Commentary
Sarah Yerkes
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Source: Getty
Other
Political Islam in Tunisia: The History of Ennahda By Anne Wolf
The role of Tunisia’s primary Islamist party—Ennahda—within the country’s political scene ebbed and flowed both during and after the 2011 revolution. Understanding how Ennahda got to where it is today is crucial to understanding where it—and the country—is going.
By Sarah Yerkes
Published on Jun 4, 2019
Source: Journal of Islamic Studies
The role of Tunisia’s primary Islamist party—Ennahda—within the country’s political scene ebbed and flowed both during and after the 2011 revolution. Today, despite a parliamentary system with dozens of political parties in some form of power, Tunisia operates like a two-party democracy, with power vacillating between Ennahda and its primary rival, Nidaa Tounes. Understanding how Ennahda got to where it is today is crucial to understanding where it—and the country—is going.
While the party’s initial success was consistent with an Islamist wave that swept across the Arab Spring states in 2011–2012, Ennahda has continued to succeed where other Islamist parties in the region—particularly Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood—have dramatically failed. Anne Wolf’s book, Political Islam in Tunisia, offers a comprehensive overview of the history of Ennahda, examining not only the origins and evolution of this Islamist party but also the way the country has dealt with the highly contentious issue of what role religion should play in politics. The book tackles this question in today’s democratic context, but also provides the reader with a brief overview of the role religion played in the pre-independence period, as well as a longer treatment of the Bourguiba and Ben Ali eras....
This book review was originally published in the Journal of Islamic Studies.
About the Author
Sarah Yerkes
Senior Fellow, Middle East Program
Sarah Yerkes is a senior fellow in Carnegie’s Middle East Program, where her research focuses on Tunisia’s political, economic, and security developments as well as state-society relations in the Middle East and North Africa.
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Recent Work
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
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