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Islamists and the regime: Applying a new framework for analysis to the case
of Family Code reforms in Morocco
Serida Lucrezia Catalano
Party Politics 2013 19: 408 originally published online 27 June 2011
DOI: 10.1177/1354068811407577
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Article

Islamists and the

regime: Applying a
new framework for
analysis to the case of
Family Code reforms
in Morocco

Party Politics
19(3) 408431
The Author(s) 2011
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1354068811407577
ppq.sagepub.com

Serida Lucrezia Catalano

Department of Institutional Analysis and Public Management, Bocconi University,
Milan, Italy

Abstract
This paper develops a theoretical framework for analyzing the strategic interaction
between Islamists pragmatic and dogmatic and the regime when Sharia-based issues
are negotiated. I advance the new notion that pragmatists might be responsive to the
Islamist electorate. Within the framework I generate the hypothesis that, if the regime
promotes substantive reforms and the Islamist electorate supports them, then the internal cohesiveness of Islamist parties is weakened. In the case of Family Code reforms in
Morocco, empirical analysis confirms that Islamists change of strategy in 2003 from
opposing to not opposing the reforms was due to changed preferences within the
electorate in favour of reform. This change in preferences was matched by deep divisions within the Islamists of the Parti de la Justice et du Developpement and had dramatic repercussions upon the internal cohesiveness of the party.
Keywords
Islamist moderation, Islamist parties behaviour, preferences, responsiveness to Islamist
electorate
Paper submitted 08 March 2010; accepted for publication 10 January 2011

Corresponding author:
Serida Lucrezia Catalano, Bocconi University - IAM Via Roentgen 1, 20136 Milan, Italy.
Email: serida.catalano@unibocconi.it

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Introduction
Since the early 1990s a growing interest has mounted concerning the relationship
between Islamist parties inclusion in the political process and their moderation,
and several studies have appeared which have strongly contributed to our understanding of that relationship. Still, many gaps must be filled in order to unpack the
specific mechanisms through which inclusion can eventually constitute a moderating factor.
The present article is an attempt to address one of these gaps in the moderation literature by focusing on the neglected linkage between Islamist parties and their electors.
Indeed, I investigate to what extent responsiveness to the Islamist electorate can have
an impact on Islamists behaviour and, eventually, on Islamist parties internal cohesiveness. More specifically, do changes in the Islamist electorates preferences alter Islamists strategies, thus making negotiable something that was not meant to be
considered as such on the basis of ideological and doctrinaire Islamic principles?
Furthermore, how does the willingness of Islamists to accommodate processes of social
modernization affect intra-party dynamics?
Sharia-based issues represent a prolific arena to answer to these questions. By
consenting to modifications to Islamic law, Islamist parties might risk jeopardizing
their political appeal, which is intertwined with the mobilizing power exerted by their
religious identity. Moreover, negotiation processes over Sharia are likely to generate
tensions within the party rank and file, between those militants who adhere to a strict
observance of religious texts and those who are more favourable to their reinterpretation in light of transformations in contemporary reality.
In the present paper, I will build a theoretical framework in which the main hypothesis underlying the analysis will be generated to explore the interaction between Islamists and the regime when issues concerning the Sharia are tabled for negotiation. In
particular, I will conceptualize Islamists as being either pragmatic or dogmatic, depending on their respective preferences over the notion of democracy they aim at realizing,
the place that Sharia keeps within that notion, and their willingness to accommodate
changes in their electors preferences.
The hypothesis will be tested by examining the case of the reforms in the Shariabased Family Code that occurred in Morocco in 2004. The latter have been applauded
as an exceptional event for the relevance and magnitude of the changes enacted. This
case is very interesting because the Islamists of the Parti de la Justice et du Developpement (PJD) strongly opposed the project of reform after it was proposed by the socialistled government, while successively they voted in its favour. By diachronically examining the Islamist electorates preferences on the Moroccan Family Code reforms, this
paper shows that a change in these preferences caused a faction within the party to
display more favourable attitudes towards the reforms. In turn, this had dramatic repercussions upon the internal cohesiveness of the PJD.
As I will argue in the conclusion, these findings shed light on the linkage between
electoral politics and Islamist behaviour, and allow consideration of the intriguing relationship between social modernization processes and the prospects of democratization in
the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

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Party Politics 19(3)

Islamist moderation literature: Recovering the role of

responsiveness to the electors
Islamist revivalism has caused growing attention to be given to the role assumed by
Islamist parties in the political liberalization process. More specifically, the inclusion/
moderation hypothesis investigates whether, and through what mechanisms, by entering
the political game and being integrated within formal representative institutions,
parties that were previously excluded might eventually evolve towards less rigid
worldviews (Schwedler, 2006: 3), thus moderating their organizational structures, goals
and visions and/or behaviours, as a result of either strategic calculation or political
learning. Within this body of literature, some area scholars have focused on the
interactions between Islamist and leftist parties for scrutinizing whether and to what
extent cooperation between them within the political game can entail their ideological
moderation (Clark, 2006; Schwedler, 2006; Schwedler and Clark, 2006; Wickham,
2004). Others have analyzed the potentialities of civil society actors and voluntary associative groups in prompting Islamists political learning (Cavatorta, 2006) or the
coalition-building between secular and religious civil society actors (Cavatorta, 2009;
Cavatorta and Elananza, 2008). Some others have mostly explored the strategies through
which, by creating new sets of political opportunities, the regimes can manufacture the
political space so as to modify actors incentives to behave in a given way (Lust-Okar,
2004, 2005; Schwedler, 2006) and the role of growing ideological, financial, and
economic autonomy of an Islamist party from its Islamist social movement (Wegner and
Pellicer, 2009). Nevertheless, this body of literature has paid less attention to the
constraints and opportunities generated by the Islamists electoral base in crystallizing
oppositional behaviours and/or causing Islamists to support reforms notwithstanding
their religious convictions. Even when electoral politics is considered as playing a large
role in strengthening moderate tendencies at the expense of radical voices (Tezcur, 2010:
74), scarce importance is given to the impact of the electoral game on intra-party
dynamics and the emphasis is, at most, placed on the key effects of electoral engineering
to produce inter-party alliances (El-Ghobashy, 2005: 378).
The role of electoral factors as a moderating mechanism has been widely analyzed in
the literature dealing with socialist and Christian democratic parties. For example,
Przeworski (1985) and Przeworski and Sprague (1986) argue that the ideological
moderation of socialist parties was contingent upon the acknowledgement of the
minority status of workers within the class structure of capitalist societies. Since a party
homogeneous in its class appeal would be sentenced to electoral defeats, leaders chose to
sacrifice the partys class orientation by diluting the ideological salience of class in
their organization and propaganda in order to seek support among other sectors of
society in their struggle for electoral success. This implied an electoral dilemma: to
be effective in elections socialists had to erode exactly that ideology which was the
source of their strength among workers (Przeworski and Sprague, 1986: 55). Likewise,
as pointed out by Kalyvas (1996), Christian democratic parties in Western Europe had
also to deal with an electoral dilemma. On the one hand, their confessional nature
contrasted with their need to emancipate themselves from religion in order to expand
electorally recruiting the support of nonreligious voters and survive independently

