The Normative Power of Secularism. Tunisian Ennahda's Discourse on Religion, Politics, and the State (2011-2016)

Abstract

By critically engaging the literature on the inclusion-moderation hypothesis, this paper seeks to show how the normative structure of secularism constitutes, enables, and restricts the discursive space in which Islamists can justify political action. It analyzes changes in Tunisian Ennahda's discourse (2011-2016) as an attempt to navigate between standards of recognition imposed on them by the normative power of secularism on the one hand, and what they can convincingly integrate into their own platform on the other hand.