The volume edited by Quinn Mecham and Julie Chernov Hwang looks at how Islamic political parties participate in formal politics and to what extent they are moderate. All of the contributions deal with the “inclusion-moderation” (pp. 7–8, 10) paradigm that asserts the moderation effect of including Islamic parties into the political system. For example, previous works have shown that including Islamic political parties into the political system instead of ostracizing or repressing them leads to a greater ideological tolerance of Islamist leaders vis-à-vis multipartisan systems and elections (e.g., see Jillian Schwedler, Faith in Moderation, 2007). Others have focused on behavioral moderation, especially pragmatism in the parties’ platforms and search for alliances with other political forces (e.g., see Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, The Muslim Brotherhood, 2013). Factors that usually incite greater moderation are strategic incentive, political learning, institutional constraints, political culture, organizational mechanisms, and cooperative alliance and its different degrees.

Working within the moderation-inclusion perspective, the authors of Islamist Parties and Political Normalization in the Muslim world look more specifically at the internal party organization and the effect of repression on the normalization process of Islamic parties. (p. 10). The added value of this edited volume lies in the analysis of Islamic parties in Malaysia and Indonesia (pp. 58–85). This is a welcome contribution that counters the overrepresentation of research on Middle eastern countries. The authors also pay greater attention than the usual literature to the alliances of Islamic parties with non-Islamic forces. (pp. 99–101, 103, 155, 158, 168) One of the insights from the different contributions is that the more participatory the parties become, the less they use religious themes (p. 34). Also highlighted is the specific dilemma of Islamic parties, which more than others are characterized by dual constituencies: religious bases and grievances (p. 32). Repression by the state expands constituency beyond religious themes and facilitates coalition building (pp. 14–15). Finally, competition with other religious parties tends to increase religious themes (pp. 17–39, 175–91).

The underlying common thread throughout the chapters is that the differentiation of strategies among parties is correlated with the degree of democracy within the political system, although this point is not clearly asserted. More specifically, it appears that authoritarian regimes foster unification of opposition under Islamic parties. But why Islam and not other ideological groups or movements? There is no response to this question in the volume, because the inclusion—moderation paradigm looks almost exclusively to the status of Islamic parties within the existing political systems, without taking into account the broader landscape of state—society relations in which these political parties are rooted. More to the point, State—Islam relations are a significant part of the differentiation of the strategy of Islamic parties, which has to be addressed beyond the binary “coercion versus co-optation” alternative.

The reason for the inclusion of the state—Islam relations in the differentiation of Islamic parties’ strategies is that in almost all Muslim countries, the state, since the time of nation building, has appropriated Islam by nationalizing, transforming religious institutions, mosques, and clerics into elements of the administration, even in “secular” countries like Turkey or Pakistan (e.g., Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State Power, 2001). This nationalization of Islam makes it a powerful tool for opposition groups who have been able to use the staying power of Islam in society as a source of mobilization, while other ideological parties and groups were banned. As a result, Islamist oppositions possess ideological coherence, legitimacy, and the potential for social mobilization that are lacking in other political forces like communist or other “secular” parties that were mercilessly crushed by authoritarian regimes.

Once the political system starts to open, as in Malaysia, Indonesia, or Morocco, the diversification of the opposition makes Islamic parties less central to political opposition, and they indeed lose their edge in voicing all grievances. It is one of the reasons why the Justice and Development Party created in Egypt after the 2011 revolution lost its appeal once it became a government party. In the same vein, democratization often leads to multiple Islamic and secular parties that compete for electors, therefore diminishing the prospect of religious parties winning and also making the religious competition among Islamic parties more salient.

In an nutshell, a broader view of the status of Islam in society and in national culture could help explain the differentiation of strategies among parties, as well as their probability of winning elections. The problem is that the moderation—inclusion paradigm cannot provide such a broader view. Even more problematic, it takes for granted a dualist power structure where an Islamist movement is formed in reaction to state ideology and policies. Hence, it implicitly posits the existence of a rigid, stark opposition between the state and religious groups or religious values and takes for granted a neat division between what is Islamic (party) and what is secular (state), while in actuality, Islamic parties and states straddle both.

Whereas the volume on Islamic parties is a victim of its too-narrow approach, Paul Kubicek’s Political Islam and Democracy in the Muslim World is a victim of the opposite pitfall: a very broad attempt to provide a general explanation for the influence of Islam on democracy. According to the author, five historical and institutional variables can explain the push toward democracy (pp. 10–18):

1. 1) the status of Islam in a particular polity; in particular, the diffusion of Islam through hybridization with local cultures and consequent syncretism seem to trigger greater acceptance of pluralism;

2. 2) the degree of centralization of religious institutions: the less centralized, the more favorable to democracy;

3. 3) the strength of secularism; the preexistence of secular cultures is also a good indicator of democratization;

4. 4) the pr-existence of successful Islamic mobilizations in the history of the country can also predict democratization; and finally

5. 5) the inclusion—moderation condition discussed previously.

