A l’instar d’autres pays, le Printemps arabe s’est soldé au Maroc par l’accession des islamistes au pouvoir ; une victoire surprenante que d’aucuns mettent sur le compte de la capacité du PJD (parti islamiste) à surfer sur la vague des revendications populaires en prenant, à son propre compte, les doléances phares des manifestants, et ce, notamment par le biais de stratégies d’influence et de manipulation politiques. Mais l’arrivée du PJD à la tête de l’exécutif marocain aura surtout permis de révéler M. Benkirane, en tant que personnalité politique hors du commun ayant su imposer une communication politique fondamentalement différente de celles de ses prédécesseurs, mais également fondée sur un usage intensif de procédés d’influence et de manipulation. Car ce qui caractérise l’entrée de ce leader islamiste sur la scène politique marocaine par la plus haute des fonctions, c’est le fait qu’il s’est progressivement départi de sa communication d’opposant islamiste pour adopter une communication dotée de nouvelles orientations. Les principaux traits de cette nouvelle ligne politique sont le changement de position par rapport aux assises doctrinales majeures du PJD ainsi qu’une rétraction par rapport aux engagements brandis lors du Printemps arabe et de la campagne électorale des législatives de 2011. Ce changement d’orientation en matière de communication politique est, pensons-nous, l’œuvre manifeste de stratégies d’influence et de manipulation politiques que M. Benkirane orchestre subtilement. La présente thèse s’assigne pour objectif de mettre en exergue ces stratégies telles qu’elles sont à l’œuvre dans la communication politique de M. Benkirane. / Comparable to other countries in the region, the Arab Spring resulted in Morocco with the rise of Islamists to power ; a surprising victory that some justify as the ability of the PJD (Islamist party) to ride the wave of popular demands by taking, on its own, the main complaints of protesters using strategies of political influence and manipulation. The arrival of PJD as head of the Moroccan executive revealed Mr. Benkirane, as an outstanding political figure who knew how to impose a political communication fundamentally different from those of his predecessors founded on strong use of influence and manipulation methods. Indeed, what characterizes the entry of this Islamist leader on the Moroccan political scene is the fact that he progressively diverted his communication from an Islamist opponent to adopt a communication with new orientations. The main features of this new political line are the change of position to the major doctrinal foundations of the PJD as well as a withdrawal from the commitments made during the Arab Spring and the electoral campaign of 2011 elections. The orientation of Mr. Benkirane political communication is, I believe, the manifest subtle orchestration of strategies of influence and political manipulation. This dissertation aims to highlight these strategies as they are manifested in the political communication of Mr. Benkirane.