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of the church. On the other hand, destroying the parties confessional identity would
undermine the mobilizing function of their religious appeal, which conferred on them
political legitimacy and kept their disparate social base together. As a result, party
leaders, instead of discarding religion, deemphasized it by reinterpreting Catholicism
as an increasingly general and abstract moral concept that allowed them to be simultaneously Christian and secular. Moreover, Mainwaring and Scully (2003) point out
that the ideological moderation of Christian Democratic parties in Latin America was
contingent upon the fact that those parties had simultaneously to play an electoral
game to increase their share of seats and a regime game to increase the likelihood that free and fair elections were held and/or respected. In particular, since
Christian democratic ideology failed to resonate with the popular sectors of Latin
America, to expand their electoral base those parties had to give rise to greater pragmatism, thus prioritizing winning votes over Catholic doctrine, in a similar way to
their Western European counterparts.
Scholars of Islamist politics are increasingly recognizing that Islamist parties are
complex and evolving entities. Structural factors or environmental shocks related to the
socio-political context in which they operate might strongly contribute to their moderation, causing them to throw off their ideological straitjackets (Clark and Young, 2008:
349). However, emphasis on the role of context often disregards the fact that, when the
environment in which Islamist parties operate changes, the preferences of Islamists
electors may also change. In this sense, adaptation to the context could reflect a strategic
response to changes in electors preferences. Furthermore, in common with Christian
democratic and Socialist parties, Islamist parties face a critical electoral trade-off.
While ideological moderation might draw off the electoral support of religiouslyinspired constituencies, exacerbating the defence of dogmatic positions might scare
away those voters who are especially attracted to the political or anti-authoritarian stance
of Islamist parties rather than their religious identity.1 Accordingly, preferences of the
Islamists electorate should be given more attention when studying Islamist moderation
mechanisms. Therefore, this paper investigates whether, and under which conditions,
when formulating their strategies, Islamists respond to their electorate, along with the
effects on Islamist intraparty dynamics of trying to reconcile between ideology and politics. Indeed, Islamist parties are far from being uniform and monolithic entities, as is
apparent from the contentious positions that they might hold on some sensitive issues,
such as those related to Sharia, which are referred to as the gray zones2 (Brown
et al., 2006) of their programmes. Those gray zones often result from internal
divergences over the way to conciliate religion and politics. Hence, investigating
Islamists behaviour when those issues are discussed in the public arena might contribute
to disclosing both Islamists relationship with their support base and the internal tensions
within Islamist parties.

Theoretical framework: Islamists behaviour and Sharia

reforms
Most Islamist movements show a very heterogeneous composition (Brown et al.,
2006) and/or a double language (Mohsen-Finan and Zeghal, 2006). With an effort

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Party Politics 19(3)

of simplification one could say that the former are very likely to be characterized by
the coexistence within their ranks of pragmatists and dogmatists. In particular, I define
as pragmatists those actors who have been more sensitive to political learning, giving up or re-interpreting towards a less harsh basis the goal of Islamization of
the society. Their preferred outcome would be to enter the political game in order to
overcome the authoritarian impasse through the gradual procedural implementation
of more democratic rules. On the other side, dogmatists are those who, in the event
that they seized power, would aim at implementing the Sharia all at once and immediately. Indeed, they are interested in a more substantive vision of the order that
should eventually derive from the liberalization game, which they would play with
mere instrumental purposes.3 This heterogeneity and/or double language of Islamist
parties can be puzzling for the regime. Indeed, it might be difficult for the latter to
anticipate which is the prevailing voice (e.g. the sincere or dominant one) within the
Islamist parties. In particular, when the regime decides to open the path to reforms on
Sharia, it is particularly troubled by the dogmatists, for they could radically destabilize the regimes survival. If for dogmatists religion and politics are indistinguishable priorities, it turns out that substantive changes in the Sharia might be
unbearable for them and they would mobilize their support base against the reforms
in the event that the latter were endorsed.
By observing the Islamists counter-reaction to a proposed reform, the regime
might better evaluate the internal structure of Islamist parties, thus updating its understanding of the equilibrium existing between the political/pragmatic and the religious/
dogmatic factions within those parties. This should allow the regime to overcome its
uncertainty on the consequences of enacting the reforms. Indeed, pragmatists and dogmatists might react differently to proposals for Family Code reforms, sending different
behavioural signals (Banks, 1991) to the regime. Since dogmatists consider the family
law to involve identitarian issues, they will be more likely to oppose any changes
once they are proposed. On the contrary, pragmatists, who attach a high value to politics, might be responsive to the attitudes and preferences that the Islamist electorate
has with respect to the reforms, thus deciding to not oppose them if the electorate
backs the change. To this extent, the Islamist electorate would influence pragmatists
behaviour, thus affecting the regimes strategies. Indeed, a strong Islamist opposition
to the proposed reforms is likely to indicate the prevalence of dogmatists within Islamist parties. In contrast, if Islamists do not oppose, the regime will be more willing to
believe that it is facing pragmatists. In addition, due to the fact that dogmatists, as
opposed to pragmatists, are likely not to tolerate substantive changes even after they
have been enacted (they would keep opposing the change ex post, by mobilizing their
support base), it follows that Islamists behaviour within the negotiation path is crucial
for determining the regimes strategy with respect to the magnitude of the change to
endorse.
The overlapping voices within Islamist parties might also be the effect of the fact that
pragmatists and dogmatists fight for control over the party. In this sense, when the
regime is expected to implement a cosmetic change, pragmatists will pay higher costs
for not opposing (would have more incentives to oppose) than it would happen to
be if the regime was expected to endorse a substantive change. Indeed, by signalling

