published_or_final_version / Asian Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Approved For Public Release; Distribution is Unlimited / Political Islam has emerged as an unambiguous threat to liberal and Western-leaning regimes throughout the world. Public discourse has focused on the Islamic nature of this challenge, emphasizing the cultural characteristics of the threat. In contrast, this thesis argues that Political Islam is essentially a political challenge. Further, states can and do dictate the political space available to Islamists. In order to illustrate this argument, Indonesia and Algeria serve as case studies. These two culturally, economically and ethnically diverse nations share a predominance of Muslim adherents. Each nation has struggled with Political Islam. Yet, the consequences of state policy have profoundly differed. Recent innovations in political science theory are employed to provide a uniform structure of comparison between the two case studies. The thesis concludes that states make a choice whether to play offense or defense against their political opposition. When states choose the offensive, using targeted, preemptive repression to subsume the political space, they are successful. When states choose the defensive, using indiscriminate, reactive repression to foreclose political space, they are failures. This thesis implies that states, far from being hapless victims of fervently religious movements, can exercise a broad array of policy options to compete with Political Islam. / Major, United States Marine Corps / Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral--Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2006). / Includes bibliographical references (p. 301-316).

Originally presented as the author's Thesis (doctoral--Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2006). / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 301-316).

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1998. / BLDSC reference no.: DX198830.

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This thesis deals with the PPP, from its emergence in 1973 until 1987. The study attempts to describe the political journey of this party. It examines the position of the PPP in the political system of Indonesia's New Order as a whole. Immediately after the rise of the New Order government, a systematic program to restructure and simplify the political system was launched. It aimed, primarily, at national stability and the elimination of ideological politics. To the New Order government, an Islamic ideological orientation would only lead to conflicts among political forces and cause chaos, as experienced during the liberal democracy of the Old Order government. The emergence of the PPP being a consequence of the political restructuring launched by the government, the expectation was that it would be a good partner of the government. However, in the first five years of its existence, the PPP tended towards radical politics opposing the government on religious grounds. This opposition, which was again manifested towards the end of the 1970s, was seen by the government as an attempt by Islamic political groups to replace the Pancasila with Islam as the nation's ideology. Such a perception caused a lengthy internal conflict within the partial itself, particularly between the NU and MI, or between the idealist and realist groups. The internal situation of the PPP helped the government enforce the Pancasila as the sole foundation of all social and political parties. The significance of this thesis lies in the fact that no attempt has so far been made to study Islam and politics under the New Order government with a particular focus on the PPP.

This thesis will analyze the role of Shi'i religious symbols employed in the Iranian revolution of 1979. During the revolution, the Shi'i symbolic structure of the Karbala' paradigm or the symbols of Karbala' and of Husayn's martyrdom were extensively employed to mobilize the masses. Regarded as the Imam and as the symbol of the revolution, Khumayni extensively utilized such religious symbols in order to generate mass revolutionary political consciousness against the Shah's tyrannical regime. In other words, throughout the revolution the traditional 'ashura' mourning ceremony--commemorating a tragic historical event the martyrdom of Husayn who was killed on the battlefield of Karbala' on Muharram 10, 60/680--was transformed into and politicized to be a vehicle of mass revolutionary political mobilization.