A qualitative study regarding the situation of an extensive number of people who have joined violent Islamic extremism groups, such as the Islamic state, from the city of Gothenburg, Sweden. The study is based on previous research and relevant material on violent islamic extremism as well as interviews conducted with experts in the field. The study sheds light towards the growing problem that individuals from Gothenburg have traveled and are currently travelling to mainly Syria and fight for organizations like the Islamic state. The study aims to investigate the present situation in Gothenburg, trends that have been noted by experts, as well as who the people whom have joined violent Islamic extremist organizations in Gothenburg are. The result of the study indicates that it is legitimate to say that the city of Gothenburg are facing big issues with violent Islamic extremism. Contributing factors are, among many others, segregation, unemployment, low income, exclusion and individuals failure in work and education. Aspects such as propaganda in social media and networks of friends who think alike are expected to be two reasons why young individuals in Gothenburg have been radicalized. It is problematic to determine a typical case or stereotype of individuals in Gothenburg who have been radicalized or are in the risk zone of radicalization. However, some aspects such as a troublesome background and residing in a segregated suburbian area may increase the risk. The reason that the study focuses on violent Islamic extremism is that Swedish security police officials presently classify it as the most security threatening form of extremism in Sweden. The study focuses on Gothenburg due to the fact that it has been pointed out to be the hub for violent Islamic extremism in Sweden.

Research on Islamist movements in the Middle East and North Africa has tended to focus on leaders and ideologues to explain transformation over time. This thesis, however, is a political ethnography of the Tunisian al-Nahda movement that focuses on one city to present a fine-grained micro-study of the shifting trajectories of an Islamist organisation. The main original finding is that the relationship between politics and preaching in the practice of Islamism can be conflicting and irreconcilable, rather than cohesive and interdependent. By privileging the experiences of non-elite activists, this thesis also identifies informal networks, an individual reimagining of the Islamist project, and peripheral activism as explaining resilience under repression. It argues that al-Nahda has undergone strategic and intellectual adaptations, which have incurred costs, culminating in a decision in 2016 to separate the political party from social, religious, and cultural work. This thesis is based on fourteen months of fieldwork among current and former al-Nahda activists in the city of Sousse. It addresses the origins of the movement in Sousse to ask why the movement first emerged in the city and what mechanisms of mobilisation were deployed. It rethinks the politicisation of the movement in the 1980s to challenge previous assumptions that suggested the movement grew away from its preaching origins. The thesis addresses the effect of two decades of repression, excavating the prison experience and the period of social exclusion which followed and which disaggregated the movement into its constituent parts. It explains why the movement fragmented after 2011 even as activists rebuilt and redefined their project. In conclusion, the thesis accounts for the tension between politics and preaching within the movement, interrogates the party-movement separation of 2016, and asks what lessons similar Islamist experiences in the region might offer al-Nahda.

This thesis explores a new political phenomenon in the Middle East - the reconciliation of nationalism and Islamism by Islamic political parties in the context of nation states. Although the concept of religious nationalism has been discussed substantially before, as for example in Juergensmeyer (1993: 40) where the author defines religious nationalism as “the attempt to link religion and the nation-state”, this work highlights that a new brand of religious nationalism has emerged in the Middle East as the result of the intertwining of nationalism and Islamism. The focus of this study is, therefore, on the development of religious nationalism in the continuously tumultuous region of the Middle East. The aim of this researchis to investigate whether Islamism in Kurdistan is limited by the politics of nationalism, which is an accentuated example for the whole Middle East region. Furthermore, it should be noted that many of the religious nationalists themselves have not yet fully acknowledged the existence of the trend of merging between Islamism and nationalism. For instance, although the position of the Muslim Brotherhood of Kuwait, during the liberation of their state from the Iraqi regime, is a clear example of religious nationalism, all other affiliations of this organisation around the world at that time viewed the military operation as a foreign occupation. Highlighting this historical juncture in the political life of the Middle East by studying the Islamism in the Kurdistan region helped to elaborate on this new type of politics exceptionally well. This is essentially due to the absence of a politically recognised nation state which renders Kurds to be particularly susceptible to various manifestations of nationalism. The key finding of this project was, therefore, the notion that Islamism in Kurdistan has become significantly framed by the politics of nationalism.

