I. Why TISCI?

Liberal democracies face ideological movements that seek to influence institutions, norms, and public life through political, legal, educational, cultural, and economic channels.

Among them, political Islam - including the networks and intellectual traditions associated with the Muslim Brotherhood - raises important questions for democratic societies. In Europe, several decades of research have produced substantial empirical knowledge about these movements, their organizations, their strategies, and their interaction with public institutions.

This knowledge remains fragmented across countries and disciplines. TISCI was created to bring it into a broader comparative and transatlantic framework.

II. A Transatlantic Perspective

Europe and the Americas provide different but complementary fields of observation.

European experience offers a long historical perspective on the development of Islamist organizations within liberal democracies. The United States and the wider Americas offer different institutional, political, and religious environments in which similar questions can be examined comparatively.

The purpose is not to assume that European trajectories will be reproduced elsewhere. It is precisely to determine, through evidence, where similarities exist, where they do not, and why.

TISCI therefore approaches the Atlantic space as a common field of research.

III. An Independent Research Institute

The Transatlantic Institute for the Study of Contemporary Ideologies (TISCI) is an independent American nonprofit research institution.

Its purpose is to develop rigorous research on contemporary ideological movements and their effects on liberal democratic societies, with particular attention to political Islam, frérisme, antisemitism, and related forms of ideological mobilization.

Its guiding principle is straightforward:

Research should begin with evidence, not conclusions.

TISCI will bring together scholars and practitioners from Europe and the Americas to compare sources, methods, concepts, and findings across national boundaries.

IV. Research, Networks, Exchange

TISCI's activities will initially focus on three areas.

Research. Supporting empirical and comparative studies of ideological networks, organizations, funding, discourse, and institutional influence.

Networks. Building a transatlantic community of researchers and practitioners able to share sources, methods, and expertise.

Conferences. Organizing meetings and workshops where researchers, policymakers, legal professionals, journalists, and civil-society actors can confront findings and develop new research questions.

Publications will range from substantial research reports to concise analytical and policy papers.

V. A Comparative Method

TISCI's distinctive contribution will be comparative.

Research conducted in Europe can help formulate questions about developments in the United States, Canada, and Latin America. Research in the Americas can, in turn, challenge European assumptions and reveal the importance of different legal, political, and cultural contexts.

The objective is neither advocacy nor prediction, but understanding: identifying structures, documenting networks, comparing trajectories, and establishing what the evidence allows us to conclude.

VI. The Transatlantic Task

The ideological challenges confronting liberal democracies increasingly cross national borders. Research must therefore do the same.

TISCI aims to create a durable intellectual infrastructure connecting researchers, institutions, and knowledge across the Atlantic.

Its ambition is deliberately focused: to produce better evidence, better comparisons, and better understanding of contemporary ideologies in democratic societies.

The defense of democracy is a transatlantic task.