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their type to the regime, they would risk dissociating themselves from the dogmatists on a reform that, in the event it were enacted, would be very likely to be
accepted even by the latter.4 On the contrary, if the regime aims at playing substantive change, pragmatists would anticipate that, if such a change were enacted, dogmatists would probably continue opposing it, while pragmatists would not.
Therefore, in order to avoid repressive measures by the regime, it might be convenient for pragmatists to differentiate their behaviour with respect to dogmatists
ex ante that is to say, before the reform is definitely passed. They can be prevented from doing that only if they anticipate that their signalling would turn out
to be unrewarding with respect to their electorate so as to provoke its disaffection.
Indeed, in this case, they would be more likely to decide to oppose ex ante, hoping
that this strategy might eventually affect the magnitude of the reform by discouraging the regime from enacting a substantive change. This line of reasoning suggests
that, if the regime pushes for a substantive change, and the Islamist electorate backs
that change, pragmatists would have more incentives to reveal their type by not
opposing the reforms. Therefore, this line of reasoning suggests the following
hypothesis:
When the regime pushes for enacting substantive changes, the more the Islamist electorate
is gained by the pro-reformist front, the more the regime divides Islamist parties by isolating
the dogmatists in their opposition, thus causing them to stand out as opponents of the
reforms and to become clearly visible.

The 2004 Moroccan Family Code reforms

The first campaign for the reforms of the Moroccan Family Code the so called Moudawana
was launched by some womens rights organizations in March 1992. In order to overcome
the tensions generated by the Islamist counter-reaction to the campaign, and to avoid the
debate escaping from his control, King Hassan II5 promptly intervened by emphasizing the
purely religious character of the issue: as Amir Al Mouminin6 (Prince of the Believers), he
was the only one who could rule on the Family Code. In October 1992, the king created a
commission of Ulemas whose work culminated in some cosmetic modifications that did not
modify the general discriminatory spirit of the family law. These modifications were
approved by royal decree and promulgated by King Hassan II on 10 September 1993 without
having been previously discussed in parliament.
After his ascension to the throne in 1999, King Mohammed VI immediately stressed
the need to promote womens status. A few months before, in March 1999, the Moroccan
government had presented the Plan dAction National pour lIntegration de la Femme au
Developpement (PANIFD [National Action Plan for the Integration of Women into
Development]), which included a project for reform of the Moudawana. Islamist
movements were unanimous in considering the PANIFD as being contrary to
Islamic law and the principles of Islamic religion. Among them was the Parti de
la Justice et du Developpement (PJD [Justice and Development Party]), which had
been acknowledged as a legitimate political party in the event of the 1997 legislative
elections. In order to avoid the plan being overshadowed, human rights organizations,

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Party Politics 19(3)

left-wing political parties and the womens rights movements organized a mass
demonstration on 8 March 2000 in Rabat. On the other side, the Islamists prepared a
counter-demonstration in Casablanca that mobilized many more participants and had
a stronger echo. The government opted for abandoning the PANIFD by asking for the
kings intervention in the name of Article 19 of the Constitution. On 27 April 2001
Mohammed VI announced the setting up of the Consultative Commission for the Revision of the Moudawana. In fact the commission was trapped into a gridlock. In his discourse of the throne on July 2002, Mohammed VI set December 2002 as the deadline for
the commission to present the final law reform project. The commission could not
reach a final agreement by the deadline and, when the president of the commission, Driss
Dahak, asked to postpone it, the king replaced him with MHamed Boucetta on 20 January 2003. Through this change of presidency Mohammed VI wanted to show his commitment to reform, and for this reason he was retaliating against Dahak for not having
met the deadline that had been initially fixed. Nevertheless, the king while continuously restating the need for substantive changes to be enacted did not personally
embrace the issue by promulgating the changes and he took further time by appointing
the new president. The kings delay in enacting the reforms proves the extent to
which the consequences of substantive changes were deemed uncertain and potentially
destabilizing, even more so after the PJD had given proof of its force in the 2002 legislative elections.7
Mohammed VI announced the reforms in October 2003, a few months after the
terrorist bombings in Casablanca on 16 May 2003 (hereafter 5/16). After having
been approved unanimously within the two chambers of the parliament, the changes
were finally adopted in January 2004. The new Family Code embodied very important
substantive changes. For example, the obligation for a woman to have a legal guardian
to conclude a marriage contract was abolished, the practice of polygamy became virtually impossible, the family was now recognized as being under the conjunct supervision of both spouses (and not uniquely of the husband), judicial divorce (instead of
repudiation) became the main way to end marriage, women were granted rights of
custody of their children in cases of divorce or remarriage, and so on.
The fact that the reforms were enacted after the terrorist attacks suggests that, after
those events, the king became confident that he would not incur an Islamist counterreaction ex post.8 Indeed, 5/16 and the consequent enactment of the anti-terror law
enhanced the regimes power to influence the PJDs internal dynamics and to silence
the dogmatists within the party. To be sure, in the aftermath of the Casablanca attacks,
Mustapha Ramid, the leader of the parliamentary group of the PJD, and Ahmed
Rassouni, the president of the Mouvement Unite et Reforme (MUR [Movement for
Unity and Reform] ), who were the two key exponents of the PJDs dogmatist branch,
retired. In the following pages I will explain what made it possible for the king to selectively target the dogmatist leaders.

Islamist electorates preferences

The PJD strongly opposed the PANIFD after it was presented in 1999 but accepted
the Moudawana reforms in 2003 once the king finally announced them and during

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their endorsement in parliament in 2004. Is there any evidence that there had been
an increase in the pro-reformist electoral front in order to justify a switch of strategy
in the PJD, from opposing the reforms to not opposing them, thus witnessing the
adoption of a pragmatic behaviour on behalf of the party? I define the Islamist electorate as the percentage of actual and potential Islamists electors; that is to say, as
the sum of citizens who are currently affiliated with the movement and those who
constitute the floating electorate and who are likely to be attracted by it, namely,
the potential electorate. In this sense, when their electorate is taken into account, the
cost for pragmatic Islamists of opposing, rather than not opposing, the reforms
depends on the beliefs that they hold on the ratio of (actual and potential) pro-traditionalists to the total electorate (both pro-traditionalists and pro-reformists). In
order to find an operationalization strategy for testing the potential responsiveness of
the PJD to its electors I advance the following:
The higher the ratio of actual and potential pro-traditionalist electorate to the total actual and
potential Islamist electorate, the more likely it is that pragmatic Islamists will decide to
oppose; pragmatists opposition is an increasing function of that ratio.

