Arab & Islamic Politics

In the American policy debates over the causes, consequences, and potential cures of Islamist extremism, institutions of state Islam -- i.e., religious institutions that are formally tied to the states governing their respective countries -- have featured only marginally. Whether due to an understandable ambivalence toward overt engagement with religious

The group's public executions of gay men are part of a deliberate moral policing campaign, one aimed at showing supporters and enemies alike that it means to enforce its narrow, atavistic view of Islamic law wherever it can.

Morocco needs to balance its desire to hold onto an economically and politically important region with the realities of EU human rights regulations and other international norms.

To get a truer picture of the party's longer-term plans and the implications for political Islam writ large, observers will need to see how Ennahda changes its internal structures, how it votes on divisive legislation, and how it campaigns in upcoming elections.

The tribes in eastern Syria have been driven in different directions by the Assad regime, outside actors, and their own self-interest, leaving the coalition with a complex web to untangle before it can fully uproot IS.

This essay, the sixth in a series exploring prospects for political reform throughout the Middle East, analyzes the unique perils facing democratic governance in Iraq, particularly the dangerous Islamist alternatives masquerading under the guise of theocracy.

Turkey's incoming government reflects the regionalization of political power, outsize influence from religious schools, and the sidelining of Kurds and women, as well as pointing to the emergence of an exclusive governing-party system.

Regardless of who drives the Islamic State out of the Euphrates Valley agricultural zone, they will need to address the legacy of failed regime irrigation policies that are once again creating tension among local tribes.

When it comes to maintaining, improving, or repairing the kingdom's efforts against the Islamic State and other terrorist groups, many of Washington's tried and tested ways of understanding the royal family's power politics need to be discarded.