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Understanding the Islamic State’s competitive advantages: Remaking state and nationhood in the Middle East and North Africa
Abstract
While many researchers have examined the evolution and unique characteristics of the Islamic State (IS), taking an IS-centric approach has yet to illuminate the factors allowing for its establishment in the first place. To provide a clearer explanation for IS’s successes and improve analysts’ ability to predict future occurrences of similar phenomena, we analyze IS’s competitive advantages through the lens of two defining structural conditions in the Middle East North Africa (MENA): failure of state institutions and nationhood. It is commonly understood that the MENA faces challenges associated with state fragility, but our examination of state and national resiliency shows that Syria and Iraq yield the most deleterious results in the breakdown of the nation, suggesting that the combined failure of state and nation, as well as IS’s ability to fill these related vacuities, is a significant reason IS thrives there today. Against this backdrop, we provide a model of IS’s state- and nation-making project, and illustrate IS’s clear competitive advantages over all other state and non-state actors in both countries, except for Kurdish groupings. We conclude with recommendations on how policy-makers may begin halting and reversing the failure of both state and nation in Iraq and Syria.
... This occurs especially when militant groups representing exclusive nationalism in the name of the nation's self-defense. To summarize the above, one can refer to Pollard et al. 73 and Hagan et al. as analyzed what happened in Iraq post-2003 as follows: "The state lost sovereignty on part of its territory; the government lost either the identity as the sole legitimate executor of people's needs and its power as sole legitimate use of force. Now, anyone can notice the ability of non-state actorssuch as the militiasto impose political choices on the government. ...
... On June 29, 2014, IS proclaimed the establishment of a caliphate in areas straddling Iraq and Syria. It was, for a period, the most robust and adept insurgent force in Syria and Iraq, and by 2015, controlled a landmass and population larger than "many existing states, including approximately 12,000-35,000 square miles by some estimates and containing between 4-8 million people, making it roughly the 112 th largest state in the world, just ahead of Jordan in total land area" (Pollard, Polpack, andCasey 2015: 1046). Consequently, the nasheeds we analyzed have an upbeat and triumphalist tone. ...
he nonviolent activities of extremists have the capacity to shed important light on how such groups think and frame the world around them. This paper provides a comparative insight into the framing activities of Islamic State and white power (WP) groups through an analysis of the song lyrics that have emerged from these scenes. In doing so, we seek to understand the role that culture, particularly music, plays in constructing the worldview of both white supremacists and jihadists. Through analyzing song lyrics we explain how those writing and performing the music can shape the contexts in which participants operate. What emerges is that despite differences in the stated belief systems of Islamic State and white supremacists, the ways in which the underlying worldview is constructed is similar. Both focus on highlighting grievances and see their own in-group as facing real and prominent threats, often due to liberal values. Both see Jewish people as a corrupting force in the world, and both have a clear direction on overcoming such threats with direct calls to action. Both groups tap into global narratives against multiculturalism, globalization, and the global international order, which they view as inherently damaging to their own group interests.
... In order to successfully build that new state, the first step was to abolish the old states. The crux is that the Islamic State's aims were until 2017 far more ambitious than simply building a state, as claimed by Stacey Pollard et al. (2017Pollard et al. ( , 1046 it "seeks to supplant the region's state system." In practice, this meant that IS was able to deconstruct the territorial architecture which had been prevalent in the region since the end of World War I. ...
This article examines a category of parastatates that has been largely neglected; the terrorist parastate. The main aim of the article is to fill this gap by scrutinizing the case of the Islamic State (IS), an organization that could be considered as the epitome of a terrorist parastate. Before the collapse of its territorial strategy in 2019, the group had targeted a significant number of states through terrorist attacks, while simultaneously controlling large swathes of territory and developing state-like institutions. During its buoyant period, IS called itself a state (Dawla), it viewed itself as a state (accomplishing a religious obligation), and perhaps more significantly, it was often perceived as a state by its enemies. The article will discuss the future prospects for the Islamic State after the collapse of its territorial/statehood strategy. After conceptualizing the nature of the terrorist parastate, the article will venture into comparative uncharted territory through an examination of the terrorist parastate vis-Á-vis its ordinary secessionist counterparts. One of the chief dissimilarities is the fact that IS, and terrorist parastates in general, tend to be less durable projects than secessionist parastates because they lack international sponsorship and they are more susceptible to foreign military interventions.