Hence a proxy for the Islamist pro-traditionalist electorate is calculated as follows:

% Pr o - traditionalists

% Pr o - traditionalists % Pr o - reformists
% Actual Islamists0 Pro - traditionalist elctorate % Potential Islamists0 Pro - traditionalist electorate

Total %
}

Since it is not possible to construct reliable partitions of the (actual and potential) PJDs
electorate by looking at the electoral scores, I will instead investigate surveys on Moroccan peoples preferences with respect to the reforms. In particular, among the people
who participated in the surveys, anti-reformists are considered as a substitute for the
Islamists actual pro-traditionalist electorate, those who are uncertain are a substitute for
the Islamists potential pro-traditionalist electorate,9 and finally pro-reformists are those
who are very likely not to vote, or to stop voting for Islamists.
The first survey appeared in the Moroccan newspaper LEconomiste in March 200010
when the debate on the PANIFD was reaching its peak. The second,11 also appearing in
LEconomiste, was administered after the reform on the Family Code was announced.
The graphs in Figures 1 and 2 show the extent to which the percentage of protraditionalists dropped considerably in 2003 compared with 2000. In this sense, the
PJDs strategy of opposing the reforms in 2000 (when the percentage of pro-traditionalists was highly significant and the electorate was somewhat divided over the
PANIFD) and not opposing them in 2003 (when the percentage of pro-traditionalists
decreased significantly) appears to reflect the weight of the pro-traditionalist electorate
with respect to the Family Code reforms. It is not possible to evaluate the extent to which
the increased repressive capability of the regime after 5/16 might have led the participants in the survey to express a higher level of support for the reforms than the support
the reforms were effectively winning. Anyway, it must be noted that the latter effect
ought not to be overstated, since the general trends in peoples preferences regarding

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Party Politics 19(3)

65%
40%
28%
14%

23%

18%

12%

2000

2003

Disagree

Mitigated Opinions

Don't Know

Agree

Figure 1. Preferences on Family Code over time.

0,8
0,6
0,4

0,76

0,56
0,44

0,24

0,2
0
1999

2000

Pro-traditionalists
Pro-reformists

2001

2002

2003

2004

Figure 2. Proxies for Islamist electorates preferences over time.

many items of the Family Code do not undergo as much variation12 as do their preferences regarding the Family Code as a whole.
So far, the pro-reformist front seems to have de facto enlarged over time. Indeed, people have turned out to be more and more sympathetic towards the improvement of
womens status and the need to endorse the change. Therefore, the analysis above confirms that PJDs shift in behaviour (from opposing to not opposing) after 5/16 corresponds to a shrinking of the pro-traditionalist front. This finding supports the
hypothesis that the party might have behaved pragmatically, thus being responsive to the
electors preferences.

Sharia and Islamist divisions: Internal dynamics of the PJD

before 5/16
The high correlation of the enhanced repressive capability of the regime after 5/16 with
both the shrinking of the pro-traditionalist front and changes in the PJDs behaviour
could invalidate the possibility of drawing definitive conclusions on the extent to which
the mechanism of the Islamists responsiveness to their electorate might effectively be at

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417

work. Therefore, in order to overcome the impact of the anti-terror legislation, I will
analyze the period before 5/16, when the repressive costs imposed by the regime were
quite close to the level they had when the reform path was opened in 1999 because the
anti-terror law had not entered into effect. To be sure, when the PANIFD was proposed,
the PJD was unanimous in condemning it, and after the Moudawana reforms were
enacted it was equally unanimous in accepting them. Thus it becomes crucial to investigate whether there were some signals of disagreement within the PJD with respect to
the strategy to adopt towards the Moudawana reform already before the enactment of the
anti-terror legislation. That is exactly what I will do next.
After 5/16 there was much upheaval within the MUR the associative and
charitable association of the PJD. The president of the MUR, Ahmed Rassouni, was
forced from office. Rassouni was well known for his dogmatic and moralizing
approach, advocating the Islamization of Moroccan society, and was a critical opponent of the Moudawana reforms and of the royal prerogative of arbitrating on questions concerning the Sharia. He was replaced by Mohamed Hamdaoui who
immediately declared that, unlike his predecessor, he would not interfere with the
political activity of the PJD. Rassounis declarations while in office had created
a certain embarrassment within the PJD. This is confirmed by the fact that, on 19
April 2003, Abdelkrim Al Khatib, the leader of the PJD, backed the creation of a
new association, the Movement Vigilance et Vertu (MVV), to be presided over
by Mohamed Khalidi, member of the PJDs general secretariat and Al Khatibs
right-hand man. The initiative of Al Khatib was an evident attempt to make the PJD
less dependent on the MUR.13 Indeed, as Khalidi himself declared, the MVV was
created in order to return to the principles of the party and to remediate to all the
excesses that some militants of the MUR have prompted with their declarations and
attitudes.14
On the other side, Rassouni had shown a mounting unease towards the PJD. In an
interview that appeared in Aujourdhui le Maroc15 on 12 May 2003 he stated:
The fact that the members [of the MUR] represent more than 70 percent of the PJD is a
failure for me. Indeed, it ought to be the contrary: the representatives of the MUR ought not
to exceed 30 percent within the PJD. . . . In fact, the party has taken from us not only our
cadres but monopolises even the most important of our efforts. The best elements have gone
into political affairs, something that has consumed them.

That was the main reason why Rassouni proposed the idea of limiting MURs backing
of the party, which he considered as being split between two factions: On one side, there
are those who have a political vision; on the other, there are those who have an Islamic
referential and impose some conditions, namely, that the candidates respect Islamic principles.16 What is more, Rassouni openly reinstated his criticism of the kings prerogative as Amir Al Mouminin:
When I read the Moroccan Constitution, I find out that the prerogatives that have been
attributed to the king are beyond a human beings capacity. . . . The present king, given his
formation, cannot assume the prerogative of (issuing) Fatwa . . . hence he must delegate it.17

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Party Politics 19(3)

