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Hamas as social Movement

January 2004

Authors:

Naval Postgraduate School

The Harakat al-Muqawima al-Islamiyya (Islamic Resistance Movement), better known as Hamas, has elicited distinct reactions from American policymakers and academics. In official circles, Hamas is considered a straightforward terrorist group. Despite A rab protests that Hamas is a legitimate movement of national liberation, this Palestinian group is regularly listed in the U.S. State Department's annual report on terrorist groups. Consistent with this official view, the Bush administration imposed newly authorized sanctions against Hamas in November 2001. Such sanctions, which focus on preventing terrorist groups from engaging in various financial transactions, were promulgated in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, tragedies. The justification for including Hamas on the terrorist list centers on the actions of the military wing of Hamas, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and its record of purposefully targeting Israeli civilians in violent attacks.

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The Harakat al-Muqawima al-Islamiyya (Islamic Resistance Movement), bet-

ter known as Hamas, has elicited distinct reactions from American policy-

makers and academics. In of¤cial circles, Hamas is considered a straight-

forward terrorist group. Despite Arab protests that Hamas is a legitimate

movement of national liberation, this Palestinian group is regularly listed in

the U.S. State Department’s annual report on terrorist groups. Consistent

with this of¤cial view, the Bush administration imposed newly authorized

sanctions against Hamas in November 2001. Such sanctions, which focus on

preventing terrorist groups from engaging in various ¤nancial transactions,

were promulgated in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, tragedies. The

justi¤cation for including Hamas on the terrorist list centers on the actions of

the military wing of Hamas, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and its rec-

ord of purposefully targeting Israeli civilians in violent attacks.

Without regard to the somewhat stale argument about “one man’s terrorist

is another man’s freedom ¤ghter,” the of¤cial U.S. position is problematic for

two reasons. First, by labeling Hamas a terrorist group, the government ig-

nores most of what Hamas actually does. Hamas is a social movement with

thousands of activists and hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of Pales-

tinian sympathizers, and it engages in extensive political and social activities

far removed from suicide bombers. Second, it is always problematic to speak

of terrorist groups (or states), as opposed to groups (or states) that peri-

odically use acts of terror for tactical political reasons. By understanding ter-

rorism in tactical terms rather than as a genetic group attribute, rational

responses become potentially more effective and less obviously politically

hypocritical.

Recent academic work on Hamas has been much more sensitive to these

112

Four

Hamas as Social Movement

Glenn E. Robinson

nuances. For example, books by Khaled Hroub (2000), Ziad Abu-Amr (1994),

and Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela (2000) (two Palestinians and two Is-

raelis) have presented a comprehensive picture of Hamas to the English-

speaking world. While still recognizing the role of violence, these authors

provide much more robust empirical analyses of the totality of Hamas. In-

deed, instead of building a wall between Hamas’s popular work and its vio-

lence, these authors depict the dynamic and often reinforcing relationship be-

tween both facets. If there is a weakness to this emerging body of work, it is

a lack of conscious theory, whether political sociology or political economy

(though building empirical knowledge of Hamas obviously must precede

theoretical conclusions).

This chapter attempts to build on the empirical knowledge provided by

these authors, as well as my own ¤eldwork, by interpreting these data through

social movement theory. Applying social movement theory allows us not only

to understand Hamas better but also to “deorientalize” Hamas by recogniz-

ing that it shares the main features of many social movements around the

world. Understanding that many—perhaps most—“terrorist” groups are far

more complex social movements than typical de¤nitions permit has signi¤-

cant theoretical and policy implications.

This essay is divided into three sections. The ¤rst section constitutes a

brief overview of the social movement theory framework utilized in this

chapter. The second section presents a short history of Hamas since its birth

in 1988 in the midst of the ¤rst Palestinian Intifada (1987–1993). The third

section explicitly applies social movement theory to Hamas through an ex-

amination of its political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and cultural

framings.

Structure, Agency, and Framing

Social movement theory (SMT) has emerged as a sort of middle ground ap-

proach in analyzing episodes of contentious collective actions, falling between

structuralist and rational choice schools.1 As ¤gure 4.1 depicts, the two vari-

ables that distinguish these analytical approaches are unit of analysis and level

of volunteerism.

In general, these three analytical approaches emphasize different units of

analysis. Structural theories tend to have large units of analysis, generally fo-

cusing on states and the international system to explain large episodes of col-

lective action. Perhaps the best-known state-centered approach to explaining

revolutions is Theda Skocpol’s States and Social Revolutions (1979). Similarly,

changes in the international system have also been employed to explain revo-

lutionary violence, from dependency models to current work on the impact of

globalization on collective political violence (Wallerstein 1990; Barber 1995).

Hamas as Social Movement

113

In structural models, understanding large outcomes, such as social revolution,

can only be accomplished by analyzing changes in large units.

