 periods respectively) with respect to

the four items connected to gender equality alreadybeforeCasablanca. It might be worth

noting, for example, that the number of people disagreeing with the statement men make

better political leaders than women do increased dramatically from 19.5 percent in the

pre-9/11 period to 25.5 percent in the post-9/11 period. The rate of disagreement almost

doubled for university education is more important for a boy than for a girl (from 38.4

percent to 71 percent) and more than doubled (from 7.9 percent to 16.5 percent) for

men should have more right to a job than women. As for the last item, when the

post-9/11 data are compared with corresponding data (women must contribute to

household economic needs) in the 2003 survey there are roughly the same percen-

tages of actual pro-traditionalists (77.8 percent and 78.6 percent respectively) and

pro-reformists (21 percent and 20.2 percent respectively). With respect to this item,

the change in preferences mostly occurred from pre-9/11 to post-9/11, whereas from

post-9/11 to post-5/16 preferences remained quite stable.

Note that the PANIFD did not pertain exclusively to theMoudawanaissue but related

more generally to the possibility for women to become emancipated in four main

domains (education, reproductive health, economic and political participation, and legal

status). In particular, the items I took into consideration capture well the domains of edu-

cational, economic and political participation so as to illustrate the extent to which peo-ple became more pro-reformist immediately after 9/11 with respect to those domains. In

this sense, even if, as far as I know, no data are available on the specific Moudawana

issue in the period post-9/11 to pre-5/16, it is reasonable to conclude that this increasing

pro-reformism could also be extended to questions related more specifically to the

Moudawana. That appears to be further corroborated by some significant factors. First

of all, the NGOs advocating for the revision of the Family Code had worked strenuously

during those years: they launched several information campaigns for promoting change

in mentalities. Through associative lobbying, social mobilization and local activism they

also tightened the links among womens associations, other actors of civil society andlocal activists networks, thus contributing to the feminization of the public space

(Sadiqi and Ennaji, 2006). Second, the PANIFD was mostly opposed by Islamists

because it was regarded as a secular plan imposed by the West, which contradicted Mor-

occan Muslim identity and values. This created a polarization, which was reflected in

public opinion, between an international feminist perspective and an Islamist world

view. The withdrawal of the PANIFD constituted an important lesson for womens rights

organizations: they became more and more aware that no debate about family law was

possible outside the limits of an Islamic discourse (Buskens, 2003: 120). For their battle

to be successful they had to reconcile the Western referential to the Islamic one, bypleading for the Ijitihad, which implies deriving amendments from sacred texts. This

contributed to weakening the opportunity for Islamists to capitalize on the mismatch

between the reforms and religious principles in order to boost their electoral consensus.

What is more, many Islamist women who belonged to the PJD or to the Al Adl wa Al




15/25

Ihsan movement (Cavatorta, 2006) started to back the reforms, thus making the political

costs of opposition to change much higher than they had been before. Summing up, as it

is pointed out by Salime (2009), on one side there was an Islamization of womens

rights movements; on the other, a feminization of Islamist movements. Therefore, itis plausible that the shrinking of the pro-traditionalist front continued even after 9/11,

and that it was much more relevant than the indicators in Table 1 are able to capture. That

is likely to have produced a society far less divided on the Moudawana issue immedi-

ately before 5/16.

Table 2 shows the absolute and the percentage mean variations with respect to the

two items on political (a) and educational equality (b) as they appear in the WVS (pre-

and post-9/11) and in the Arab Barometer (AB) 2006.25 The variations in those indi-

cators and in the proxy built on it are much more consistent in the six-month period

between the two WVS than in the almost four-year period from the post-9/11 WVS

to the AB (2006). Indeed, GE declined from 0.63 to 0.47 between August 2001 and

early 2002, while it merely dropped from 0.47 to 0.41 between early 2002 and 2006.