The latter statement was connected to the previous attacks Rassouni had launched
against the Moudawana reforms and the kings privilege to have the last say about them.
In his turn, Abdelkrim Al Khatib stated he was astonished by those declarations.18 The
rest of the story is well known: a few days later, on 16 May, the Casablanca bombings
occurred, and Rassouni retired as president of the MUR on 11 June.
Those episodes imply an important consideration. Tensions between some exponents of the MUR more specifically, those who appeared as the most dogmatic
and resistant to the Moudawana reforms and others of the PJD were already arising
before 5/16. The creation of the MVV in April 2003 provides further evidence of the
fact that those tensions were producing divisive effects. The timing of the creation of
the MVV and of Rassounis declarations is noteworthy. Those events occurred, first,
when the issue of the Moudawana reform had come back onto the scene. Indeed, in
January 2003, Mohammed VI relaunched the work of the commission for the Family
Code reform by appointing a new president, Boucetta, who declared that the reform
would be enacted within a few months. Those events also occurred just a few months
before the 2003 municipal elections were scheduled to be held. Those signs of contrasts, precisely when the party needed to be run cohesively and to unify its resources,
constitute a further proof of the fact that, by backing the creation of the MVV, Al
Khatib deemed that it could be a suitable electoral move to signal to the electorate
the increasing independence of the party from its dogmatist branch. This appears to
be further confirmed as Mohamed Khalidi, the president of the MVV, declared that
the latter was created in order to strengthen politics without compelling the members
to belong to a movement [the MUR] which had an exclusive spiritual connotation19
and to interrupt the Islamization of the party by reinforcing the candidatures of modernist militants.20 By contrast, the declarations of Rassouni against the pragmatist
shift of the PJD attested the extent to which some members of the party sought a
deeper attachment to religious values.

Islamist electorates preferences and Islamist

divisions before 5/16
In the previous section I argued that the divisions between pragmatists and dogmatists
within the PJD were exacerbated during the 2003 municipal election campaign. This
indicates that some exponents of the party were willing to signal to electors the partys
drive towards a less ideological stance already before 5/16. Is there any evidence that
changes in the preferences of the Islamist electorate had also effectively occurred already
before 5/16? In order to provide this evidence, I will compare21 some items of the World
Values Survey (WVS) for Morocco before and after 9/1122 (see Table 1). In particular, to
create a measure for gender equality (GE), I consider the arithmetical average of the
answers on the four following questions and then I compute the proxy for the protraditionalist and pro-reformist Islamist electorate23 which I will indicate as GE. More
specifically, the items that I will consider are:



on the whole, men make better political leaders than women do;
a university education is more important for a boy than for a girl;

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Source: WVS.

Agree
Disagree
Dont know
GE
1-GE

Topic
Answer (%)

56.63
33.73
9.63
0.61
0.39

45.28
47.7
7.03
0.48
0.52

Pre-9/11 Post-9/11

11.35
13.98
2.6
0.13
0.13

MEAN

60.6
19.5
19.9
0.71
0.29

Pre-9/11
59.5
25.5
15.0
0.67
0.33

Post-9/11

Men make better

political leaders than
women do

50
38.4
11.5
0.56
0.44

Pre-9/11
23.9
71
5.1
0.26
0.74

Post-9/11

University education is
more important for a
boy than for a girl

86.9
7.9
5.2
0.9
0.1

Pre-9/11

77.5
16.5
6
0.78
0.2

Post-9/11

When jobs are scarce,

men should have more
right to a job than women

Table 1. Attitudes towards political, educational and economic equality in Morocco before and after 9/11.

29
69.1
1.9
0.3
0.7

Pre-9/11

20.2
77.8
2.0
0.21
0.8

Post-9/11

Husband and wife

should not both
contribute to income

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Party Politics 19(3)

when jobs are scarce, men should have more right to a job than women;
husband and wife should not both contribute to household income.24

Table 1 shows a consistent shrinking of the pro-traditionalist front (values for GE

were 0.61 and 0.48 in the pre-9/11 and post-9/11 periods respectively) with respect to
the four items connected to gender equality already before Casablanca. It might be worth
noting, for example, that the number of people disagreeing with the statement men make
better political leaders than women do increased dramatically from 19.5 percent in the
pre-9/11 period to 25.5 percent in the post-9/11 period. The rate of disagreement almost
doubled for university education is more important for a boy than for a girl (from 38.4
percent to 71 percent) and more than doubled (from 7.9 percent to 16.5 percent) for
men should have more right to a job than women. As for the last item, when the
post-9/11 data are compared with corresponding data (women must contribute to
household economic needs) in the 2003 survey there are roughly the same percentages of actual pro-traditionalists (77.8 percent and 78.6 percent respectively) and
pro-reformists (21 percent and 20.2 percent respectively). With respect to this item,
the change in preferences mostly occurred from pre-9/11 to post-9/11, whereas from
post-9/11 to post-5/16 preferences remained quite stable.
Note that the PANIFD did not pertain exclusively to the Moudawana issue but related
more generally to the possibility for women to become emancipated in four main
domains (education, reproductive health, economic and political participation, and legal
status). In particular, the items I took into consideration capture well the domains of educational, economic and political participation so as to illustrate the extent to which people became more pro-reformist immediately after 9/11 with respect to those domains. In
this sense, even if, as far as I know, no data are available on the specific Moudawana
issue in the period post-9/11 to pre-5/16, it is reasonable to conclude that this increasing
pro-reformism could also be extended to questions related more specifically to the
Moudawana. That appears to be further corroborated by some significant factors. First
of all, the NGOs advocating for the revision of the Family Code had worked strenuously
during those years: they launched several information campaigns for promoting change
in mentalities. Through associative lobbying, social mobilization and local activism they
also tightened the links among womens associations, other actors of civil society and
local activists networks, thus contributing to the feminization of the public space
(Sadiqi and Ennaji, 2006). Second, the PANIFD was mostly opposed by Islamists
because it was regarded as a secular plan imposed by the West, which contradicted Moroccan Muslim identity and values. This created a polarization, which was reflected in
public opinion, between an international feminist perspective and an Islamist world
view. The withdrawal of the PANIFD constituted an important lesson for womens rights
organizations: they became more and more aware that no debate about family law was
possible outside the limits of an Islamic discourse (Buskens, 2003: 120). For their battle
to be successful they had to reconcile the Western referential to the Islamic one, by
pleading for the Ijitihad, which implies deriving amendments from sacred texts. This
contributed to weakening the opportunity for Islamists to capitalize on the mismatch
between the reforms and religious principles in order to boost their electoral consensus.
What is more, many Islamist women who belonged to the PJD or to the Al Adl wa Al