Rational choice (or public choice) theory is at the other end of the unit of

analysis spectrum. In general, rational choice theory denies the explanatory

ef¤cacy of units of analysis other than the individual. For rational choice

theorists, structural analyses are often viewed as tautological or, perhaps

more generously, as frameworks that explain nothing in their attempt to ex-

plain everything. For such theorists, states, systems, and groups do not make

choices; only individuals do, and modeling individual choices in strategic

relationships with other individuals is the preferred analytical approach to

understanding collective action, including revolutions. The central analytical

question in this school is how collective action overcomes the “free rider”

problem through selective incentives and group size.2

Figure 4.1. Comparative Analyses of Contentious Collective Action

Glenn E. Robinson

114

By contrast, SMT generally focuses on groups as the proper unit of analy-

sis in explaining collective action. While recognizing that individuals make

strategic choices, social movement theorists contend that such choices are not

made in a vacuum outside of the changing contexts, relations, and networks

in which people actually live. Since individual decision making cannot be

understood outside of a group-social context, the group is the proper unit

of analysis.3 Similarly, social movement theorists recognize the importance

of structural change in creating the conditions necessary for collective ac-

tion. Indeed, such structural change is a prime component in the creation of

political opportunities, one of SMT’s triad of variables. However, it is not

enough to understand episodes of large collective action only through the lens

of structural change. One must also understand how people act within the

parameters of such change. In other words, not all similar structural changes

lead to similar political outcomes; how groups take advantage of change is

critical to understanding the difference in outcomes.

Differences in what is considered the proper unit of analysis in under-

standing large collective action re®ect philosophical differences about the

role of agency, or volunteerism, in explaining signi¤cant political outcomes.

Structuralists generally deny that purposeful human actions account in any

meaningful way for large political outcomes. As Theda Skocpol has argued,

“The point is simply that no single acting group, whether a class or an ideo-

logical vanguard, deliberately shapes the complex and multiply determined

con®icts that bring about revolutionary crises and outcomes. The French

Revolution was not made by a rising capitalist bourgeoisie or by the Jacobins;

the Russian Revolution was not made by the industrial proletariat or even by

the Bolshevik party” (1994, 200). As George Lichtheim (1964) argued fa-

mously in “From Finland Station,” Lenin may have been important when

one limits one’s views to the events in Russia in 1917 and immediately there-

after, but he made little difference in the larger and historically necessary

trend of state-led industrialization in Russia.

Conversely, rational choice theorists understand history as the sum total of

millions of strategic choices made by individuals. Such an approach is com-

parable to understanding a country’s total economic output as equal to the

sum total of millions of individual transactions. Individual agency, or volun-

teerism, therefore plays a foundational role in rational choice approaches to

understanding collective action (and many other phenomena). There have

been only limited academic attempts to ¤nd a synthesis between the contrast-

ing logics of decision-making in rational choice theory and structuralism

(e.g., Goldstone 1994).

SMT again takes a middle road on the question of volunteerism. It argues

that while structural changes outside the control of any individual provide for

changing opportunity structures, they do not dictate outcomes. Similarly,

SMT accepts that agency is important, but only in the social context in which

Hamas as Social Movement

115

it transpires. In other words, agency is clearly restricted and must be under-

stood as such.4

Social movement theory tends to utilize three variables in its case studies

(and SMT is most often applied to individual case studies, such as in this

chapter). First, SMT seeks to analyze how changes in political opportu-

nity structures impact the acceleration or deceleration of collective action.

Changes in opportunity structures can come from various sources, including

changes in international structures (e.g., globalization, the demise of the

USSR, attention or inattention by foreign powers), regime or government

change at home, domestic policy or legal changes, or changes within the

group itself. The second SMT variable focuses on mobilizing structures for

the group in question. Mobilizing structures vary from the formal (e.g., po-

litical parties) to the informal (e.g., informal urban networks) to the illegal

(e.g., underground terrorist cells). It is through these structures that move-

ments recruit like-minded individuals, socialize new participants, overcome

the free rider problem, and mobilize contention. The third variable is “cul-

tural framing.” Unlike the other two analytical approaches, SMT takes cul-

tural issues seriously, but more in an ideological-tactical sense than is typi-

cally found in primordial understandings. In SMT, culture is conceptualized

as multitiered. First, every society has a variety of stories, symbols, and his-

tories that make up something of a collective cultural toolbox (Swidler 1986).

Different groups privilege different sets of tools, and the various interpreta-

tions and uses of cultural tools often directly contradict one another. For ex-

ample, the political meaning of Hussein’s “martyrdom” in Shi"i Islam—its

central passion play—has been bitterly contested over the centuries. Some

ideologues interpreted it as a call for political quiescence in the face of unjust

state power, while others (like Ayatollah Khomeini) asserted an activist inter-

pretation that calls for confrontations with unjust authority no matter the

consequences. Different tools are put together in different ways, creating a set

of contrasting ideologies and sets of meanings in any given society. The

American cultural toolbox can be used to create authentic ideologies as di-

verse as black nationalism and Christian fundamentalism.