In this sense, there is further proof that, as for gender-related issues, the pro-

traditionalist front had already started to shrink very significantly before 5/16. It is also

worth noting that the shrinking of the pro-traditionalist front in the post-9/11 period

with respect to gender equality issues is matched by an increased support for atheist

politicians (AP;26 see Table 3). Indeed, the variations in GE (proxy for actual and

potential pro-traditionalists as for gender equality) and in AP (proxy for actual

and potential pro-traditionalists as for atheist politicians) between pre and post-9/11

run very close.While the decreasing percentage of actual pro-traditionalists (agree %) regarding

gender equality is entirely converted into an increase in actual pro-reformists (disagree

%), that is not the case for the refusal of atheist politicians. Indeed, more than half of the

actual pro-traditionalists (56 percent) turn out to be undecided on the possibility of hav-

ing non-religious politicians in public office, while 44 percent is gained by the actual

pro-reformist front. So far, religion had in fact lost some ground as a tool for building

political credibility because more trustworthiness is accorded to atheist politicians. On

the other hand, due to the high percentage of undecided people with respect to this item,

religious politicians still had some room for manoeuvre (e.g. by showing their supportfor gender equality issues) to conquer the consensus of former pro-traditionalists who

have become undecided.

Summing up, contrasts between pragmatists and dogmatists within the PJD were

exacerbated when the Moudawana appeared again on the negotiation table and gender

equality had gained more support among Moroccans. While the pro-traditionalist front

remained stable in its magnitude, pragmatists had a strong incentive to run cohesively

with dogmatists and to oppose the reforms. Once the pro-traditionalists had climbed

down and the 2003 municipal elections were approaching, a front within the PJD that

was more responsive to the electorates preferences had a stronger interest in showingincreased independence from dogmatists as appears clearly with the creation of the

MVV. This group deemed vehement opposition to the changes an unsuitable card to

play, preferring to remain silent on the issue. As a consequence, dogmatists within the

party appeared more and more distinguishable. Indeed, the tensions arising within the

Catalano 421



16/25

Table2.

Variationsinattitudestowardspoliticalandeducationalequality

inMorocco(20016).

WVS

Pre-9/11

WVS

Post-9/11

AB

2006

a)

b)

a)

b)

a)

b)

Mean

Pre-9/11

Mean

Post-9/11

MeanAB

2006

MeanD

Pre-post-9/11

MeanD

Post-9/11

2006

Mean%D

Pre-post-9/11

Mean

%

Post-9/11

2006

Agree%

60.6

50

59.5

23.9

53.6

25.3

55.3

41.7

39.4

5

13.6

2.2

5

24.5

9

5.4

0

Disagree%19.5

38.4

25.5

71

43.3

71.3

28.9

5

48.2

5

57.3

19.3

9.0

5

66.6

7

18.7

6

Dont

know%

19.9

11.5

15

5.1

3.1

3.3

15.7

10.0

5

3.05

5.6

5

6.8

5

35.9

9

68.1

6

GE

0.71

0.56

0.67

0.260.55

0.27

0.63

0.47

0.41

0.1

6

0.0

6

25.8

3

12.3

2

Source:WVSandAB.

422



17/25


18/25


19/25

pushes for substantive changes concerningSharia, the more the Islamist electorate is

gained by the pro-reformist front, the more the regime weakens Islamist parties by caus-

ing the most dogmatist elements within them to stand out as opponents of the reforms.

The framework proved empirically fruitful for analyzing the 2004 Family Codereform process in Morocco. The analysis confirms that the Islamists change of strategy

in 2003 from opposing to not opposing is linked to changed preferences within the

Islamist electoral base. I showed that PJDs internal tensions between pragmatic and

dogmatic factions were exacerbated once the Moudawana reforms were re-proposed

at the negotiation table and the number of pro-traditionalist electors had shrunk consid-

erably, something that had already occurred before the Casablanca terrorist attacks of 5/

16. These findings both down site and articulate the role attributed to 5/16 in causing

Islamists to stop opposing the reforms (Clark and Young, 2008: 340; Mohsen-Finan and

Zeghal, 2006: 107; Sadiqi and Ennaji, 2006: 1078), and confirm that emphasis on con-

textual factors should not discount the significance of the link between Islamists and

their electors.

Changes in the preferences of the electoral base might cause pragmatists to accommo-

date social modernization processes, thus eventually entering into conflict with dogma-

tists. The latter, remaining isolated in their opposition, would turn out to be severely

weakened. Therefore,Shariareforms might be an extraordinarily informative and divi-

sive tool. Indeed, if the consensus towards the pro-reformist view reaches a significant

level, by tabling reforms onShariathe regime can identify and distinguish pragmatists

from dogmatists, selectively marginalize the latter, and undermine the internal cohesion

of Islamist parties.A major implication of this argument is that the incumbents credible and persis-

tent commitment to change on Sharia-based issues could make the Islamists political

identity increasingly unambiguous and their language more and more clear-cut.