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421

Ihsan movement (Cavatorta, 2006) started to back the reforms, thus making the political
costs of opposition to change much higher than they had been before. Summing up, as it
is pointed out by Salime (2009), on one side there was an Islamization of womens
rights movements; on the other, a feminization of Islamist movements. Therefore, it
is plausible that the shrinking of the pro-traditionalist front continued even after 9/11,
and that it was much more relevant than the indicators in Table 1 are able to capture. That
is likely to have produced a society far less divided on the Moudawana issue immediately before 5/16.
Table 2 shows the absolute and the percentage mean variations with respect to the
two items on political (a) and educational equality (b) as they appear in the WVS (preand post-9/11) and in the Arab Barometer (AB) 2006.25 The variations in those indicators and in the proxy built on it are much more consistent in the six-month period
between the two WVS than in the almost four-year period from the post-9/11 WVS
to the AB (2006). Indeed, GE declined from 0.63 to 0.47 between August 2001 and
early 2002, while it merely dropped from 0.47 to 0.41 between early 2002 and 2006.
In this sense, there is further proof that, as for gender-related issues, the protraditionalist front had already started to shrink very significantly before 5/16. It is also
worth noting that the shrinking of the pro-traditionalist front in the post-9/11 period
with respect to gender equality issues is matched by an increased support for atheist
politicians (AP;26 see Table 3). Indeed, the variations in GE (proxy for actual and
potential pro-traditionalists as for gender equality) and in AP (proxy for actual
and potential pro-traditionalists as for atheist politicians) between pre and post-9/11
run very close.
While the decreasing percentage of actual pro-traditionalists (agree %) regarding
gender equality is entirely converted into an increase in actual pro-reformists (disagree
%), that is not the case for the refusal of atheist politicians. Indeed, more than half of the
actual pro-traditionalists (56 percent) turn out to be undecided on the possibility of having non-religious politicians in public office, while 44 percent is gained by the actual
pro-reformist front. So far, religion had in fact lost some ground as a tool for building
political credibility because more trustworthiness is accorded to atheist politicians. On
the other hand, due to the high percentage of undecided people with respect to this item,
religious politicians still had some room for manoeuvre (e.g. by showing their support
for gender equality issues) to conquer the consensus of former pro-traditionalists who
have become undecided.
Summing up, contrasts between pragmatists and dogmatists within the PJD were
exacerbated when the Moudawana appeared again on the negotiation table and gender
equality had gained more support among Moroccans. While the pro-traditionalist front
remained stable in its magnitude, pragmatists had a strong incentive to run cohesively
with dogmatists and to oppose the reforms. Once the pro-traditionalists had climbed
down and the 2003 municipal elections were approaching, a front within the PJD that
was more responsive to the electorates preferences had a stronger interest in showing
increased independence from dogmatists as appears clearly with the creation of the
MVV. This group deemed vehement opposition to the changes an unsuitable card to
play, preferring to remain silent on the issue. As a consequence, dogmatists within the
party appeared more and more distinguishable. Indeed, the tensions arising within the

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a)

AB
2006

b)

Source: WVS and AB.

Agree %
60.6 50
59.5 23.9 53.6 25.3
Disagree % 19.5 38.4 25.5 71
43.3 71.3
Dont
19.9 11.5 15
5.1
3.1
3.3
know %
GE
0.71 0.56 0.67 0.26 0.55 0.27

b)

a)

a)

b)

WVS
Post-9/11

WVS
Pre-9/11

41.7
48.25
10.05
0.47

55.3
28.95
15.7
0.63

Mean
Mean
Pre-9/11 Post-9/11

0.41

39.45
57.3
3.05

Mean AB
2006

0.16

13.6
19.3
5.65

Mean D
Pre-post-9/11

Table 2. Variations in attitudes towards political and educational equality in Morocco (20016).

0.06

2.25
9.05
6.85

Mean D
Post-9/11
2006

25.83

24.59
66.67
35.99

12.32

5.40
18.76
68.16

Mean
% Post-9/11
Mean %D
2006
Pre-post-9/11

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423

Table 3. Confidence in atheist politicians in Morocco before and after 9/11.

Atheist Politicians are unfit for public office*
Pre-9/11
Post-9/11
D Pre-post-9/11

Agree%

Disagree%

Dont know%

AP

86.6
71.6
15

5.5
12.1
6.6

7.8
16.3
8.5

0.91
0.80
0.11

Source: WVS.
*Politicians who dont believe in God are unfit for public office.

PJD caused the dogmatists to stand out in their opposition to the reforms and to
become clearly visible so that, after 5/16, the regime speeded up their marginalization27 and the strengthening of the pragmatist voice. So far, the analysis provides confirmation of the fact that pragmatists within the PJD were responsive to a change of
preferences within their electoral base. The study also corroborates the main hypothesis of this work.

Real and potential scenarios: The anti-informative

role of 5/16
Even if after 5/16 the dogmatists were effectively silenced and the PJDs main voice
became the pragmatist one, in fact dogmatists were still present within the party.28 In this
sense, even if for different reasons, both pragmatists and dogmatists did send the same
signal (not oppose) after the reforms were enacted. So far, there is a further step to
accomplish. Indeed, I will address the question: what might have happened had the Casablanca terrorist bombings not taken place? Among the set of possible alternatives, I concentrate here on a potential setting that would have produced a different landscape in
contrast to what actually occurred.
It is possible to infer that, had 5/16 not occurred, the tensions within the PJD might
have led to a split between dogmatist and pragmatist militants. Indeed, 5/16 by increasing the costs of opposing the reforms for dogmatists was likely to create the conditions
for avoiding that split within the PJD because it made it possible for the pragmatist voice
to become the prevailing one, as is shown by the reassignment of both Ramid and
Rassouni. Looking in more depth at the events immediately after 5/16 offers further
hints on the previous point. Indeed, Mohamed Khalidi, the leader of the MVV, declared
in an interview given to Aujourdhui le Maroc on 27 June 2003 that the definitive separation between the MUR and the PJD was advancing due to the necessity of avoiding any
exploitation of religion in order to reach political ends and urged all the militants who
violated that tenet to quit the party. On 5 July 2003 the PJD held an extraordinary
National Council in Rabat. Given that Khalidi was one of the closest collaborators of
Al Khatib, it was rumoured29 that his declarations mirrored the will of the latter to proceed with the split that Khalidi had announced. That appeared to be even more so
because, as I stated above, the creation of the MVV had been backed by Al Khatib. In
fact, the issue of the separation between the PJD and the MUR was not explicitly in the
ordre du jour30 of the National Council, which mainly focused on the discussion of the