abstract: Islamist groups in Somalia define themselves by their opposition. From the pre-Islamist movement of Mohammed Hassan in the nineteenth century to al-Itihaad al-Islaami in the twentieth to al-Shabaab in the twenty-first, Islamism exists as a form of resistance against the dominant power of the era. Furthermore these Islamist groups have all been influenced by the type of state in which they exist, be it colonial, independent, or failed. This work seeks to examine the relationship between the uniquely Somali form of Islamism and the state. Through use of historical records, modern media, and existing scholarship this dissertation will chart the development of Islamism in Somalia from the colonial period to the present and explore the relationship Somali Islamism has with various forms of state. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Religious Studies 2013

This diploma thesis analyzes the ideological basis of islamism and deals with the reasons, why this political ideology is becomimg more and more popular in the Middle East and the West. The thesis also analyzes the phenomenon of globalization, in other words the interconnection between islamists in today's world. The last chapter summarizes the facts about the civil war in Syria, where both - islamists from the Middle East, as well as islamists from the West, are involved. The main objective of this thesis was to prove that the civil war in Syria will have an influence on the spread of the political ideology of islamism.

Vi lever i en värld där människor rör sig mellan länder, där kulturella referenser möts, påverkar, sammanflätas och utvecklas med andra och där den ökade globaliseringen gör att jordens befolkning kommer allt närmre varandra. Samtidigt finns nationsgränser varigenom det upprätthålls och produceras normer och värderingar och därigenom riktlinjer för vad som kan ta sig uttryck samt på vilket sätt. Ökad migration till följd av flykt ifrån krig och förföljelse, en önskan om att leva under bättre levnadsvillkor, ökade försörjningsmöjligheter samt möjlighet att leva nära familj och släktingar har stor påverkan på den etniska sammansättningen i många länder. Som ett resultat av detta träffas människor med skilda uppfattningar och idéer, regelbundet möts människor som tänker olika, som ser olika ut och som lever på skilda sätt. Samhällen vari denna process äger rum förändras genom denna kontakt men även utifrån de bilder som överförs via media. Sveriges lagar styrs inte utifrån några religiösa betingelser men det finns fortfarande religiösa inslag i samhällsstrukturen som vilar på en kristen trosåskådning. Sedan invandringen till Sverige ifrån länder med muslimsk majoritet ökat har islam och muslimer kommit att omdebatteras trots att de utgör en minoritet i landet. Människors uppfattningar påverkas bland annat utifrån det massmedier väljer att förmedla, utgångspunkten för denna studie är att utforska de retoriska konstruktioner som förmedlas genom mediet tidning, specifikt Vestmanlands läns tidning, i sammanhang där islam och/eller muslimer omnämns. Genom att analysera ett 40-tal artiklar i tidningen kommer vi åskådliggöra vilka formuleringar, benämningar och ordval som används och som vi menar konstruerar bilder av den verklighet som skribenter och läsare är en del av. Vi kom fram till att vi på daglig basis försöker utmåla andra grupper än den egna med ondska, detta är problematiskt. Vi identifierar andra individer och grupper med ondskefulla värderingar och därigenom separerar vi oss själva från dem. Det är bland annat detta som får oss att känna ett inkluderande och därmed rättfärdigas avståndstagandet gentemot den andra gruppen vilket i sin tur leder till ökad polarisering. Resultatet visar på att den aktuella diskursen om muslimer och islam bibehålls genom att stereotypa uppfattningar repeteras och bekräftas i det massmediala rummet. Dessa uppfattningar vilar många gånger på ovetenskapliga belägg, det som framförs kan vara rena åsiktsyttringar med syfte till att sälja lösa artiklar

