A Green Menace in Algeria? : A case study of the Front Islamique du Salut and the rejection of Islamism

Abstract: This study examines the case of the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS), a political party that in the early 1990s regrouped various Islamist currents in Algeria and managed to win the municipal elections, and its victory was expected in the parliamentary elections. However, an abrupt coup d’état undertaken by the military and backed inexplicitly by international opinion was to end the party’s success. In an attempt to answer the question of why democratically elected Islamist parties are opposed by the international community, the study employs the case study method and determines the case to be a crucial case. In order to falsify common narratives about Islamist parties and their alleged illegitimacy—through a within-case method of pattern matching––the pattern derived from the literature is matched with the pattern present in the trajectory and nature of the FIS in order to determine whether these two converge. It is determined through a thorough analysis of both the party’s internal structure, as well as its political programme, that the pattern derived cannot be seen as in congruence with the points presented in the hypothesis derived from the significant parts of the mainstream literature. Therefore, an alternative explanation for the international community’s hostility towards Islamist movements is presented, and established upon separate analytical grounds.