The framing of issues occurs within the context of competing ideologies.

In a sense, framing is the bumper-sticker version of how issues get inter-

preted within a certain ideological context. When done effectively, issue fram-

ing can be done with very few words. The U.S. debate on abortion rights can

be summarized—framed—in single words that evoke intense emotions on

either side: pro-choice or pro-life. In the Arab world, Islamists have simi-

larly framed their platform with a minimum of verbiage. The most common

example is the statement that “Islam is the solution” (al-Islam huwa al-hall)

to virtually any problem or issue in society. By simply (or simplistically)

framing issues, potential recruits need not understand the full ideology of the

movement as the leading cadres do. Armed with the Cliffs Notes version of

Glenn E. Robinson

116

complex ideologies, recruits can effectively do battle in a simpler Manichaean

world.

In sum, social movement theory claims a methodological middle ground

between structural and rational choice models of contentious collective ac-

tion. By utilizing groups as the primary unit of analysis, as well as suggesting

that volunteerism is important but constrained, social movement theory pro-

vides a bridge between structuralism and rational choice. Critics might claim

that in so doing, SMT ends up sacri¤cing theoretical rigor and clarity and

ends up as a “laundry list” approach to explaining collective action. Propo-

nents of SMT might counter that this approach actually is a synthesis of the

best of structural analysis and rational choice insights, thereby providing a

fuller, more robust explanation of contentious collective action.

The Social and Institutional Roots of Hamas

Islamism, including the Hamas variant, is an essentially modern phenome-

non. It is strongly urban in its physical orientation; it is led by Western-

educated cadres with little clerical involvement; and it is at ease using modern

technology to advance its cause. This reality is far different from the popular

portrayals of such groups as antimodern movements of rage led by those who

are intent on turning back the historical clock to a mythical past. The recent

prominence of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan has not helped matters,

since it seems to ¤t a stereotype that is inaccurate in most cases. Islamist

cadres are more often than not ¤rmly entrenched in modern society. That is,

they have modern, secular educations (often having studied in Europe or

North America), live in urban areas (usually capital cities), and are young

(generally in their twenties and thirties). Often their studies are in technical

¤elds, such as engineering or medicine. They are almost never students of

religious jurisprudence, and most have not studied in religious schools. In

other words, leaders of the Islamist movements in the Middle East have vir-

tually the same social pro¤les as those who, a generation earlier, agitated in

favor of Ba"thism, Nasserism, and Arab socialism.

There should be nothing surprising in the fact that Islamist leaders have

their roots in modern society. The intellectual vanguards—those who mold

the ideology and provide the leadership—of most revolutionary movements,

as Michael Walzer has argued, share similar, nontraditional backgrounds: “By

and large, while classes differ fundamentally from one revolution to another,

vanguards are sociologically similar. They are recruited from middling and

professional groups. The parents of the recruits are gentlemen farmers, mer-

chants, clerics, lawyers, petty of¤cials. Recruitment begins at school, not in the

streets, or in shops and factories, or in peasant villages” (1979, 31).

The Islamist leadership of the revolution in Iran is instructive on this

point. It should be remembered that those clerics, such as Ayatollahs Khomeini

Hamas as Social Movement

117

and Taleqani, who were critical to the success of the revolution had bases of

support outside the traditional religious institutions and cities of learning in

Iran. Khomeini, of course, had been in exile from 1964 to 1979. Taleqani and

other politically active clergy (who constituted a small minority of the ulama

before 1978) had built their network of hard-core supporters largely from fel-

low prisoners in the shah’s jails and from alienated university students. It is

important to note that the most important revolutionary clerics were based in

Tehran, not Qom, Mashhad, or other religious cities in Iran. Nor did they

come from provincial capitals.

However, the core cadres of the revolution in Iran were not the ulama but

the radical lay Islamists. The social pro¤le of these cadres was often young

(twenties and thirties), urban (mostly Tehran), and well educated (studied at

secular universities in Iran or the West). Frequently, they were followers of

Ali Shariati, an intellectual who blended Marxist concerns for social justice

with Islamic themes of authenticity. Thus, while the traditional religious stra-

tum gained much of the credit for the revolution in Iran, the lay Islamists—

who are characterized by the same pro¤le described by Walzer above and

very much a product of modern society—were the activists, the organization

builders, and the bridge to whole strata of society not enamored of clerical

politics. The fact that this sociological group splintered after the revolution

does not alter the fact of its earlier centrality.