... The power of ISIS originally depended on its seized territory and center of gravity, providing it with a competitive advantage over its rivals (Byman, 2016, p. 131;Pollard, Poplack, & Casey, 2015). Other than Al-Qaeda, for example, "ISIS, for all its barbarity, is both more pragmatic and more utopian. ...
Next to military means, causing disruption and interdiction, Western and local powers also relied on policies of containment to halt the expansion of the Islamic State’s territorial strongholds. Yet, a Cold War state-based strategy of containment seems not apt to counter a transformed Islamic State. This article, first, examines why containing the Islamic State was successful in the past. Second, the article argues that the Islamic State can still be contained if containment addresses the Islamic State’s hybrid nature rather than convulsively looking for the transferability of past containment aspects. In particular, this requires a focus on the struggle for power of the opponent and a foreign policy of restraint. Finally, the article proposes three angles to contain the Islamic State. Each angle exploits the persisting characteristics of the Islamic State as a revolutionary actor with internal contradictions and promulgating specific narratives which containment can engage.
... Islamic State has been approached from various angles, with some early works on its development pointing, among other things, to the impact of external powers on its rise, 5 or the steady conversion of Baathists to the Salafi-Jihadist side already before the American invasion of 2003, 6 while others have focused on the movement's own eschatological, apocalyptical, and utopian dimensions, 7 various socio-political 8 and psychological factors. 9 To this, one must add Maher's insightful work on Salafi-Jihadism, particularly on the implementation of tawhid (monotheism) as a central idea of such movements, among which he includes Islamic State. 10 Lastly, the important work by Gerges points to the importance of broken politics as well as of Abrahamic "fundamentalist ideology." ...
This paper uses the concept of totalism to analyze the main features of Islamic State and thus the implications of containing and confronting it and its potential future offshoots. The first part of the paper deals with the origins and concept of totalism, depicting its main features and types. This part begins by briefly showing the main features of totalism, why it must be ultimately differentiated from totalitarianism. The second part of the paper explores the extent to which Islamic State conforms to the model of a renovative totalist movement and why terms such as political religion are unsuited for explaining Islamist and Salafi-Jihadist movements, including Islamic State. Due to the overall direction of its ultimate ideological aims and the way in which it pursues the total reconstruction of public and private life, Islamic State is then found to contain the main features of a militant, renovative totalist movement. Lastly, the paper argues that it is primarily this totalist nature of the movement which, together with total commitment to emulating what it sees as the essential early Islamic traditions and examples, contributes to its long-term resilience even in the face of overwhelming odds and military reversals.
Theorists emphasize the significance of the conceptualizing phenomena before any quantification in the scientific work process. The role of analogy among all human-beings’ cognitive tools in the process of problem solving and concept creation is undeniable according to experts. Accordingly, this paper defines the analogy of “religion as brand” as an analogical model to shed light on political and religious marketing aspects of two terrorist organizations and religious brands in the Middle East. The concept of “ISIS and Al-Qaeda are sub-brands of Islam” was extracted from this metaphorical structure. The paper illuminates different branding attributes of these two terrorist groups through reviewing approximately fifty first-hand and second-hand materials on the issue. This review reveals how Islam functions as a master-brand and nourishes these two brands ideologically. The analogy entails a variety of attributes among which five aspects of branding including communication, brand mythology, competition, attracting social and symbolic capital, and brand promise are discussed and religious associations which endorse these two groups’ political functions are examined.
Women, from across the West, have increasingly joined Islamic extremist groups in a variety of roles. Why are women participating in movements which have a misogynistic and violent outlook? The dominant literature ascribes their motivations to conditions that make women vulnerable to extremist pulls. These include lack of marriage prospects, past experiences of sexual violence, and familial loss at the hands of ‘the enemy.’ This model of analysis sees the women as victims, rather than agents who determine their participation in extremism. Such an approach often locates women’s political motivations in a gendered private sphere, where their actions are determined by engagements with men. In contrast, the dominant descriptions of men’s religious extremism are situated through their political and public engagement as citizens. We argue that such a gendered binary does not provide a sufficient explanation of the political motivations of women who join Islamist extremist groups. Through a close reading of the Islamic State’s English-language propaganda materials, we explore how the group’s appeals to women rely on discourses of empowerment and agency. The Islamic State, we argue, reimagines Muslim women, not simply as mothers and wives, but as public agents of change in creating and shaping the global caliphate.
