Foreign Policies That Are Strangely Foreign
This article examines the origins and foundations of the vision of international relations within certain political Islam movements. By examining the principles on which leading creators of the doctrine base their conception of world politics, we can better understand the constants and breaks that characterize Islamism as a framework for thinking about global power relationships. The article also draws on specific examples (Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Ennahda in Tunisia, and the Justice and Development Party in Morocco) to underline the importance of national contexts in shaping the doctrine developed by these movements. Given the central importance of ideal constructions in Islam, we conclude that one of the most relevant interpretative strategies available to researchers seeking to examine how political Islam views international relations is constructivism.