Other examples of the essentially modernist roots of Islamism abound. The

Tanzim al-Jihad group in Egypt, responsible for, among other things, the as-

sassination of Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat in 1981, also ¤ts this de-

scription (Guenena 1986; Ansari 1984; Ibrahim 1980). In the 1980s, nearly 70

percent of Jihad’s members were either students or professionals. Over 77

percent were between the ages of 20 and 30. And a disproportionate num-

ber had studied engineering at secular universities.5 In Algeria, nearly every

leader of the Islamic Salvation Front came from the capital city of Algiers and

had a higher degree in a technical subject, such as chemical engineering.

Many had studied at top universities in France.

Manfred Halpern was right to suggest 40 years ago that political power in

the Middle East was increasingly being seized by a salaried “new middle

class” of “managers, administrators, teachers, engineers, journalists, scien-

tists, lawyers, or army of¤cers.” It is a “class of men inspired by nontradi-

tional knowledge, clustered around a core of salaried civilian and military

politicians, organizers, administrators, and experts” (1963, 52). Clearly, while

this class did seize power through the army in a number of Arab countries,

the relatively liberal scenarios Halpern forecast have not materialized.

What I am suggesting here is that the Islamist leadership in the Middle

East is very much a component of the new middle class that Halpern de-

scribed. However, its ideological framework runs counter to what Halpern and

other proponents of modernization theory predicted. Modern Western educa-

Glenn E. Robinson

118

tion was supposed to breed greater secularization in the new middle class.

But, for a number of reasons, signi¤cant segments of the new middle class

have used Islamist ideologies, not secular-based ones, to address concerns of

social justice, political power, and the distribution of resources. Such are the

ideologies of authenticity (Ajami 1981).

Even with the exigencies of life under Israeli occupation, the same cleavage

was produced in the Palestinian middle classes in the West Bank and Gaza

Strip: a dominant secular ideology of nationalism and an in®uential Islamist

rival. It is important to remember that the leaders of both camps came from

more or less the same social backgrounds that Walzer described above. There

were class cleavages within the nationalist and Islamist camps but not between

the leadership strata. The main ¤ssure in the Palestinian new middle class

was along ideological, not class, lines. Ideology, in this case, should not be

construed as epiphenomenal or as a mask to advance material class interests.

However, how that ideology was put into practice—or, more precisely, who put

the ideology into practice—within each of the large ideological groupings did

often parallel class lines.

Palestinian Islamism emerged for many of the same reasons as other Is-

lamist movements that appeared at the same time. The general reasons are

well known and much analyzed elsewhere: the failure of secular Arab regimes

to build strong economies and open polities, the demonstration effect of the

1978–1979 Islamist revolution in Iran, and the regional impact of oil money

from Saudi Arabia and other conservative Gulf states, all of which were criti-

cal in propelling Islamist thought forward.

Causes speci¤c to Israel also helped build Palestinian Islamism, especially

the Likud Party’s 1977 rise to power with its strong messianic message. In

addition to its antagonistic policies in the West Bank and Gaza, the Likud’s

ideology helped frame the con®ict in religious—as opposed to nationalist—

terms, coinciding with and bolstering Islamist tendencies. Moreover, Israeli

policies beginning in the early 1980s assisted the Muslim Brotherhood or-

ganization in the West Bank and Gaza, primarily by providing political space

to organize and mobilize. Israel viewed the secular Palestine Liberation Or-

ganization (PLO) as its main enemy in the occupied territories and followed

a “divide and conquer” strategy of pitting the Islamists against the secularist

Palestinians. In this regard, Israel was no different from many other Arab

regimes, which initially supported Islamist movements as a counterweight to

the more serious secular opposition. Israel’s policy was largely effective be-

cause Islamist-PLO relations became more strained in the 1980s.

Before Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement was dominated by the

Muslim Brotherhood organization. Founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hasan al-

Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood was an active opponent of many of the secu-

lar state policies adopted in the Arab world, in addition to Western colonial-

ism and Zionism (Mitchell 1969). During its ¤rst 50 years, the Muslim

Hamas as Social Movement

119

Brotherhood was illegal in most countries, including Egypt, and was often

harshly suppressed because of its politics and various assassination attempts.

In Egypt, the movement was gradually co-opted by the upper stratum of the

merchant class, which supported the concept of passive social Islamization

and amiable ties with the regime. In part as a response to this trend in the

Muslim Brotherhood—strongly encouraged under the leadership of Umar al-

Tilmisani in the 1970s—more radical Islamist groups arose in Egypt, seek-

ing to overthrow the state and kill the state’s “apostate” leadership.6 Unlike

Egypt, Jordan generally tolerated the Muslim Brotherhood’s political activi-

ties. In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood was the only continuously legal politi-

cal organization in the West Bank when Jordan controlled the area from 1948

to 1967.7 While under Jordanian authority, the Muslim Brotherhood generally

limited its political activities to its social agenda. That is, it advocated the

gradual Islamization of society through education and adherence to Islamic

principles, especially those encoded in the shari"a, or Islamic law.