Cette thèse se focalise sur les différentes théories qui traitent de la genèse des partis politiques. Elle consiste, dans un premier temps, à faire un inventaire de ces théories pour ensuite les appliquer aux principaux partis sunnites islamistes du Pakistan - la Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), la Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), la Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP) et la Markazi Jamiat ahl-e-Hadith (MJAH). À travers cet exercice inédit, il s’agit d’évaluer la pertinence ou non de ces théories à expliquer la formation des partis confessionnels pakistanais. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Krisers utseende, omfång och konsekvenser tycks idag spegla människans globaliserade levnadssätt. Idag talar vi snarare om kriser som inte tar hänsyn till territoriella gränser utan drabbar multipla länder och ibland även kontinenter. Bland de gränsöverskridande hot som har sett en betydande ökning i världen är terrorism motiverad av våldbejakande islamism. I ljuset av terrorattentatet på Drottninggatan 2017 och utvecklingen i vår omvärld har dels förändringar av det befintliga ramverket ägt rum likväl som införandet av nya verktyg i det förebyggande arbetet mot våldsbejakande extremism. Med empirisk ansats granskar studien förändringarna som har ägt rum i samband med att Center mot våldsbejakande extremism (CVE) övertog samordningsansvaret 2018. Dessa förändringar begripliggörs med användning av Fiol och Lyles (1985) ramverk för organisatoriskt lärande. Studien påvisar att förändringarna i huvudsak har tagit form utifrån en lärandeprocess på låg nivå vilket har medfört anpassningar och justeringar av verksamheten sedan CVE inrättades. Därutöver har en viss normförskjutning ägt rum från den demokratifrämjande dimensionen mot en brottsbekämpande sådan vilket indikerar ett lärande på hög nivå och tycks vara en produkt av den förändrade omfattningen av våldsbejakande extremism i Sverige. Slutsatsen visar att den avsevärt förändrade hotbilden inte har givit upphov till en omfattande reformering av Sveriges samordning mot våldsbejakande extremism. Framtida kriser och hot av liknande komplex natur kommer vara mer vanligt förekommande i Sverige och övriga världen. Hur länder har lärt sig och kommer lära sig banar väg för hur väl de kan hanteras. Studien som helhet för samman gränsöverskridande hot och kriser med organisatoriskt lärande i syfte att dels fylla behovet av dels vetenskaplig men även samhällelig förståelse för de utmaningar som länders krisberedskap i allt högre utsträckning ställs inför.

Abstract - Islamist radicalization – A study of particular exposed areas  Islamist radicalization has emerged in Sweden over the past decade, mainly because of the terrorist attacks in Stockholm in 2010 and 2017, but also because of a strife of individuals who have been radicalized in Sweden and joined various terror networks around the world.  It is only in recent years that Swedish authorities have seriously addressed the problems that radicalization entails. Sweden has since then developed a national strategy with the aim of preventing and counteracting increasing radicalization, especially in vulnerable suburban areas. The authorities concerned have subsequently published a number of different writs with the aim of preventing and counteracting Islamist radicalization in exclusion areas. Since the phenomenon may be considered relatively new from a Swedish perspective, research in the area is limited. It is above all the Swedish National Defense College with its Center for Asymmetric Threats and Terrorism Studies that has driven Swedish research in the field.  This study aims to investigate the radicalization that takes place in particularly exposed areas with a focus on structural factors and their impact, which contributes to the need that Swedish authorities and expertise in the field demanded.  By conducting a qualitative analysis of previous theories in the field of Islamist radicalization, an analysis tool has been designed to indicate whether a specific area is at risk of suffering from islamist radicalization. This analysis tool consists of four structural factors and two criteria. The analysis tool has subsequently been applied through a multiple-case study on four districts in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö.  The result of the multiple-case study confirms the importance of the structural factors for individuals in these areas to be more susceptible to the influence of radical elements. In this investigation, these elements are the criteria’s stated in the analysis tool.  The analysis tool designed can probably be further developed by adding qualitative research methods to capture individual factors, which also affect the conditions for radicalization in an area. / Sammanfattning – Islamistisk radikalisering – En studie av särskilt utsatta områden  Islamistisk radikalisering har aktualiserats i Sverige under det senaste decenniet, framförallt på grund av terrordåden i Stockholm 2010 och 2017, men också på grund av en strid ström av individer som radikaliserats i Sverige och anslutit sig till olika terrornätverk världen över.  Det är först under de senaste åren som svenska myndigheter på allvar adresserat den problematik som radikaliseringen innebär. Sverige har sedan dess utvecklat en nationell strategi i syfte att förebygga och motverka en ökande radikalisering, framförallt i utsatta förortsområden. Berörda myndigheter har därefter utkommit med en rad olika skrivelser med målsättning att förebygga och motverka islamistisk radikalisering i utanförskapsområden. Då fenomenet får anses vara relativt nytt ur ett svenskt perspektiv är forskningen på området begränsad. Det är framförallt Försvarshögskolan med sitt Centrum för asymmetriska hot och terrorismstudier som drivit den svenska forskningen på området.  Denna studie syftar till att undersöka den radikalisering som sker i särskilt utsatta områden med fokus på strukturella faktorer och deras inverkan, vilket bidrar till det behov som svenska myndigheter och expertis på området efterfrågat.  Genom att genomföra en kvalitativ analys av tidigare teorier på området islamistisk radikalisering, har ett analysverktyg utformats för att indikera huruvida ett specifikt område löper risk att drabbas av islamistisk radikalisering. Detta analysverktyg består av fyra strukturella faktorer och två kriterier. Analysverktyget har därefter tillämpats genom en flerfallstudie på fyra stadsdelar i Stockholm, Göteborg och Malmö.  Resultatet av flerfallstudien bekräftar de strukturella faktorernas betydelse för att individer i dessa områden skall vara mer mottagliga för påverkan av radikala element. Dessa element utgörs i undersökningen av de kriterier som anges i analysverktyget.  Det analysverktyg som utformats kan sannolikt utvecklas ytterligare genom att addera kvalitativa undersökningsmetoder för att fånga individuella faktorer, som också påverkar förutsättningarna till radikalisering i ett område.