Le défi de cette thèse a été de présenter la pensée et les actions marquantes de l’histoire du mouvement islamiste tunisien, Ennahdha, depuis sa création à la fin des années 1960, jusqu’en 2018. La première partie de la thèse se concentre sur son engagement politique. Cette approche nous a amenée à distinguer plusieurs phases qui rythment le développement du parti: après être passé par l’action clandestine à l’époque du jama‘a islamiyya et du MTI avec de brefs instants de semi-légalité (dans les années 1980) et une vingtaine d’années de répression, le leadership du parti fait preuve, surtout depuis 2013, de pragmatisme en politique. En effet, l’expérience d’Ennahdha indique que depuis la révolution les victoires électorales sont devenues son intérêt majeur. La deuxième partie de la thèse met en évidence que cette stratégie impose au parti une évolution constante, afin de répondre aux demandes des acteurs politiques, tout en gardant sa base militante fidèle et en aspirant à attirer des nouveaux adhérents en dehors du noyau islamiste. Dès lors, notre recherche étudie les reconfigurations récentes du mouvement et attire l’attention sur les limites de ces mutations. Nous insistons surtout sur la reconstruction du discours d’Ennahdha qui a renouvelé ses références politico-idéologiques lors de son dixième congrès, en mai 2016. De plus, nous avons eu recours à diverses théories sur les élites et les transitions politiques, afin d’analyser la pratique politique d’Ennahdha après la révolution. En outre, dans une perspective comparative, nous avons examiné son histoire et ses reconfigurations idéologiques en contraste avec l’expérience des partis communistes et chrétiens-démocrates occidentaux et du Parti de la justice et du développement au Maroc. Ce cadre théorique nous a permis d’évaluer les stratégies politiques et les mutations idéologiques d’Ennahdha et d’étudier le fonctionnement du parti, sa structure et la sélection de ses dirigeants, afin de déterminer son degré de démocratisation, ainsi que ses perspectives sur la scène politique tunisienne. / The challenge of this thesis was to present the ideology and the turning points in the history of the Tunisian Islamist movement, Ennahdha, starting from its creation in the late 1960s until 2018. The first part of the thesis focuses on its political commitment. This approach enabled us to distinguish several phases that marked the development of the party: after the clandestine activity at the time of the jama‘a islamiyya and the MTI, some brief moments of semi-legality (in the 1980s) and about twenty years of repression, the leadership of the party has been giving evidence of political pragmatism mostly after 2013. In fact, Ennahdha’s experience indicates that since the revolution the electoral victories have become its major interest. The second part of the thesis highlights that this strategy imposes on the party a constant evolution in the attempt to respond to the political actors’ demands, while keeping its militant base faithful and aiming, at the same time, to attract new members outside the Islamist core. Thus, our research studies the recent reconfigurations of the movement and draws the attention to the limits of these mutations. We emphasize especially on the “restyling” of Ennahdha′s discourse which renew its political and ideological references on the occasion of its tenth congress (in May 2016). Moreover, we resorted to various theories of elites and political transitions, in order to analyse Ennahdha′s political practice after the revolution. Additionally, in a comparative perspective, we examined its history and ideological reconfigurations in contrast with the experience of the occidental communist and Christian democratic parties and the Party of Justice and Development in Morocco. This theoretical framework enabled us to evaluate Ennahdha′s political strategies and its ideological mutations and study how the party operates, how it is structured and how its leaders are selected, in order to determine its degree of democratization, as well as its perspectives on the Tunisian political scene.

The academic literature on Islamist moderation offers several explanations for why some Islamist political movements are moderate and others radical. These theories focus on the movements' ideology, tactics, and internal democracy. Few accounts address, however, how an Islamist movement's relations with external powers influence this outcome. This paper finds that "moderation" reflects an Islamist movement's relationship of compliance or defiance with external powers rather than its essential organizational characteristics. In comparing the Moroccan Justice and Development Party (PJD) with the Egyptian Muslim Brothers, it explores why the United States has built good relations with the former but not with the latter. Employing approximately 20 interviews conducted with Islamists, U.S. diplomats, and Moroccan experts in 2009, I show that the PJD's compliance with U.S. foreign policy decisions and interests helps to shape perceptions that the movement is more moderate than its Egyptian counterpart, despite the two movements' similar ideology, tactics, and internal practices. / text

This thesis describes how the religious-secular, economic, and cultural dimensions come to expression in the electoral manifestos of two political parties in the 2016 elections in Morocco. The parties in question are the Islamist-oriented Party of Justice and Development (PJD) and the non-Islamist Party of Authenticity and Modernity (PAM), viewed as leading contenders and emerged as the two biggest parties in the same election year. This study applies a qualitative text analysis of the manifestos and shows that the parties differed on two dimensions of three. The parties showed the most significant difference under the religious-secular dimension, where PJD supported increased religious influence on policymaking. In contrast, PAM kept itself neutral and neither supported nor opposed religious influence on state affairs. The next most significant difference was found under the cultural dimension. Both parties expressed support for gender equality, albeit PAM was more ambitious and proposed an amendment to the family law to equalize women with men regarding the right of the Moroccan woman to transfer her citizenship to her non-Moroccan husband. In contrast, PJD proposed extending maternity leave and fighting violence against women. The slightest differences were found under the economic dimension. Surprisingly, both parties advocated for almost the same free-market and redistribution policies even though they represented two opposing blocks in the Moroccan party system.

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