The differences between Egyptian and Jordanian policies toward the Mus-

lim Brotherhood between 1948 and 1967 go a long way toward explaining the

disparate state of affairs for the Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip and

West Bank under Israeli rule following 1967. The fact that Nasser outlawed

the Muslim Brotherhood gave its activists in the Gaza Strip experience in

building decentralized and clandestine organizations. In contrast to the secre-

tive and militant forms of Islamism in Gaza under Egyptian rule, the lawful

status of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Jordan-annexed West Bank put no

premium on clandestine organizational talents. In addition, since Jordan did

not permit cross-border violence against Israeli targets, there was no tradition

of armed militancy against Israel in the West Bank, as opposed to the expe-

rience of the Gazan branch. Whereas the Gazan Muslim Brotherhood mi-

grated to Fatah in the late 1960s, the West Bank Brotherhood politically

stayed put, as that organization was technically illegal but widely indulged by

Israeli authorities. Thus, ties between Islamist and nationalist organizations

in Gaza have historically been very strong, while those ideologically differen-

tiated organizations in the West Bank have remained isolated.

In part because of these very different histories and orientations, the Mus-

lim Brotherhood in Gaza and the West Bank never formed a common organi-

zational link. Even after the two remaining parts of Palestine were reunited

under a common military occupation in 1967, the West Bank Brotherhood

members continued to be associated with their colleagues in Jordan, not

Gaza, while those in Gaza were generally independent of outside ties.

In spite of both the harshness of military occupation and the persistent

rhetorical attacks by nationalists on the seeming ideological acquiescence to

the occupation by the Muslim Brotherhood, the leadership of the Brother-

hood remained committed to the primacy of social Islamization, not confron-

tation with Israel. For the ideologues of the Muslim Brotherhood, it was im-

Glenn E. Robinson

120

possible to separate Israel from a larger campaign by the West to discredit and

undermine Islam; it was equally impossible to politically differentiate Pales-

tinian Muslims from the greater Islamic world. At base, then, the question of

Palestine for the Muslim Brotherhood was essentially an Islamic problem and

had to be addressed in those terms. For the Muslim Brotherhood, Palestine

had been lost in large measure as God’s punishment for turning away from

Islam. The logical ¤rst step in its recovery was for Palestinians to return to

Islam, and only after that could Israel be confronted effectively.

The relatively passive policies adopted by the Muslim Brotherhood leader-

ship vis-à-vis Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza—the

Islamization process could go on inde¤nitely—put the Brotherhood under in-

tense pressure from the nationalist camp. The Brotherhood was often ridi-

culed for its inaction in the face of occupation. Such arguments and pressure

were especially intense on university campuses, where student elections fre-

quently centered on the subject. Despite its generally strong showing in uni-

versity elections, the Islamist bloc was clearly on the ideological defensive

throughout the occupied territories in the decade leading up to the Intifada.

The sharp attacks by the nationalists on the political implications of Brother-

hood policies increasingly affected student activists within the Islamist move-

ment.

The Islamist movement began to divide along class and ideological lines

in the 1980s, a ¤ssure that pitted the old elite of the Muslim Brotherhood

against an activist middle stratum. In terms of social class, the leadership

of the Muslim Brotherhood tended to be urban, upper-middle-class mer-

chants. In addition to being generally more well-to-do than their followers,

the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood had very close ties—including ¤nan-

cial ones—with a number of conservative Arab states, principally Saudi Ara-

bia, Kuwait, and Jordan.

Because of its economic stake in the status quo, the leadership of the Mus-

lim Brotherhood in the occupied territories could in no way be construed as

revolutionary. The Islamist ideology it propagated, unlike those of Ayatollah

Khomeini, Sayyid Qutb, or Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj, re®ected the

Brotherhood elite’s concern with not unduly disrupting the social and politi-

cal order. Not surprisingly, the leadership of the Brotherhood constructed

various alliances with non-Brotherhood notables and other wealthy business-

men and came to their defense when they were criticized by nationalists for

political quiescence.

However, because of the Brotherhood’s recruiting strategies in the 1980s,

a middle stratum of activists developed that opposed the leadership’s poli-

cies. Recruitment focused on high school and college students, teachers, and

youths from camps and villages, and tended to stay away from the working

classes. The middle activist stratum that developed consisted primarily of

university-educated men from the lower middle class. In addition, this stra-

Hamas as Social Movement

121

tum was primarily based in refugee camps, domains that were formerly bas-

tions of Arab nationalism.

The ideological ¤ssures within the Islamist movement did not center on

ultimate goals, since both sides wanted the establishment of an Islamic state

in all of Palestine with strong ties to the larger Islamic world. Rather, the

question was one of tactics: whether it was better to free the soul or the na-

tion ¤rst. Should the occupation be confronted and rolled back ¤rst and so-

ciety puri¤ed later, or was successful confrontation with Israel impossible

without a genuine Islamic society being created ¤rst? Increasingly in the

1980s, the middle stratum of the Islamist movement chose the former “top-

down” course, whereas the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood main-

tained its long-standing “bottom-up” position, which emphasized prior social

Islamization. Thus, the ¤ssure separating the two Islamist camps had overlap-

ping class and ideological implications. The fact that the Muslim Brother-

hood was decentralized under Israeli rule delayed a confrontation, at least

until the Intifada began.

