In the Wake of Uprisings

When the 2011 Arab uprisings toppled long-entrenched autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia, plunged Libya and Yemen into armed conflict, and ignited Syria’s devastating civil war, they also transformed the political terrain for Islamist movements across the Middle East and North Africa. Suddenly confronting altered landscapes rich with both challenges and opportunities, Islamists faced choices that tested their ideological commitments, reshaped their political agendas, and redefined their relationships with states and rival actors.

This edited volume offers a rigorous, timely examination of political Islam following the uprisings, combining both theory and practice. The first section revisits the analytical frameworks scholars have long used to understand political Islam, revising assumptions in light of post-2011 realities. The second section turns to the record of Islamist political engagement across the region to identify meaningful patterns. Bridging theoretical inquiry with grounded country-level analysis, In the Wake of Uprisings examines how structure and agency shape the paths of individual Islamists across the region, revealing shared patterns in their beliefs, alliances with non-Islamists, and the use of political violence.