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Party Politics 19(3)

partys strategy in the aftermath of the attacks. Furthermore, Khalidi did not participate
in the meeting.31
So far, in the period immediately before the council, there was a lack of coordination
between Al Khatib and Khalidi. While Khalidi remained attached to the idea of the
separation between the PJD and the MUR which was likely to cause a split within the
PJD itself between dogmatists and pragmatists Al Khatib changed his mind with
respect to the period immediately before 5/16. Indeed, the resignations of Ramid and
Rassouni, and the pressures exerted by the regime to speed them up, made the PJDs
secretary-general more confident that he would be able to maintain his control of the
party by marginalizing the more dogmatist militants in favour of the pragmatist ones.
This strategy is very likely to have been considered as more palatable than a split after
5/16. A definitive separation after the terrorist attacks might have discredited the image
of the party because, in this case, the equation dogmatiststerrorism would have been
somehow legitimated, causing pragmatists to be regarded as having connived for years
with extremists. On the other side, the strategy selected by Al Khatib entailed some costs
for the pragmatists. By relaunching a moderate image for the PJD he did not achieve
the real eradication of the dogmatist militants from the party. Indeed, those militants continued to have some influence within the party.32 Meanwhile, Khalidi, the leader of the
MVV, adopted a very low profile.33
Summing up, if 5/16 had not occurred, the contrasts between pragmatists and dogmatists within the PJD might have led to a party split. As a result, there would have been the
possibility for a more informative equilibrium to arise than the one that was produced
after 5/16. Indeed, if the party split had occurred then the signal sent would have been
either oppose or not oppose, depending on the faction that had won the struggle for
control over the party. If pragmatists had gained the upper hand in the PJD (e.g. if all the
elements affiliated or belonging to the MUR had been purged from the party) then, as a
result, the party would have become entirely dominated by pragmatists. In this case,
PJDs non-opposition would have been a univocal sign of its pragmatist nature. By contrast, if dogmatists had triumphed, they would have opposed the changes, thus making
the regime certain that it faced dogmatists. Consequently, while in the first case the king
would have been likely to enact substantive changes, in the second case, one would have
observed, if any, cosmetic reforms. In this sense, for Sharia to turn into an effective
informative and potentially-divisive tool, actors must be given incentives to manifest
who they are. This is unlikely to occur when the level of repression is high, because
in this case actors would be silenced, thus preventing the regime from collecting information on the prevailing Islamist type that it is dealing with.

Conclusions
The role played by responsiveness to the electorate has been overlooked in the literature
dealing with Islamist parties moderation. By investigating the mechanisms underlying
Islamist strategies when Sharia-based issues appear on the negotiation table, this article
contributes to filling this gap. In particular, my theoretical framework focuses on the
relevance of the Islamist electorates preferences as a factor explaining Islamists behaviour within the reform process. The underlying hypothesis is that, when the regime

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425

pushes for substantive changes concerning Sharia, the more the Islamist electorate is
gained by the pro-reformist front, the more the regime weakens Islamist parties by causing the most dogmatist elements within them to stand out as opponents of the reforms.
The framework proved empirically fruitful for analyzing the 2004 Family Code
reform process in Morocco. The analysis confirms that the Islamists change of strategy
in 2003 from opposing to not opposing is linked to changed preferences within the
Islamist electoral base. I showed that PJDs internal tensions between pragmatic and
dogmatic factions were exacerbated once the Moudawana reforms were re-proposed
at the negotiation table and the number of pro-traditionalist electors had shrunk considerably, something that had already occurred before the Casablanca terrorist attacks of 5/
16. These findings both down site and articulate the role attributed to 5/16 in causing
Islamists to stop opposing the reforms (Clark and Young, 2008: 340; Mohsen-Finan and
Zeghal, 2006: 107; Sadiqi and Ennaji, 2006: 1078), and confirm that emphasis on contextual factors should not discount the significance of the link between Islamists and
their electors.
Changes in the preferences of the electoral base might cause pragmatists to accommodate social modernization processes, thus eventually entering into conflict with dogmatists. The latter, remaining isolated in their opposition, would turn out to be severely
weakened. Therefore, Sharia reforms might be an extraordinarily informative and divisive tool. Indeed, if the consensus towards the pro-reformist view reaches a significant
level, by tabling reforms on Sharia the regime can identify and distinguish pragmatists
from dogmatists, selectively marginalize the latter, and undermine the internal cohesion
of Islamist parties.
A major implication of this argument is that the incumbents credible and persistent commitment to change on Sharia-based issues could make the Islamists political
identity increasingly unambiguous and their language more and more clear-cut.
Indeed, if the reforms gather a strong backing, then the defence of doctrinaire Islamic
principles would gradually lose its appeal as an argument for gaining electoral support, thus increasing Islamists incentives34 to mitigate their dogmatist rhetoric. In a
similar picture, Islamists ought to enhance their political anti-authoritarian stance in
order to justify their credibility as opposition and not alienate their support base.
So far, while Sharia reforms might initially be a tool in the regimes hands to weaken
Islamist parties internal cohesiveness, in the long term by urging them to strengthen
the political dimension of their oppositional raison detre they might open the path
for a more incisive struggle against the status quo. For this dynamic to be triggered,
electors preferences should exhibit as broad a support as possible in favour of
change, otherwise Islamists could find it rewarding to mobilize the electoral base,
increasing their appeal by capitalizing on anti-reformist positions. The Moroccan lesson teaches that time and some degree of political opening that lets civil society sensitize the public and campaign for change might be necessary to boost the peoples
support of the reforms. It follows that, once political liberalization has been launched,
domestic and international pressures towards social modernization and gender equality
could be a viable tool to gradually compel Islamists to clarify their positions on their
notion of religion, state and power, speeding up their ideological moderation and ultimately bolstering their democratic credentials.35

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Party Politics 19(3)