The ¤rst and most important activist-oriented offshoot of the Muslim

Brotherhood was the Islamic Jihad, or al-Jihad al-Islami, founded in Gaza in

the early 1980s by Shaykh Abd al-Aziz Awda and Fathi al-Shaqaqi.

8 The

Islamic Jihad differed from the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood by

advocating immediate confrontation with the Israeli occupation, although

the formulation of this line of thought did not fully and clearly emerge un-

til about 1986. Both of the founders had studied at Zaqaziq University in

Egypt and were close to the factions of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood

in®uenced by Sayyid Qutb. Both leaders were ultimately deported by Israel

from the occupied territories in 1988. Shaqaqi was assassinated by Israel

in 1995.

Jihad leaders believed in a dialectical relationship between political power

and social piety. Because of the intimate relationship between the struggles to

obtain political power and purify society, they believed that one challenge

should not be undertaken in the absence of the other. Therefore, confronting

the occupation and Islamizing Palestinian society should be done simultane-

ously (Abu-Amr 1990). The use of strikes against Israeli targets as a way of

implementing the ideology of Islamic Jihad attracted adherents within the

Islamist movement and support from Palestinian nationalists and leftists. It

showed that an Islamist ideology could simultaneously ¤ght the occupation

and Islamize society. More important, it acted upon this ideology. Islamic Ji-

had carried out some audacious acts against Israel, including a 1986 grenade

attack against members of the Givati Brigade (an elite army unit) while it was

gathered in front of the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem during an

initiation rite for new recruits, and a 1987 jailbreak from the central Gaza

prison (something that had never been done before). Jihad showed the second

stratum of the Muslim Brotherhood, indeed all of the Brotherhood, that such

action was possible. This prompted greater action against the occupation.

Glenn E. Robinson

122

The debate within the Brotherhood sharpened considerably when the In-

tifada began on December 9, 1987. As Jihad acted, pressures mounted for the

Brotherhood to join the uprising and put aside its ideological imperative

to purify society before any confrontation. The realization grew that if the

Brotherhood did not join in the Intifada, it would lose its political legitimacy

within the Palestinian community.

The overlapping class and ideological ¤ssures—in addition to mounting

social pressures—¤nally resulted in a palace coup by the middle stratum of

the Muslim Brotherhood against its leaders. The outcome was the establish-

ment of Hamas. In essence, the formation of Hamas constituted an internal

coup within the Muslim Brotherhood that brought the middle stratum cadres

to the fore of the Palestinian Islamist movement and relegated the old leader-

ship to a more peripheral position (Abu-Amr 1994, 67–68, 134).9 Hamas rap-

idly absorbed the mantle and commandeered the institutions of the Muslim

Brotherhood. It did not represent a break with the Muslim Brotherhood;

rather, it was a reorganization with a new name and mission.

Social Movement Theory Applied to Hamas

In this section, I apply the fundamentals of social movement theory to Hamas

in order to show both that SMT can shed important light on the dynamics

of Hamas and that Hamas is not an unusual social movement organization

(SMO).

Political Opportunity Structures

William Gamson and David Meyer have correctly warned, “The concept of

political opportunity structure is in trouble, in danger of becoming a sponge

that soaks up virtually every aspect of the social movement environment—

political institutions and culture, crises of various sorts, political alliances,

and policy shifts. . . . It threatens to become an all-encompassing fudge factor

for all the conditions and circumstances that form the context for collective

action. Used to explain so much, it may ultimately explain nothing at all”

(1996, 275).

In order to avoid this problem, the analyst must show how speci¤c changes

in the external environment led to speci¤c changes in the opportunities avail-

able to the SMO. In this section, I discuss four speci¤c external (to Hamas)

changes that directly enhanced Hamas’s opportunity to organize and mobi-

lize: a post-1977 change in Israeli policy toward the Islamist movement, a

post-1977 enhanced international demonstration effect of Islamism, the 1987

start of the ¤rst Palestinian Intifada, and the 1993 Oslo accords.10

The ¤rst notable change in the political opportunity structure for the Pal-

estinian Islamist movement came with the election of the Likud Party in Is-

rael in 1977. In response to the growing in®uence of the PLO in the occupied

Hamas as Social Movement

123

territories in the 1970s, the Likud implemented a starkly different set of poli-

cies toward the Palestinians than had its Labor Party predecessors. Among

the numerous policy shifts was a new strategy to contain the PLO by enhanc-

ing the position of an anti-PLO alternative. Two groups were identi¤ed: rural

tribal elders and the Muslim Brotherhood. Enhancing the position of the ¤rst

group came formally through the ill-fated Village Leagues policy.11 Enhanc-

ing the position of the second group came informally by allowing the Muslim

Brotherhood space to organize, space that was not provided to the PLO.

