Description
Amidst electoral victories during transitions in Egypt and Tunisia, and Islamist-led government in Morocco and Turkey, scholars tested the ‘Islamist electoral advantage’ generated by social service provision. It was argued that Islamist parties were responsible for only a fraction of the array of services provided by Islamic activists, instead enjoying ‘reputational benefits’ due to their association more broadly with a religious and civic minded trend within society. However, Islamist parties face a different challenge in government than in opposition. Their continued popularity (and electoral success) depends not only on the support of religious voters, but also the party’s performance in government providing services and managing the economy for all citizens. Whilst a robust service provision infrastructure is well-suited to generating support whilst in opposition, governing effectively entails increased expectation towards wider delivery from the local to the national level across the state. This heightened expectation tasks the movement party with upscaling its ‘particularistic’ provision of services – enjoyed by supporters of the movement - into a ‘programmatic’ one – distributed nationally by the central state. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and its ill-fated Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) was elected then led the government during 2012-13 before being deposed in a military coup. This paper demonstrates that during this period the movement/party did not only present itself as the political face of a broader tendency within Egypt’s Islamic movement but worked to centre itself as the direct source of food, medical services, and public security for Egyptian citizens. Through interviews with Brotherhood members, FJP parliamentarians and cabinet ministers, this paper demonstrates how limited resources and a failure to gain effective control of state institutions, prevented efforts to upscale the movement’s service provision efforts to a programmatic, national level, highlighting the limitations of the ‘Islamist advantage’ when in government.