The operationalization of these five factors into variables would have been welcome in order to apply them systematically to the case studies selected by the author: Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Mali, and Senegal. What follows instead is a detailed report on the political history of the selected countries, with no real investigation of the respective influence of the five dimensions listed. Nevertheless, the author concludes that 1, 2, and 3 seem the most influential factors in the democratization of Muslim countries.

The problem is that none of these dimensions is consistent across the countries discussed. About syncretism for example, it applies to countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Senegal, but none of these countries has really evolved toward an acceptance of pluralism. In fact, over the last 30 decades, Pakistan and Indonesia have witnessed an increasing rejection of both religious minorities and freedom of expression, while countries characterized by a greater Islamic homogeneity like Turkey and Tunisia have displayed greater awareness of religious pluralism.

The second dimension about the centrality of religious institutions is also very loosely related to the case studies. All of the countries, with the exception of Senegal and Indonesia, have actually centralized religious institutions inserted in the state administration. So the discriminating factor here may not be the internal religious hierarchy but the state—Islam relations that we have already mentioned.

Kubicek could have provided a more convincing analysis if he had located his investigation within the broader field of religion and democracy and the growing literature on hybrid regimes. From the former, we know that religion per se is not really the trigger for democratization but becomes significant in the transition phase, as well as in the modus operandi of civil liberties. From the latter, we are aware that there is no more clear-cut distinction than between democratic and nondemocratic. In fact, most countries that went through the second and third waves of democratization fall into the hybrid category, in the sense that they display some features of a democratic regime but not all of them. These features of democracy fall into four broad categories: free and fair elections, separation of powers, rule of law, and civil liberties.

Then the question becomes: On which of these domains is Islam influential? From all of the case studies in the book, it appears that Islam has not been an impediment for the implementation of free and fair elections and the separation of powers. But it does come into play with the introduction of Islamic references in the secular civil or penal legislations, the equality of citizens before the law, or the limits on individual rights for women and sexual and religious minorities. Regretfully, these conclusions are not made by the author.

More generally, Kubiceck does not emphasize that dimensions 1, 2, and 3 revolve around the implicit necessity of a secularization of civic cultures. This is because the recent debates among sociologists of secularization (e.g., Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, 2007, and Peter L. Berger, The Desecularisation of the World, 1999) are very much ignored by the scholars of Islam and democracy. This sociological work emphasizes the recognition of the pluralism of expression (rather than separation of religion and politics) as the distinctive feature of secular cultures.

For this reason, secularism cannot be limited to the institutional relations between state and Islam, with the assumption that the state is secular and challenged by religion. And that is where the problem lies. As already pointed out, the state in Muslim countries is far from being secular in the sense of separation. It is even true in secular European democracies (Jonathan Fox, Political Secularism, Religion, and the State, 2015) where the regulation and impingement of states on religions has grown significantly in the last two decades. Then the question is not about institutional separation but becomes: What are the forms of involvement of the state in religion and religion in the state that are less conducive to democracy?

This question necessitates a broader discussion on state-Islam-society interactions that are more complex than the divide of religious versus political and secular versus religious. To be clear, state—religion interactions do not directly influence the move from authoritarianism to democratization, but they do influence the level of democracy in the domain of civil liberties, individual rights, and minority group rights.

The existing theoretical tools, however, take for granted the correlation between democratization—secularization, and in one way or another associate it with a decline of religious influence in society and public spaces. That is why Kubicek misreads the use of the qualification “unsecular” in an evaluation of Muslim democracies. Borrowing the term from Stathis Kalyvas (“Unsecular Politics and Religious Mobilization,” in Thomas Kselman and Joseph Buttigieg, eds., European Christian Democracy, 2003, 293–320), I use it to describe the presence of religious themes in political mobilization, as well as the inclusion of religious provisions in secular politics and laws (see Jocelyne Cesari, The Awakening of Muslim Democracy, 2014). It does not automatically impinge on elections, separation of powers, or turnover of political elites; but it does have an influence on some individual rights, more specifically reproduction, sexual rights, and freedom of expression. Kubicek sees unsecular as a transitory step toward a more complete form of democracy (implicitly associated with liberal Western democracy). But unsecular is not a step in a teleological process; it is a structural condition that can refer to all kinds of democracies—including the Western ones. In this regard, it is possible to read the current debates in the United States on gender relations or sexual minorities as unsecular.

To sum up, most of the “mainstream” political science literature tends to stay away from the Clash of Civilizations or, more generally, from any kind of approach that turns Islam into the “independent variable.” In fact, most studies, like the one from Mecham and Hwang, focus on Islam as a tool for political mobilization, hence, considering it as the “dependent” variable, subordinated to the opening or closure of the political system. To get a more relevant analysis of the normalization processes at play for Islamic parties, we are in need of an in-depth analysis of the Islamic policies of states that directly impacts the ideological and behavioral moderation and inclusion of these parties in particular and all other political forces as well. Such a broader perspective is, to a certain extent, the one attempted by Kubicek: to provide a broader, more historically grounded analysis that avoids the dilemma of” independent versus dependent variable.” But to make such a historical approach central and relevant to the discipline requires a bold move to revamp our current theoretical tools in order to go beyond the simplistic binary oppositions of the state and Islam, and secular and religious.