The political space provided to the Muslim Brotherhood (and then Hamas)

throughout the 1980s was critical to the development of the Islamist move-

ment in Palestine. Whereas PLO political rallies were banned, those of the

Muslim Brotherhood were tolerated. Indeed, the IDF (Israeli Defense Force)

looked the other way when demonstrators burned the Red Crescent Society

in Gaza during a Muslim Brotherhood rally in 1981. Israel supported the

Islamist camp, believing it could use the Islamists as a counterweight to the

PLO, which was viewed as the greater threat to Israeli interests and security.

While a number of observers claim Israel “created” Hamas—including the

former IDF commander in Gaza, Zvi Poleg—that is undoubtedly an exag-

geration.12 Rather, support came in different forms, the most important of

which was political and social space (Shipler 1986, 177; Sela 1989).13 The

Brotherhood could organize, demonstrate, and speak with little fear of arrest,

whereas their nationalist colleagues were punished for similar actions. Israel’s

promotion of the Islamist movement as an alternative to the PLO continued

during the early part of the Intifada, until Hamas was ¤nally banned in Sep-

tember 1989.

For their part, the Islamists bene¤ted from Israeli assistance in their drive

to undermine the PLO and push their own agenda in its place. There was

clearly no ideological love lost between Palestinian Islamists and Israel. The

cooperation Hamas received from Israel must be considered tactical. In any

case, much of this help was not sought by Hamas and was in a form that

Hamas could not refuse: space.

Some Hamas of¤cials were relatively open about the Israeli connection. In

an interview, Muhammad Nazzal, a Hamas representative in Jordan, objected

to the idea that Israel “created” Hamas, but admitted that Hamas was given

more room to grow than the PLO. He went on to note that Israel was “playing

the game of politics, trying to play off groups. But this does not make us its

agents. The Israeli mentality is security ¤rst, before politics and everything

else. It thought its security was enhanced by allowing us to grow, without

thinking what might happen down the road” (Nazzal 1994).

A second change in the political opportunity structure for Palestinian Is-

lamists was the international demonstration effect of Islamist power in the

late 1970s and early 1980s. Two speci¤c events had a particularly strong im-

pact. First, the 1978–1979 Islamic revolution in Iran demonstrated that an

Glenn E. Robinson

124

unarmed but mobilized Muslim population could overthrow a powerful (and

hated) regime that was supported by the United States. The Iranian revolu-

tion reverberated throughout the Muslim world, enhancing the prestige of—

and the ease of recruitment for—Islamist groups everywhere. Virtually over-

night the Muslim Brotherhood organization in Palestine was widely seen as a

viable means of struggle against Israel’s occupation.

The emergence of Hizbullah in Lebanon during the 1980s likewise en-

hanced the opportunity structure for the Palestinian Islamist movement. In

this case, an armed, explicitly Islamist group in®icted serious damage to IDF

occupation forces in Lebanon, initially forcing Israel to withdraw to a self-

proclaimed “security zone.” Mounting IDF casualties eventually compelled

Israel to withdraw entirely from Lebanon under Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Hizbullah claimed, with some justi¤cation, to be the only group that had ever

“defeated” Israel by compelling it to surrender territory it militarily con-

trolled. The Sunni/Shi"i divide did not prevent Palestinian Islamists from

learning a number of lessons from the Hizbullah, most notably the art of sui-

cide bombings—something unknown in Palestinian history.

The third and most important change in the political opportunity struc-

ture came with the outbreak of the Intifada in December 1987. As noted ear-

lier, Hamas is best understood as a revolt of the activist second stratum of the

Muslim Brotherhood against the more reform-minded ¤rst stratum. The In-

tifada provided the opportunity for the second stratum and its Islamist ide-

ology to come to the organizational fore, leading directly to the creation of

Hamas in early 1988. While Hamas did not create the Intifada (contrary to

its claims), it is the group that bene¤ted the most from its outbreak. Thus we

see where an exogenous event (the start of the Intifada) led to the birth and

empowerment of a new SMO.