Indeed, if the reforms gather a strong backing, then the defence of doctrinaire Islamic

principles would gradually lose its appeal as an argument for gaining electoral sup-

port, thus increasing Islamists incentives34 to mitigate their dogmatist rhetoric. In a

similar picture, Islamists ought to enhance their political anti-authoritarian stance in

order to justify their credibility as opposition and not alienate their support base.

So far, while Shariareforms might initially be a tool in the regimes hands to weakenIslamist parties internal cohesiveness, in the long term by urging them to strengthen

the political dimension of their oppositional raison de tre they might open the path

for a more incisive struggle against the status quo. For this dynamic to be triggered,

electors preferences should exhibit as broad a support as possible in favour of

change, otherwise Islamists could find it rewarding to mobilize the electoral base,

increasing their appeal by capitalizing on anti-reformist positions. The Moroccan les-

son teaches that time and some degree of political opening that lets civil society sen-

sitize the public and campaign for change might be necessary to boost the peoples

support of the reforms. It follows that, once political liberalization has been launched,domestic and international pressures towards social modernization and gender equality

could be a viable tool to gradually compel Islamists to clarify their positions on their

notion of religion, state and power, speeding up their ideological moderation and ulti-

mately bolstering their democratic credentials.35

Catalano 425



20/25

It is worth noting that, anticipating that social modernization processes and the public

debates accompanying them could reshape peoples forma-mentis and eventually rein-

force the Islamist opposition to the status quo, incumbents might opt for tabling

Sharia-based issues with prudence; that is, at most cosmetically and incrementally.36

It follows that, in order for significant and decisive modernization processes to occur,

regimes should embrace a certain commitment to democracy and guarantee a degree

of openness that would allow for public debate on those issues. In fact, the real challenge

is to make it possible that such a commitment might arise in the first place.

This paper is a first attempt to illustrate the complex dynamics that run between

electoral preferences and Islamists behaviour when Sharia-based issues are tabled

for negotiation. Further studies in this direction, extended both to other Middle East-

ern countries and to other gray zones, would enrich our understanding of the impli-

cations of Islamist parties inclusion within the political sphere and should constitute

an agenda for future research. The fact that responsiveness to the electorate was a

mechanism at work for Moroccan Islamists suggests that Islamist parties are very

likely not dissimilar to Christian democrats or Socialist parties in Europe and they

could undergo a similar moderation process under opportune conditions. Further-

more, beyond throwing light on the moderating mechanisms Islamists are likely

to go through, these studies would contribute to clarifying the intricate relationship

between social modernization dynamics and the prospects of democratization in the

MENA.

Notes

1. Public opinion data show that the origins of the support for Islamist parties are to be found not

necessarily in the religious attachments of ordinary Muslims but, rather, in dissatisfaction with

the political and economic status quo (Tessler, 1997).

2. Brown et al. (2006) individuate six gray zones: Islamic law, violence, political pluralism,

civil and political rights, womens rights and religious minorities.

3. The fact that pragmatists defend a procedural vision of democracy does not entail a need for

them to be different from dogmatists with respect to their attachment to religious values. It

means that, since their first goal is the implementation of democratic checks and balances,they might set aside their religious principles in order to realize their political project.

4. It would be difficult for dogmatists to mobilize activists over an issue that does not represent a

real threat against the Sharia.

5. With specific reference to the case, by regime I mostly mean the king, and all persons closely tied

to him by patronage networks (e.g. the technocratic state apparatus, the army and the police).

6. Article 19 of the Moroccan constitution states that the king as Amir Al Mouminin is the

Defender of the Faith and the Protector of the rights and liberties of the citizens, social

groups and organisations.

7. The PJD gained 42 seats in the House of Representatives, thus becoming the third strongestMoroccan party after the Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires (USFP [Socialist Union of

Popular Forces], 50 seats) and the Istiqlal (48 seats).

8. The Casablanca attacks of 16 May 2003 should not be considered as the reason why the king

opted to enact the substantive changes. Indeed, we should not confuse a definition of




21/25

causality with the nondefinitional. . . operational procedure of identifying causal mechanisms

(King et al., 1994: 87). Terrorism is a random variable that sheds light on and discloses cau-

sal mechanisms and, more specifically, the relevance of Islamists behaviour in determining

the magnitude of the change.9. They will be weighted by one half to allow that half of them might be gained by the

pro-reformist front.