This examination criticises some of the main textual efforts within the self-identified politiography of Algeria that have attempted to help make the last twenty years of violent conflict in Algeria intelligible to Western audiences. It attends to the way in which particular representations of Algerian violence were problematised within, and cross-problematised with, prevailing international security discourses and practices, especially the concurrently emergent litterature on civil wars and armed humanitarian intervention. Unsatisfied with general international response to the conflict in Algeria in the 1990s, particularly the major massacres of 1997 and 1998, this study questions how certain problematisations were used to understand the violence and how those renderings contributed to the troubled relationship between the representation of mass violence in Algeria and international efforts to intervene against it. As a study in politiography, the primary object of analysis here is not the entire discursive field of Algerian violence but rather select yet influential scholarly texts within the genre of late Algerian violence. While these works helped co-constitute the broader discursive formations of Algerian violence that enabled its own representation as such, this examination does not necessarily address them vis-à-vis unique, superior or competing representations drawn from the traditionally privileged sites of initial discursive production of international security. The primary method of critique here is deconstructive in so far as it simply uses the texts — their arguments, their evidence and their archival logic — against themselves. Borrowing insights from currents in recent neopragmatist thought, this study seeks to reverse engineer some of the more dominant international problematisations of Algerian violence, so as to unearth the deeper politics of naming built into specific representations of Algeria and more generic frameworks of international security. After first exploring the conflict’s contested political and economic etiology (chapter three), as well as its disputed classification as a civil war (chapter four), this study closely examines the interpretations of the most intense civilian massacres, those that occurred between August 1997 and January 1998 (chapters five and six). How these representations resulted in the threat of (armed) humanitarian intervention are of particular concern (chapter seven), as are the ways in which foreign actors have attempted to historically contextualise Algeria’s alleged tradition and culture of violence (chapter eight). The aim is not to produce — though it cannot but help contribute to — a new history or account of the politics of the Algerian conflict and its internationalisation. The intent is first to underscore the inherent yet potentially auspicious dangers within all problematisations of mass violence. Secondly, it is to advocate for ironic forms of politiography, given the politics always-already embedded within acts of naming, particularly when it comes to questions of mass violence. A politiography that is able to appreciate the contingency of representation and intervention, and so underscores the need for a more deliberately and deliberative ethical and democratic politics of representation in the face of atrocity.