Tunisia’s islamists and the “turkish model”

Can Islamist parties be loyal contributors to long-term democratic consolidation, or are they likely to abandon pluralist pretenses and swallow up state institutions if the opportunity arises?1 Authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have historically excluded Islamist parties from the political process, making it difficult to assess assumptions about how they would behave in power, let alone their potential to stimulate and steward a democratic transition. Until Tunisia’s Ennahda party won elections in 2011, no Islamist party in (or beyond) the MENA region had managed to lead an elected government, with a single exception: Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (better known by its Turkish acronym AKP), which scholars have described either as Islamist or post-Islamist.