10. This survey was conducted on behalf of the Bureau detudes Telemark System (LEconomiste,

2000).

11. This survey was conducted on behalf of the research centre Sunergia in November 2003

(LEconomiste, 2003).

12. Concerning the legal guardian abolition, 79 percent of the sample were against in 2000, 75.7

percent in 2003; those favourable to marriage at age 18 were 82 percent and 80.7 percent,

respectively, in 2000 and 2003, etc.

13. The fact that this separation could be effectively achieved is corroborated by the growing eco-

nomic independence of the PJD from the MUR. See Wegner and Pellicer (2009).

14. Aujourdhui le Maroc (2003d).

15. Aujourdhui le Maroc (2003a).



18. Al Khatib referred to Rassouni as an imbecile (Aujourdhui le Maroc, 2003c).

19. La Gazette du Maroc (2003a).

20. La Gazette du Maroc (2003a).

21. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Mansoor Moaddel, under the World Values Survey (WVS)

project, carried out another survey (February 2002) in Morocco in order to analyze any change

in the opinions of the respondents with respect to the survey that was conducted just a few days

before the attacks (2 August 200128 August 2001).

22. See also Moaddel and Abdul-Latif (2007). The authors carried out a multivariate analysis for

examining how the attitudes of Egyptians and Moroccans were affected by the terrorist attacks

on 9/11. Their findings indicate that people displayed more favourable attitudes toward

democracy, gender equality, and secularism after 9/11 than they did before.

23. Moaddel and Abdul-Latif (2007: 265) use the first three items for building their own index on

gender equality.24. The answers to those questions were always grouped in three groups instead of using

the scale from 1 to 10 adopted in the WVS (Agree 14; Dont Know 56; Disagree

710). The last question in the WVS is formulated as Husband and wife should both

contribute to income; I reverse it in order to make the items in Table 1 more easily com-

parable (e.g. Agree always refers to pro-traditionalists). The dataset is available at the

WVS website: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org.

25. See http://www.arabbarometer.org/. I consider just those two items because they appear in the

three surveys with the same formulation.

26. On this point see also Moaddel and Abdul-Latif (2007: 274). The authors point out that societybecame more secular after 9/11 than it was before.

27. In the communique issued some days later, Ramid announced that several pressures had

been exerted by the Minister of the Interior to prompt his retreat (La Gazette du Maroc,

2003c).

Catalano 427



22/25

28. For example, even though Ramid gave his resignation on October 2003, he continued to make

a strong opposition against the regime in the aftermath of 5/16 (Aujourdhui le Maroc, 2004).

29. Aujourdhui le Maroc (2003b); La Gazette du Maroc (2003b).

30. La Vie e co(2003).31. Khalidi declared that his absence was linked not to the declarations on the separation between

the PJD and the MUR but to:

a personal hindrance. As for my declarations. . . I maintain them. . . . There is a need for the

party to go towards more opening and tolerance. The good path for the party is conditioned

to the separation between the PJD and the MUR. (La Vie e co, 2003)

32. The members of the MVV were eliminated from the lists of candidates presented by the PJD in

the 2003 municipal elections (Aujourdhui le Maroc, 2003e). It appears that, in order for Al

Khatib to keep his control on the PJD, the MUR asked for the silencing of Khalidi and his

loyal followers.

33. The marginalization of Khalidi is further confirmed by the fact that he would accomplish the

split with the PJD on 24 December 2005 on this occasion without being backed by Al Khatib

and the MVV thus became the Parti Renaissance et Vertu (PRV). Khalidi declared that the

creation of the PRV had become unavoidable because many members of the MVV were

excluded from the main organs of the PJD and it was impossible to integrate new energies

outside the predication which was a dogma in the PJD (La Gazette du Maroc, 2005).

34. I refer to Islamists as a whole (rather than exclusively to pragmatists) because, when the

Islamist electorate supports social changes, if dogmatists did not accept modernization pro-cesses, they would eventually be purged from the party, or silenced by the regime. There-

fore, either they opt to consent to a pragmatist leadership or decide to exit from the

political game.

35. Anyway, as discussed in Catalano (2010), the final result of social modernization processes is

context-dependent and strictly intertwined with the specific configuration of the political

space of the recipient country.

