Street Power: Friday Prayers, Islamist Protests, and Islamization in Pakistan
This article addresses Pakistani Islamists' street power their ability to organize rallies, protests, and demonstrations. Building on research on religion and collective action, I first demonstrate how Friday prayers aid Islamist mobilization. Mosques on Friday serve as a filtering and coordi...
Main Author: | |
---|---|
Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
[2016]
|
In: |
Politics and religion
Year: 2016, Volume: 9, Issue: 1, Pages: 1-28 |
Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
Summary: | This article addresses Pakistani Islamists' street power their ability to organize rallies, protests, and demonstrations. Building on research on religion and collective action, I first demonstrate how Friday prayers aid Islamist mobilization. Mosques on Friday serve as a filtering and coordination tool, as tactical choke points in urban neighborhoods, and as incitement through the imam's sermon. I then show how Islamist street power affects Islamization in Pakistan. I argue that Pakistan's foundational religious nationalism acts as an opportunity structure, and affords Islamists agenda-setting and veto power. The success of Islamist agitation depends on the issue contested, the type of regime targeted, and the era in which it is practiced. I use interviews, participant observation at Islamist rallies, an original dataset of all rallies and protests in Pakistan from 2005 to 2010 (n = 4123); and government and local newspaper reports from the 1940s onward to buttress my claims. |
---|---|
ISSN: | 1755-0491 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Politics and religion
|
Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S1755048316000031 |