Öz Amerika Birleşik Devletleri'nin Irak'ı işgali sonrasında ortaya çıkan IŞİD (Irak Şam İslam Devleti) örgütü, Suriye ve Irak'ta kontrol ettiği toprakların büyüklüğü ve başta Ortadoğu'da olmak üzere, ABD, Avrupa ve Afrika gibi birçok farklı coğrafyada gerçekleştirdiği sansasyonel terör eylemleriyle dünya gündemine oturmuştur. Örgüt, bölgesel, küresel ve ideolojik ajandasını gerçekleştirebilmek için yoğun bir propaganda faaliyeti yürütmekte ve bu amaçla gerek geleneksel gerekse yeni medya araçlarını etkin bir şekilde kullanmaktadır. Propaganda, IŞİD tarafından bir "cihat" sahası olarak görülmekte, örgüt elindeki bütün imkânlarla savaşı bu yeni "cepheye" taşımaktadır. Birçoğu vahşet içerikli olan söz konusu propaganda faaliyetleri, örgütün sürekli olarak gündemde kalmasını sağlamaktadır. IŞİD, gerçekleştirdiği terör eylemleri ve bu eylemler üzerinden şekillendirdiği propaganda ile Batı'da yükselen İslamofobiye katkı sağlamaktadır. Stratejik anlamda son derece pragmatist bir yapı olan IŞİD, üretilen İslamofobiyi başta Batılı ülkelerde yaşayan Müslümanlar olmak üzere, örgüte yeni katılımcılar kazandırmada kullanmaktadır. Bu anlamda, IŞİD ile yükselen aşırı sağ ve İslamofobik oluşumlar arasında simbiyotik bir ilişki bulunmaktadır. Abstract The terrorist organization called IS (Islamic State), which emerged after the invasion of Iraq by the United States of America, has reached the center of attention by the size of the land it controlled in Syria and Iraq, as well as sensational terrorist attacks it performed in different places such the USA, Europe and Africa, but especially in the Middle-East. The organization is holding an extensive propaganda activity in order to realize its regional, global and ideological agenda, and with this purpose it effectively uses both traditional and new media tools. Propaganda is considered to be a field for "jihad" for IS, and the organization is carrying the war to this "front" with all of its resources. The propaganda activities most of which have violent content help the organization to constantly stay relevant. IS contributes to the Islamophobia that is rising in the West with the terrorist attacks it conducts and the propaganda that it shapes through these attacks. IS, which is a highly pragmatic structure in the strategic sense, uses the resulting Islamophobia for recruiting new members for the organization, especially from among Muslims living in Western countries. In this sense, there is a symbiotic relationship between IS and emerging far-right and Islamophobic movements.
Our article challenges a common discourse that terrorist groups are relatively disinterested in territory by exploring emerging theories about territory and territoriality. We use these theories to introduce a new conceptual model of the importance of territory for terrorism that contrasts a group's Sovereignty Claims over Territory (SCOT), which corresponds with the ultimate territorial aims of the group, with its Effective Control of Territory (ECOT), which relates to the ability of an organization to exert influence over a particular territory. Contrasting these dimensions of territory allows us to develop several archetypes of territorially-motivated terrorism. Our model predicts that, in contrast to common deterritorial discourses, truly non-territorial terrorism is likely to be quite rare as most groups engaged in violence have territorial ambitions in one way or another. We then use our model to interrogate the salience of territory to three representative cases: the Islamic State, ETA, and FARC-EP. Our analysis shows that territory remains a central motivating factor for these groups as their overall territorial aims tend to remain constant whereas their ability to control territory is more susceptible to change. We conclude by discussing the implications of our model and analysis for future research.
The Syrian civil war gave birth to a wide range of new generation VNSAs, among which ISIS as a global revolutionary nonethnic VNSA and the YPG as an ethnic and nationalist VNSA are the most visible. This article first intends to offer a comprehensive portrait of ISIS and the YPG as the new generation of VNSAs. Second, it employs a three-layered framework of actorness, powerfulness, and effectiveness in order to position these two actors in the Middle Eastern and Syrian contexts and to assess their distinctive characteristics and behaviors distinguishing them from the old generation VNSAs. Third, it will explore how the actorness, powerfulness, and effectiveness of ISIS and the YPG have been constructed and reconstructed within the deepening Syrian civil war. Finally, it will explore how global and regional actors have envisaged the rise of these two new VNSAs.