36. In this sense, the more audacious character of the Moroccan Family Code reforms might not

necessarily be imitated in a massive way in the rest of the MENA.

References

Arab Barometer (2006) Online. Available at: http://www.arabbarometer.org/ (accessed 18 May

2011).

Aujourdhui le Maroc (2003a) Fkih Rassouni repond au Docteur El Khatib [(Fkih Rassouni

answers Doctor El Khatib], 12 May, n. 382. Online. Available at http://www.aujourdhui.ma/

couverture-details32638.html (accessed 18 May 2011).

Aujourdhui le Maroc(2003b) La mascarade est terminee [The masquerade is ended], 6 June, n.

400. Online. Available at http://www.aujourdhui.ma/couverture-details33778.html (accessed

18 May 2011).

Aujourdhui le Maroc(2003c) Datation dune demission [The path to a resignation], 13 June, n.

405. Online. Available at http://www.aujourdhui.ma/bonjour-details22.html (accessed 18 May

2011).




23/25

Aujourdhui le Maroc(2003d) Rassouni a rompu le pacte [Rassouni has broken the deal], 27

June, n. 415. Online. Available at http://www.aujourdhui.ma/couverture-details34222.html

(accessed 18 May 2011).

Aujourdhui le Maroc(2003e) Comment les Islamistes preparent les elections [How the Islamistsprepare the elections], 22 August, n. 455. Online. Available at http://www.aujourdhui.ma/

couverture-depeche878.html (accesed 18 May 2011).

Aujourdhui le Maroc(2004) Quelle moche a pique Ramid [Whats bugging Ramid?], 5 April, n.

613. Online. Available at http://www.aujourdhui.ma/couverture-details11617.html (accessed

18 May 2011).

Banks, J. (1991) Signaling Games in Political Science. New York: Harwood.

Brown N. J., A. Hamzawy and M. Ottaway (2006) Islamist Movements and the Democratic

Process in the Arab World: Exploring the Gray Zones, Carnegie Papers 67: 120.

Buskens, L. (2003) Recent Debates on Family Law Reform in Morocco. Islamic Law as Politics

in an Emerging Public Sphere, Islamic Law and Society 1: 70131.

Catalano, S. L. (2010) Sharia reforms and Power Maintenance: The Cases of Family Law

Reforms in Morocco and Algeria,The Journal of North African Studies 15: 53555.

Cavatorta, F. (2006) Civil society, Islamism and Democratisation: The Case of Morocco,Journal

of Modern African Studies44: 20322.

Cavatorta, F. (2009) Divided They Stand, Divided They Fail: Opposition Politics in Morocco,

Democratization16: 13756.

Cavatorta, F. and A. Elananza (2008) Political Opposition in Civil Society: An Analysis of the

Interactions of Secular and Religious Associations in Algeria and Jordan, Government and

Opposition43: 56178.

Clark, J. A. (2006) The Conditions of Islamist Moderation: Unpacking Cross-Ideological

Cooperation in Jordan, International Journal of Middle East Studies 38: 53960.

Clark, J. A. and A. E. Young (2008) Islamism and Family Law Reform in Morocco and Jordan,

Mediterranean Politics13: 33352.

El-Ghobashy, M. (2005) The Metamorphosis of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers, International

Journal of Middle East Studies37: 37395.

Kalyvas, S. N. (1996) The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe. Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press.

King V., R. O. Keohane and S. Verba (1994) Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in

Qualitative Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.La Gazette du Maroc(2003a) Un courant parallele a celui de Rassouni vient de natre [A trend

alternative to that of Rassouni is about to rise], 28 April, n. 313. Online. Available at http://

www.lagazettedumaroc.com/articles.php?r2&sr62&n313&id_artl2449 (accessed 18

May 2011).

La Gazette du Maroc (2003b) Autocritique et decantation [Self-criticism and thinking over],

7 July, n. 323. Online. Available at http://www.lagazettedumaroc.com/articles.php?id_artl

3071&n323&r2&sr62 (accessed 18 May 2011).

La Gazette du Maroc(2003c) La demission troublante de Ramid [Ramid perturbing resignation],

28 October, n. 339. Online. Available at http://www.lagazettedumaroc.com/articles.php?id_artl3525&n339&sr724&r2 (accessed 18 May 2011).

