While globalization undermines ideas of the nation-state in the Mediterranean, conversions reveal how religion can unsettle existing political and social relations. Through studies of conversions across the region this book examines the challenges that conversions represent for national, legal and policy ways of dealing with religious minorities.

Islam: An American Religion demonstrates how Islam as formed in the United States has become an American religion in a double sense—first through the strategies of recognition adopted by Muslims and second through the performance of Islam as a faith. Nadia Marzouki investigates how Islam has become so contentious in American politics. Focusing on the period from 2008 to 2013, she revisits the uproar over the construction of mosques, legal disputes around the prohibition of Islamic law, and the overseas promotion of religious freedom. She argues that public controversies over Islam in the United States primarily reflect the American public's profound divisions and ambivalence toward freedom of speech and the legitimacy of liberal secular democracy.

Whereas the West often portrays Muslim women in Middle Eastern countries negatively and from a biased standpoint, its images of the North African woman are largely positive. When “women of the Maghreb” are discussed, the focus is most frequently Tunisian women. Indeed, generalizations about the experiences of Tunisian women tend to subvert deeper inquiry concerning the lives of countless other Maghrebi women. A combination of indifference to and idealization of Maghrebi women relects the limited strategic interest that North Africa holds for U.S. foreign policy, especially in comparison to the Middle East...

For the first time in decades, Tunisia is free of one-man rule. The extraordinary events of December 2010 and January 2011 have been nothing less than a political revolution: The consistent pressure of popular fury forced President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali first to make an unprecedented promise to relinquish power; then pushed him to step down; and finally halted an attempt at unconstitutional transfer of power, setting the stage for elections to be held at an undetermined date in the near to mid-term future....

This article analyzes current practices of conversion to Evangelical Christianity from the perspective of a contentious relation between state and society in Algeria. Based on a pragmatist approach to religion as a contextual and practical accomplishment, this study shows how Evangelical Christianity has provided converts with a new understanding of freedom that is based on the cultivation of a pure faith. It examines how this renewed piety contributes to the formation of an alternative ideal of the Algerian nation, one that contradicts the Arabo-Islamist FLN imposed narrative. Drawing upon observations gathered during several research trips in Kabylia, Algiers and Oran, this paper does not seek to develop a general theory of Muslim conversions in the Muslim world. Rather, it presents the ways in which conversion is practiced and explained by Algerian converts within the specific political and cultural context in which they live. It shows how converts’ discourse and practice connect global Evangelical themes to claims and contentions that emerge specifically from Algerian political and religious history. In doing so, it seeks to contribute to the ongoing scholarly discussions of the complex ways in which global Pentecostalism blends into local cultures.

Le discours des néoconservateurs américains sur l’adhésion de la Turquie à l’Union européenne manifeste une certaine ambivalence. Les néoconservateurs défendent l’idée d’adhésion avant tout pour des raisons stratégiques telles que le maintien de la stabilité au Moyen Orient. Cependant ils craignent également qu’une Turquie européenne ne devienne anti-américaine, notamment sous l’influence de la « Vieille Europe ». Ainsi le choix des néoconservateurs en faveur de l’adhésion turque n’exclut-il pas les débats et les désaccords. Le point de vue politique des néoconservateurs ne relève pas uniquement de considérations d’ordre stratégique ou de real-politik. Il se fonde également sur une théorisation de l’exceptionnalisme turc, qui puise dans les arguments d’Edmund Burke, de Bernard Lewis et d’Albert Wohlstetter.

In light of the chaotic and current situation in Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen, international observers consider the Tunisian experience to be the reference model of political change in the region. In spite of assassinations, tensions and conflicts that emerged within and outside of its Parliament, Tunisia managed to free public speech, to create a pluralist political arena and to obtain a democratic constitution adopted by the National Constituent Assembly. This second transitional phase resulted in the upholding of parliamentarian and presidential elections. Glowing reports of the international community and local self-triumph put aside, the Tunisian trajectory should be scrutinized in order to go beyond simplistic interpretations of the dynamics at work...

[résumé de l'ouvrage] Le voile intégral est un bout de tissu à double épaisseur – culturelle et religieuse – qui suscite l’émoi et interroge la capacité des démocraties libérales à trouver des solutions juridiques et politiques légitimes et efficaces face à l’expression de convictions en porte-à faux avec les valeurs de la majorité. Quelle place accorder aux droits fondamentaux face à la radicalisation de certaines pratiques religieuses ? Le port du voile intégral nécessite-il des législations d’exception ? Comment concilier la spécificité d’une identité culturelle partagée par tous avec la diversité des authenticités qui se rencontrent dans la sphère publique ?

There has traditionally been a wide divide between the study of the politics of Islam in the Middle East and in the West. Middle East-focused research in American political science has focused in great depth on issues such as political mobilization, social service provision, electoral performance, and Islamist ideologies. American research on Islam in the West, by contrast, has often focused on cultural conflicts, immigration, terrorism, and anti-Islamic campaigns. Today’s European scholarship on Islam distinguishes itself by a wide spectrum of methods, topics, and fieldworks, with a trend toward strong ethnographic research. Over the last two decades, a prolific and pluralist field of scholarship on Islam and Muslims in Europe and the U.S. has emerged and brought to the fore innovative perspectives and understudied topics. On June 28, 2018, POMEPS and Sciences Po CERI convened a workshop with a dozen scholars of Islam and politics in Europe and North America to engage with these various perspectives. Their work in POMEPS Studies 32: The Politics of Islam in Europe and North America illustrates the richness of the field of the politics of Islam in Europe and the U.S.

La question rhétorique « Est-ce donc tout ce qu’il y a ? » relève d’une histoire dans laquelle l’attrait de la transcendance et de la totalité conduit au désappointement. Elle suggère la désillusion devant ce qui est perçu comme une promesse non tenue ou comme une réalité qui se révèle beaucoup moins attrayante qu’on ne l’espérait...