Understanding New Middle Eastern Leadership: An Operational Code Approach

Political Islam and Islamist organizations have broadly gained strength across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the post-Cold War era. Following the Arab uprisings, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), generally viewed as the world's largest and most influential Islamist organization, has sha...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inPolitical research quarterly Vol. 71; no. 1; pp. 19 - 31
Main Authors Özdamar, Özgür, Canbolat, Sercan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publishing 01.03.2018
SAGE Publications
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Averages
Beliefs
Content analysis
Cooperation
Decision making
Dictionaries
Foreign policy
Hypotheses
International cooperation
International relations
Islam
Islamism
Leadership
Negotiation
Political leadership
Politics
Post Cold War period
Religion & politics
Software
United States > US
Tunisia
Egypt
political psychology
Rachid Ghannouchi
operational code analysis
Mohamed Morsi
leadership
political Islam
Muslim Brotherhood
foreign policy decision making
the Middle East
Khaled Meshaal
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Political Islam and Islamist organizations have broadly gained strength across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the post-Cold War era. Following the Arab uprisings, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), generally viewed as the world's largest and most influential Islamist organization, has shaped the wider landscape of MENA politics. This study examines MB leadership by comparing M. Morsi of Egypt, R. Ghannouchi of Tunisia, and K. Meshaal of Gaza as examples of Islamist leaders to explain their political belief systems and predict their foreign-policy behavior. We use the operational code approach, a content-analysis software and statistical tests to conduct the study. Results show that the three leaders' foreign policy beliefs are analogous to the averages of world leaders. Results also partially support the hypothesis that their foreign-policy propensities are similar to each other. We conclude that despite the conventional portrayal of MB leadership, these leaders use negotiation and cooperation to settle their differences in foreign affairs, and the best way to approach them is to engage in a Rousseauvian assurance game that emphasizes international social cooperation. Results also suggest important implications in terms of mainstream international relations theories.
ISSN:1065-9129
1938-274X
DOI:10.1177/1065912917721744