The Rise and Fall of Radical Movements in the Middle East

Despite strikingly different ideologies, I find that Islamist, nationalist, and leftist opposition groups display similar patterns of moderation and radicalization. The book explores how these radical organizations developed in the early interwar period and presented a radical challenge to nascent and colonially-backed regimes before the latter inevitably began to use repression against them.

I argue that repression exacerbated pre-existing tensions between moderate and radical factions within these organizations and shifted the balance of power between them, increasing the ability of the less impacted faction to dictate the organization’s direction. Over time, repeated episodes of exclusion favor moderate factions who survive due to their avoidance of confrontation. Yet their prioritization of survival often leads them to compromise with incumbent regimes who contain their influence and limit reform. The failure of moderate factions to bring about change and the recent return to staunch authoritarianism has led to the creation of new cohorts of youth activists pursuing radical (though not always violent) forms of opposition today.

I examine the trajectory of the Egyptian Islamist, Iraqi Communist, and Palestinian Nationalist movements. I detail how inter-factional tensions were reproduced over time and leverage semi-structured interviews with activists to understand the consequences of exclusion and factionalism on the political strategies and ideologies of contemporary youth activists. To overcome threats to inference posed by the endogenous relationship between regime strategies and opposition behavior, I undertake longitudinal analysis from the time of each group’s inception to the present and use process tracing to sequence events, helping to identify when and how feedback occurs. I rely on data collected during fieldwork trips to Palestine, Turkey, the US and Canada, and the UK, where I met opposition actors – some living in exile – and gained a clearer understanding of the inter-factional dynamics within these movements. I conducted 75 semi-structured interviews and engaged in extensive participant-observation, including three roundtable discussions and dozens of meetings. I also accessed a range of primary material from archives, organization websites, and other sources. After constructing narratives that trace the pattern of intra-movement factional struggles, I use insights gained from interviews and roundtables to understand how historical factionalism impacts contemporary youth organizers.

Nablus (Old City), West Bank, Palestine: A banner commemorating the Lions’ Den, a young radical armed group, near the area where they battled the Israeli military. Another banner commemorating the martyrdom of a group member hangs in the background (Photo: Nasir Almasri, July 2023).

In part, the book responds to the “inclusion-moderation” debate in political science. I argue that scholarship (1) focuses narrowly on the consequences of political liberalization projects – moments of “inclusion” – to understand the relative moderation of opposition groups; (2) centers analysis on entire organizations rather than salient factions or individuals within them; and (3) examines Islamist groups only. My research therefore builds on this literature by examining how the long history of state repression that preceded moments of inclusion influenced the moderation or radicalization of factions within Islamist, nationalist, and leftist organizations. To contextualize the contradictory arguments about the consequences of exclusion, I develop a framework centering the cross-generational reproduction of factional tensions within opposition groups.