No description available.

The current study is aimed at investigating the puzzle of why FPI (Islamic Defenders' Front) has chosen to adopt violent strategies within the democratic context of Indonesia. Much of literature on social movements suggests that democracy is inherently nonviolent because it allows social movements to use a number of reasonable tactics to pursue their goals. On the contrary, authoritarianism is considered to be the cause of the emergence of violent movements. However, a violent movement is not necessarily absent in the context of democracy. Using the language of Islam, justice and democracy, FPI (Islamic Defender's Front) conspicuously committed at least 64 cases of violent collective actions from 1998 to 2010. Three levels of analysis are used in order to investigate this social puzzle, namely the level of organization, individual characters and FPI's violent actions. Combining these three levels of analysis, this study found that the making of the violent Islamist movement (FPI) is complex and interconnected. First, there are at least four social environments that have led FPI to the adoption of violent means. They are the historical context of Islamist movements in Indonesia (1945-1998), the timing of violence by FPI, social support for FPI's violent actions and low state capacity. Second, there are at least four factors that relate to individuals and organization of FPI. They are FPI's encounter with so-called justified violence, FPI's engagement in violence-prone activities, fundamentalism and FPI's framing of its violent actions. Combining these factors has made FPI's violence become more persistent in the new democratic context of Indonesia. Consequently, despite the fact that democracy inhibits political violence, democracy may also allow the use of violent means by social movements. In doing so, democracy opens an opportunity for people, especially elites, to support the cause of violence. Therefore, this can undermine the government's will to fully suppress the violent movement. In addition, there are other significant factors, other than state repression, that also facilitate violence, such as a movement's choice to engage in violence-prone activities, low state capacity, a good timing of violence (cultural resources) and a good framing of violence.

This doctoral thesis examines the impact of moderate Islamist parties on party system institutionalization in Turkey. Its focus is on the political emergence of ‘Muslim-Democrat’ parties. This term was coined by the scholar Vali Nasr and refers to a new sub-type of party actor in the spectrum of political Islam that employs Islamic religiousity in its electoral appeal but operates within the normative framework of liberal democracy. The central question driving this thesis is to uncover how Turkey’s Muslim-Democrat parties have had a positive effect in advancing the institutionalization of Turkey’s party system. This thesis attempts to contribute to the broader debate regarding the compatibility of Islamist parties and democratic politics in demonstrating that the former, when adopting a moderate format akin to the ‘Muslim-Democrat’ ideal type, can have a positive effect in advancing processes of party system institutionalization. This effect would then be critically discussed within the context of its impact on broader democratic consolidation. The AKP, Turkey’s incumbent party, is chosen as the case study of a Muslim Democrat party. The theoretical basis for the empirical element of this thesis is informed by the research framework for party system institutionalization that was formulated by Mainwaring and Scully in the context of Latin American ‘third-wave’ democracies. They posit four specific factors to examine the institutional strengths of democratic party systems. This framework is used to examine the development of the Turkish party system and the impact of the Islamist parties, especially Muslim-Democrat parties, on these processes. The bulk of this thesis uses statistical analyses of aggregate electoral as well as attitudinal survey data as well as examining the political discourse of the election manifestoes of Turkey’s Islamist and Muslim-Democrat parties using content analysis as well as discourse analysis. The findings of this analysis conclude that Muslim-Democrat parties like the AKP have indeed contributed towards party system institutionalization in Turkey both in terms of stabilizing inter-party competition and social rootedness as well as increasing the legitimacy of democratic civilian politics. In that sense, their effect on party system institutionalization has had a beneficial effect on Turkey’s democratic consolidation.

Terrorism is a multi-dimensional phenomenon that encompasses elements of politics, economics, social, and ideology, driving people to commit violent acts and become involved in such activity. As of today, the existence and latent threat of Islamist terrorism still inflict global society with formidable challenges, and one way to overcome such challenges is by leveraging our knowledge on the multi-dimensional, determining factors/elements that lead people to commit terrorist attacks and other radical-related activities. In other words, as our struggle against terrorism is a global endeavour that may last a generation or more, leveraging our knowledge on such multi-dimensional, determining factors/elements will increase our understanding of the underlying causes and patterns that continue to inspire jihadist terrorism. However, it is wrong to equate the religion of Islam with terrorism. Perhaps most importantly, the Islamic tradition is all-encompassing, combining religious and secular life and law. This surely complicates attempts to understand the Islamist ideology and counter-measures to it solely through the lens of traditional Western political science. Therefore, a distinction must be made between the religion of Islam and a set of often-conflicting political ideologies known as Islamism, where many forms of them are non-radical, reformists or gradualists. That is why, Islamist extremists who advocate acts of terrorism may be properly termed Islamist terrorists, who seek to cloth their acts in the trappings of the Islamic religion. In this case, they use their own religious-based arguments to justify their violent acts. This Ph.D. thesis examines the multi-dimensional factors that lead to the existence and latent threat of Islamist terrorism in Indonesia by focusing on the individuals who committed series of deadly terrorist attacks from 2002 – 2009 and some other radical-related activities in Indonesia until 2017. Such factors encompass at least the economic grievances, social grievances, political grievances, radical ideology, social network, state repression (“stick”), and government incentive (“carrot”), all which are the key variables in determining the existence and latent threat of Islamist terrorism. Through a systematic, multi-dimensional analysis using qualitative and quantitative research methodologies (including the social network analysis), this Ph.D. thesis will specifically examine what factors drove people with the association to Jemaah Islamiya (JI) and radical-Islamist movements to commit and become involved in terrorist attacks? and why and how might such factors/elements influence these people to commit terrorist attacks in the future? The combined qualitative, quantitative, and social network analysis in this Ph.D. thesis has proven and confirmed the main hypothesis, where the existence and latent threat of Islamist terrorism in Indonesia are indeed caused by the intertwining interaction of these multi-dimensional factors instead of being otherwise. The ideological-related variables followed by the social network-related ones are proven as the two most significant factors in the pattern of Islamist terrorism in Indonesia. In other words, the set of economic, social, and political grievances will not cause Islamist terrorism in Indonesia to occur if there are no intervening variables: the social network and radical ideology being involved in the equation. Subsequently, the other two moderating variables also play its own role, namely the state repression and the government incentive. According to various examinations of multivariate statistical analysis in this Ph.D. thesis, these two variables on their own will not cause the Islamist terrorism to occur in Indonesia, but when combined with the existence of social network and radical ideology, these two variables are proven as the moderating variables to exacerbate the occurrence of Islamist terrorism in Indonesia. In conclusion, by looking at this current pattern, it could be predicted that Indonesia herself is still likely to become both the producer and battlefield of global-Islamist terrorism in near future. Therefore, the Indonesian national counterterrorism policy and strategy need to be updated and well integrated with the Indonesian national policy and grand strategy to better address the existence and latent threat of Islamist terrorism in the archipelago.

