Political Islam Observed

This book offers a framework for understanding the interaction between the academic disciplines "observing" contemporary political Islam and the individuals and communities being "observed" practicing it. Volpi investigates how different disciplinary approaches in the social sciences explain and understand their "Islamic" subject matter, revealing how political Islam is a phenomenon that each academic discipline analyses using its own dominant paradigms. He offers a multidisciplinary account of political Islam based on the insights provided by post-orientalism, international studies, sociology of religion, democratization studies, multiculturalism studies, security studies, and globalization studies. His book outlines the areas of convergence and the synergies between these approaches and highlights the gaps and misunderstanding that still exist between parallel narratives on Islamism.

Frederic Volpi is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of St Andrews and the author of Islam and Democracy.