Presents a comparative, case-study approach, to analyzing the foreign policies of ruling Islamist parties in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia.

This study presents a comparative, case-study approach to analyzing the foreign policies of ruling Islamist parties in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. The book investigates whether democratically elected ruling Islamist parties apply their ideology to foreign policy and how their foreign policy approaches differ to that of non-Islamist parties. Taghreed Alsabeh provides in-depth analysis of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) in Egypt, the Justice and Development Party (PJD) in Morocco, and the Ennahda Party in Tunisia, over a period of twelve years, and compares their foreign policy approaches and outcomes to those of their own internal non-Islamist counterparts. What emerges is a detailed picture of each country’s foreign policy trajectories through successive governments – both Islamist and non-Islamist rule – and clear sites of commonality as well as divergence. Alsabeh demonstrates that ultimately Islamist parties’ foreign policies have been ideologically constrained to a large degree by national contexts such as limited time in power, limited control of the government, and their relationships with other domestic political actors.

"A fine analysis of the complex ideological political struggles that are tearing the Arab world apart and shaping its future. Taghreed Alsabeh gives us every reason to remain hopeful despite the setbacks of the Arab Spring." - Moncef Marzouki, former President of Tunisia

"Many of the deep fears Islamists have inspired in policy circles actually involved not their commitment to democracy but their possible foreign policy behaviors. Moving beyond apprehension to empirical research, Alsabeh explores how Islamists actually evolved in the different national contexts in which they found themselves playing an influential role." - Nathan J. Brown, Professor, The George Washington University, USA