Social and Institutional Origins of Political Islam

Abstract

Under what conditions did the first Islamist movements organize? Which social and institutional contexts facilitated such mobilization? A sizable literature points to social and demographic changes, Western encroachment into Muslim societies, and the availability of state and economic infrastructure. To test these hypotheses, we match a listing of Muslim Brotherhood branches founded in interwar Egypt with contemporaneous census data on over 4,000 subdistricts. A multilevel analysis shows that Muslim Brotherhood branches were more likely in subdistricts connected to the railway and where literacy was higher. Branches were less likely in districts with large European populations, and where state administration was more extensive. Qualitative evidence also points to the railway as key to the movement's propagation. These findings challenge the orthodoxy that contact between Muslims and the West spurred the growth of organized political Islam, and instead highlight the critical role of economic and state infrastructure in patterning the early contexts of Islamist activism. Acknowledgements

Religious Cycles of Government Responsiveness: Why Governments Distribute in Ramadan

“…Across all these models, the interaction coefficient of interest (ramadan x islamist) remains significant and positive. As discussed in the text, I also confirm the validity of our conclusions on the role of Islamist mobilization capacity using an alternative measure obtained from Brooke and Ketchley (2018): the number of Muslim Brotherhood's branches in the municipality in 1940. These early branches constituted the earliest attempts of political Islam movements for recruitment and mobilization.…”

“…This particular nature of Ramadan is also manifested in column (2), where we do not observe that distributive campaigns in electoral seasons respond to the Islamist threat. 39 In Appendix D.2, I further confirm this conclusion using an alternative measure of Islamists' capacity for mobilization based on the historical presence of Muslim Brotherhood's branches in the municipality obtained from Brooke and Ketchley (2018).…”

The Generative Power of Protest: Time and Space in Contentious Politics

“…With the "spatial turn" in social movement studies, social movement scholars have also paid increasing attention to spatial dimensions of contentious politics (Schwedler, 2012;Brooke & Ketchley, 2018;Castells, 1983;Cox, 2002;Dzenovska & Arenas, 2012;Halvorsen, 2017;Ketchley, 2017;Leitner et al, 2008;Marston, 2003;Martin & Miller, 2003;Nicholls et al, 2013;Sewell, 2001;Tilly, 2000Tilly, , 2003Wang et al, 2019). Rather than treat space "as assumed and unproblematized background," William Sewell Jr. points to the need to examine space as a "constituent aspect of contentious politics that must be conceptualized explicitly and probed systematically" (2001, p. 52).…”

The Diffusion of Exclusion: Medieval Expulsions of Jews

“…Until the advent of modern video and internet-based media, information networks were highly correlated with transit routes. Transit connections have been a determinant in the spread of political movements, from 19th century riots in England (Aidt, Leon, and Satchell 2018) to political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood in 20th century Egypt (Brooke and Ketchley 2018). In the medieval world, information traveled via letters and travelers.…”