This submission includes two studies, based primarily on the use of historical archives, of the Afghan wars from 1978 and the Iraq War from 2003. Breeding Ground: Afghanistan and the Origins of Islamist Terrorism (2011) is a study of various layers of the Afghan conflict: the 1978 communist coup; the 1979 Soviet invasion and America’s proxy war against the Soviet occupying forces in the 1980s; and the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s. It shows how Islamist groups allied to the West against Soviet and Afghan communism turned into enemies of the United States, with consequences including the September 11, 2001 attacks, President George W. Bush’s retaliation against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the invasion of Iraq. Overcoming the Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan (2010) is an analysis of the George W. Bush presidency in terms of its “war on terror.” The books thus study the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts in the context of United States foreign policy, with particular emphasis on the interests, actions and motives of actors in the conflicts and the interactions between internal and external actors. The central argument is that these factors contributed to the development of a “culture of violence,” defined as that “condition in which violence permeates all levels of society and becomes part of human thinking, behavior and way of life,” and how this provided space for “terrorist” groups to operate.

The submitted thesis seeks to answer the question "Is the relationship between Islam and terrorism uniquely determined?". It is divided into three parts. The first chapter aims to define the term terrorism, with the associated basic facts, as well as the progressive historical development. The second part is concerned with the theme of the youngest monotheistic religion - Islam. Besides the phasing its history, it includes the fundamental realities connected to it. The final chapter unifies the theory contained in the previous two sections with practice and illustrates it on the various examples of terrorist acts. The main objective is to answer the hypothesis stated in the introduction of work.

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

No description available.

The main purpose of this study is to understand the organizational structures of Islamist/Islamic women&rsquo / s NGOs and explain the network mechanisms of them in the context of new social movements. This study is based on a social movement research / thus, both organizational structures and network mechanisms of Islamist/Islamic women&rsquo / s NGOs are explained and analyzed in terms of the features of new social movements, to answer the question of &lsquo / whether Islamist/Islamic women&rsquo / s NGOs are potential and possible actors of a possible Islamist/Islamic women&rsquo / s movement in Turkey&rsquo / . The fieldwork of the present study was conducted on Islamist/Islamic women&rsquo / s NGOs, which were selected according to a purposive sampling. 4 NGOs were selected, of which founders and the active members are all Islamist/Islamic women, from 4 cities of Turkey, One NGO was selected from each city. The semi-structured interviews and deep interviews were the main data collection techniques used to get information about their organizational structures and network mechanisms. The responses were analyzed through the issues of organizational diversities, three different levels of network mechanisms, and networking types in the context of formation a new social movement. As network mechanisms, the three levels of networks defined in the study: relations with the state and local governments, networks with the NGOs outside the sampling group and networks among the NGOs inside the sampling group, in the framework of the role and potential of Islamist/Islamic women&rsquo / s NGOs to form an Islamist/Islamic women&rsquo / s movement.

The thesis examines the extent to which the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) as an Islamic, theocratic and social movement has negotiated and adapted to the British context, especially London in the post 7/7 period. TJ is the largest Islamic movement in the word and is characterised as an isolationist, disengaged, salvation oriented, apolitical organisation. The London branch of TJ has ambitions to construct a headquarter mosque in London – a project facing opposition across a spectrum of British society, and brandished as the “mega mosque”. As a means of ensuring the success of their project, London TJ leaders have embarked on a process of socio-political engagement aiming to demonstrate that the movement has changed its modes of operation, and trying to curtail allegations of radicalisation, after reports of terrorists passing through TJ mosques. Extensive observation research and interviews with TJ leaders, grassroots members and others involved in the on going contestation of the project, explain the adoption of the new strategy from the perspective of an elite and instrumentally aware leadership. In essence how the new strategy has been justified and re-framed, making it acceptable to a wider audience. The Public Inquiry over Enforcement Action of TJ’s mosque in Newham allowed for both TJ and opponents to highlight wider issues surrounding TJ and its stance towards engagement and commitment to community cohesion. Engagement may have initially been a tick-box exercise for London TJ leaders, but interacting with the wider community has had a transformative effect. TJ Leaders in London have emerged as a practical minded, demonstrating adaptability to local contexts, ensuring the survival of the movement. The durability of this, given the conservative and revivalist nature of the movement, will be a test of time.