Islamist political parties, international relations, and foreign policy

This chapter sheds light on how some of the main Islamist movements in the MENA region have framed the issue of international relations and foreign policy, trying to offer a revolutionary perspective based on their core beliefs in Islamic unity and solidarity. Initially seeking to dismantle Western geopolitical domination from which the Muslims have been suffering, Islamists have nonetheless had to deal with significant constraints, leading them to reframe a new conception of world politics. Balancing between the necessity of realism and the considerable ideological legacy they have inherited from decades of religious and political radicalism, some Islamist parties have generated new platforms, as they struggled to design a new identity, combining their religious ideals with the necessity to be part of both national and international environments. Based on discourse analysis and the study of the Islamist electoral platforms in the field of foreign policy, this chapter shows that constructivist approaches turn out to be useful in analysing how religious identity, international constraints, and political agendas interact to explain how a specific Islamist vision of international relations has been emerging and evolving.