It is worth noting that, anticipating that social modernization processes and the public
debates accompanying them could reshape peoples forma-mentis and eventually reinforce the Islamist opposition to the status quo, incumbents might opt for tabling
Sharia-based issues with prudence; that is, at most cosmetically and incrementally.36
It follows that, in order for significant and decisive modernization processes to occur,
regimes should embrace a certain commitment to democracy and guarantee a degree
of openness that would allow for public debate on those issues. In fact, the real challenge
is to make it possible that such a commitment might arise in the first place.
This paper is a first attempt to illustrate the complex dynamics that run between
electoral preferences and Islamists behaviour when Sharia-based issues are tabled
for negotiation. Further studies in this direction, extended both to other Middle Eastern countries and to other gray zones, would enrich our understanding of the implications of Islamist parties inclusion within the political sphere and should constitute
an agenda for future research. The fact that responsiveness to the electorate was a
mechanism at work for Moroccan Islamists suggests that Islamist parties are very
likely not dissimilar to Christian democrats or Socialist parties in Europe and they
could undergo a similar moderation process under opportune conditions. Furthermore, beyond throwing light on the moderating mechanisms Islamists are likely
to go through, these studies would contribute to clarifying the intricate relationship
between social modernization dynamics and the prospects of democratization in the
MENA.
Notes
1. Public opinion data show that the origins of the support for Islamist parties are to be found not
necessarily in the religious attachments of ordinary Muslims but, rather, in dissatisfaction with
the political and economic status quo (Tessler, 1997).
2. Brown et al. (2006) individuate six gray zones: Islamic law, violence, political pluralism,
civil and political rights, womens rights and religious minorities.
3. The fact that pragmatists defend a procedural vision of democracy does not entail a need for
them to be different from dogmatists with respect to their attachment to religious values. It
means that, since their first goal is the implementation of democratic checks and balances,
they might set aside their religious principles in order to realize their political project.
4. It would be difficult for dogmatists to mobilize activists over an issue that does not represent a
real threat against the Sharia.
5. With specific reference to the case, by regime I mostly mean the king, and all persons closely tied
to him by patronage networks (e.g. the technocratic state apparatus, the army and the police).
6. Article 19 of the Moroccan constitution states that the king as Amir Al Mouminin is the
Defender of the Faith and the Protector of the rights and liberties of the citizens, social
groups and organisations.
7. The PJD gained 42 seats in the House of Representatives, thus becoming the third strongest
Moroccan party after the Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires (USFP [Socialist Union of
Popular Forces], 50 seats) and the Istiqlal (48 seats).
8. The Casablanca attacks of 16 May 2003 should not be considered as the reason why the king
opted to enact the substantive changes. Indeed, we should not confuse a definition of

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Catalano

9.
10.
11.
12.

13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.

22.

23.
24.

25.
26.
27.

427

causality with the nondefinitional. . . operational procedure of identifying causal mechanisms

(King et al., 1994: 87). Terrorism is a random variable that sheds light on and discloses causal mechanisms and, more specifically, the relevance of Islamists behaviour in determining
the magnitude of the change.
They will be weighted by one half to allow that half of them might be gained by the
pro-reformist front.
This survey was conducted on behalf of the Bureau detudes Telemark System (LEconomiste,
2000).
This survey was conducted on behalf of the research centre Sunergia in November 2003
(LEconomiste, 2003).
Concerning the legal guardian abolition, 79 percent of the sample were against in 2000, 75.7
percent in 2003; those favourable to marriage at age 18 were 82 percent and 80.7 percent,
respectively, in 2000 and 2003, etc.
The fact that this separation could be effectively achieved is corroborated by the growing economic independence of the PJD from the MUR. See Wegner and Pellicer (2009).
Aujourdhui le Maroc (2003d).
Aujourdhui le Maroc (2003a).
Aujourdhui le Maroc (2003a).
Aujourdhui le Maroc (2003a).
Al Khatib referred to Rassouni as an imbecile (Aujourdhui le Maroc, 2003c).
La Gazette du Maroc (2003a).
La Gazette du Maroc (2003a).
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Mansoor Moaddel, under the World Values Survey (WVS)
project, carried out another survey (February 2002) in Morocco in order to analyze any change
in the opinions of the respondents with respect to the survey that was conducted just a few days
before the attacks (2 August 200128 August 2001).
See also Moaddel and Abdul-Latif (2007). The authors carried out a multivariate analysis for
examining how the attitudes of Egyptians and Moroccans were affected by the terrorist attacks
on 9/11. Their findings indicate that people displayed more favourable attitudes toward
democracy, gender equality, and secularism after 9/11 than they did before.
Moaddel and Abdul-Latif (2007: 265) use the first three items for building their own index on
gender equality.
The answers to those questions were always grouped in three groups instead of using
the scale from 1 to 10 adopted in the WVS (Agree 14; Dont Know 56; Disagree
710). The last question in the WVS is formulated as Husband and wife should both
contribute to income; I reverse it in order to make the items in Table 1 more easily comparable (e.g. Agree always refers to pro-traditionalists). The dataset is available at the
WVS website: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org.
See http://www.arabbarometer.org/. I consider just those two items because they appear in the
three surveys with the same formulation.
On this point see also Moaddel and Abdul-Latif (2007: 274). The authors point out that society
became more secular after 9/11 than it was before.
In the communique issued some days later, Ramid announced that several pressures had
been exerted by the Minister of the Interior to prompt his retreat (La Gazette du Maroc,
2003c).

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Party Politics 19(3)

28. For example, even though Ramid gave his resignation on October 2003, he continued to make
a strong opposition against the regime in the aftermath of 5/16 (Aujourdhui le Maroc, 2004).
29. Aujourdhui le Maroc (2003b); La Gazette du Maroc (2003b).
30. La Vie eco (2003).
31. Khalidi declared that his absence was linked not to the declarations on the separation between
the PJD and the MUR but to:
a personal hindrance. As for my declarations. . . I maintain them. . . . There is a need for the
party to go towards more opening and tolerance. The good path for the party is conditioned
to the separation between the PJD and the MUR. (La Vie eco, 2003)
32. The members of the MVV were eliminated from the lists of candidates presented by the PJD in
the 2003 municipal elections (Aujourdhui le Maroc, 2003e). It appears that, in order for Al
Khatib to keep his control on the PJD, the MUR asked for the silencing of Khalidi and his
loyal followers.
33. The marginalization of Khalidi is further confirmed by the fact that he would accomplish the
split with the PJD on 24 December 2005 on this occasion without being backed by Al Khatib
and the MVV thus became the Parti Renaissance et Vertu (PRV). Khalidi declared that the
creation of the PRV had become unavoidable because many members of the MVV were
excluded from the main organs of the PJD and it was impossible to integrate new energies
outside the predication which was a dogma in the PJD (La Gazette du Maroc, 2005).
34. I refer to Islamists as a whole (rather than exclusively to pragmatists) because, when the
Islamist electorate supports social changes, if dogmatists did not accept modernization processes, they would eventually be purged from the party, or silenced by the regime. Therefore, either they opt to consent to a pragmatist leadership or decide to exit from the
political game.
35. Anyway, as discussed in Catalano (2010), the final result of social modernization processes is
context-dependent and strictly intertwined with the specific configuration of the political
space of the recipient country.
36. In this sense, the more audacious character of the Moroccan Family Code reforms might not
necessarily be imitated in a massive way in the rest of the MENA.

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Author biography
Serida Lucrezia Catalano received her PhD in Political Science at the Universita` degli Studi of
Milan in 2009. At present she is Research Fellow at the Department of Institutional Analysis and
Public Management at Bocconi University, Milan. Her main interests focus on the socio-political
dynamics of regime change, the political role and the electoral behaviour of religious parties, and
social modernization processes.

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