La Gazette du Maroc (2005) A Vous la parole: Mohamed Khalidi [Take the floor Mohamed

Khalid], 26 December, n. 452. Online. Available at http://www.lagazettedumaroc.com/

articles.php?id_artl8453&n452&sr968&r2 (accessed 18 May 2011).

Catalano 429



24/25

La Vie e co(2003) Le PJD a du mal a prendre ses distances avec le religieux [The PJD finds it hard

to turn from religion], 11 July. Online. Available at http://www.lavieeco.com/news/politique/

Le-PJD-a-du-mal-a-prendre-ses-distances-avec-le-religieux-5253.html (accessed 18 May

2011).LEconomiste(2000) Enquete Afak-LEconomiste: Point par point, vos opinions sur les reformes

de la Moudawana [Survey Afak-LEconomiste: Your opinions on the Moudawana reforms,

point by point], 16 March, n. 726. Online. Available at http://www.leconomiste.com/article/

enquete-afak-leconomiste-point-par-point-vos-opinions-sur-les-reformes-de-la-moudawana


LEconomiste(2003) Enquete: Que pensez-vous de la reforme de laMoudawana? [What do you

think about the Moudawana reform?], 7 November, n. 1639. Online. Available at http://

www.leconomiste.com/article/enquete-que-pensez-vous-de-la-reformede-la-moudawana#top


Lust-Okar, E. (2004) Divided they Rule: The Management and Manipulation of Political Oppo-

sition,Comparative Politics36: 15979.

Lust-Okar, E. (2005)Structuring Conflicts in the Arab World: Incumbents, Opponents, and Insti-

tutions. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Mainwaring, S. and T. R. Scully (eds) (2003) Christian Democracy in Latin America: Electoral

Competition and Regime Conflicts. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Moaddel, M. and Abdul-Hamid Abdul-Latif (2007) Events and Value Change: The Impact of

September 11, 2001 on the Worldviews of Egyptian and Moroccans, in M. Moaddel (ed.)Val-

ues and Perceptions of the Islamic and Middle Eastern Publics , pp. 24997. New York:

Palgrave.

Mohsen-Finan, K. and M. Zeghal (2006) Opposition Islamiste et Pouvoir Monarchique au Maroc.

Le cas du Parti de la Justice et du Developpement [Islamist Opposition and Monarchic Power

in Morocco. The case of the Justice and Development Party], Revue francaise de science poli-

tique56: 79119.

Przeworski, A. (1985) Capitalism and Social Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Przeworski, A. and J. Sprague (1986)Paper Stones: A History of Electoral Socialism. Chicago, IL:

Chicago University Press.

Sadiqi, F. and M. Ennaji (2006) The Feminization of Public Space: Womens Activism, The

Family Law, and Social Change in Morocco, Journal of Middle East Womens Studies 2:86114.

Salime, Z. (2009) Dynamics of Movements, Islamist and Feminist Struggles over Family Law

Reform in Morocco, paper presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meet-

ing, San Francisco, CA, 8 August.

Schwedler, J. (2006)Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen. New York: Cam-

bridge University Press.

Schwedler, J. and J. Clark (2006) Islamist-Leftist Cooperation in the Arab world, ISIM Review

18: 1011.

Tessler, M. (1997) The Origins of Popular Support for Islamist Movements: A Political EconomyAnalysis in J. Entelis (ed.)Islam, Democracy, and the State in North Africa, pp. 93126. Bloo-

mington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Tezcur, G. M. (2010) The Moderation Theory Revisited: The Case of Islamic Political Actors,

Party Politics16: 6988.




25/25

Wegner, E. and M. Pellicer (2009) Islamist Moderation without Democratization: The Coming of

Age of the Moroccan Party of Justice and Development?,Democratization 16: 15775.

Wickham, C. R. (2004) The Path to Moderation: Strategy and Learning in the Formation of

Egypts Wasat Party, Comparative Politics 36: 20528.World Values Survey (WVS) (2011) Online. Available at http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org


Author biography

Serida Lucrezia Catalano received her PhD in Political Science at the Universita degli Studi of

Milan in 2009. At present she is Research Fellow at the Department of Institutional Analysis and

Public Management at Bocconi University, Milan. Her main interests focus on the socio-political

dynamics of regime change, the political role and the electoral behaviour of religious parties, and

social modernization processes.

Catalano 431

party politics-2013-catalano-408-31.pdf

Documents