Finally, the adoption of the Declaration of Principles (the ¤rst of the Oslo

accords with Israel) by the PLO in September 1993 dramatically restructured

and complicated political opportunities for Hamas. The Oslo accords estab-

lished a Palestinian government (the Palestinian Authority, or PA) with some

territorial control in the West Bank and Gaza, thus creating a new reality

to which Hamas needed to respond. In general, the seven years of the Oslo

process were a mixed blessing for Hamas. Initially, it appeared that Oslo

would result in a net loss for Hamas for two reasons. First, the PA had a

vested interest in circumscribing Hamas and had the resources to do so. Sec-

ond, Hamas was cornered ideologically as to whether or not to participate in

the governing institutions created by an agreement it rejected. As long as

the “peace process” was going reasonably well, Hamas’s opportunities were

clearly limited. However, as Oslo failed to deliver Palestinian rights, Hamas’s

star rose and its opportunities for action increased. Israeli reluctance to fully

end its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza strengthened Hamas, which

had predicted Oslo’s failure from the start, and made it the only signi¤cant

Hamas as Social Movement

125

opposition movement in Palestine. The Palestinian Left (primarily the PFLP,

DFLP, and PPP) had never recovered from the demise of Marxism and com-

bined could muster only single-digit support, according to numerous public

opinion surveys. The political center, Fatah, transformed itself from an oppo-

sitional movement (to Israel) to a governing one (over Palestine). Only the

Islamist Right, Hamas, constituted a viable opposition. As a result, its mem-

bership included not only the true believers but also a large “derivative” ele-

ment. That is, Hamas became a political home to those who were disillu-

sioned by Oslo. The failure of Oslo is properly seen as an event external to

Hamas that signi¤cantly altered and ultimately enhanced Hamas’s political

opportunities.

Mobilizing Structures

One of the leaders of Hamas, Imad al-Alami, stated in a 1992 interview,

“Hamas is an institutional movement and is not tied to any one person.” He

was correct in his assessment. Hamas is a social movement with an institu-

tional base far more important to its success than any individual leader, in-

cluding Ahmad Yasin, its titular head. Indeed, while Hamas’s reputation in

the West is that of a terrorist group, its ability to mobilize support in the West

Bank and Gaza is tied to its vast institutional network, which supplies many

types of social services. In this section, I divide those services into three

types: mosque-based institutions (especially the Mujamma"), other medical

and educational institutions, and explicitly political institutions.

A common explanation for the rise of Islamist movements everywhere in

the Arab world begins with the fact that all Arab states are authoritarian to

one degree or another and therefore dominate the public sphere. Since oppo-

sition is not allowed to develop in the public sphere, it is pushed into private

and semiprivate realms. In most cases, this means the mosque, since it is the

one institution that the state dare not challenge directly. Islam, as both physi-

cal and discursive space, has become the only consistently legitimate sphere

in which to discuss political issues in the Arab world today. The Palestinian

case parallels this general trend, almost by default, and the mosque became a

key institutional focus for the development of Islamism ¤rst in Gaza and then

in the West Bank.

The most obvious institutional expression of the growing Islamist move-

ment was the increasing number of mosques found in the occupied territories.

Mosques in Gaza more than doubled between 1967 and 1987, with the great-

est increase during the decade before the Intifada. The West Bank also expe-

rienced a mosque-construction boom, with 40 new mosques built annually.

The seven-year Oslo period witnessed another boom, since funding channels

for outside monies (e.g., from Saudi Arabia) no longer had to be secret and

the ¤nancial institutions in Palestine were better able to handle transfers.

Glenn E. Robinson

126

Most of the new mosques, as well as many older ones, were controlled by

the al-Mujamma" al-Islami (Islamic Association of the Muslim Brotherhood).

Founded in 1973 in Gaza, the Mujamma" rapidly came to dominate Muslim

institutions of all kinds in Palestine. The particular genius of the Mujamma"

was to combine religious and social activities, so that the mosque was not

only a place of worship but a provider of social services as well. In fact, the

Mujamma" built mosques, schools, kindergartens, clinics, hospitals, charitable

associations, sports clubs, nursing schools, and related institutions. Often,

these facilities were located within the mosque, and sometimes they included

an activity room for women and girls and a social gathering hall (Abu-Amr

1994, 16; Mishal and Sela 2000, chapter 1 and appendix 1). The Mujamma"

comprised seven speci¤c committees to oversee its institutional network:

preaching and guidance, welfare, education, charity, health, sport, and con-

ciliation (Mishal and Sela 2000, 20). While no ¤eldwork has been done to

con¤rm this hypothesis, it is likely that the Mujamma" also spawned signi¤-

cant informal networks as well, since this has happened in roughly similar

circumstances in Jordan, Lebanon, Iran, Egypt, and elsewhere (Denoeux

1993; Wiktorowicz 2001; Singerman 1995). Such informal networks would

bind Palestinians together in new (and hard to detect) ways. When the Mus-

lim Brotherhood morphed into Hamas in 1987–1988, the Mujamma" and all

of its institutions likewise went with Hamas.

In addition to these more explicitly religious-based institutions, the Islam-

ist movement in Palestine built numerous other social service institutions,

primarily in the medical and educational realms. As above, many of these in-

stitutions were also under the control of the Mujamma". In the medical realm,

for example, Hamas started the Scienti¤c Medical Association in 1997 as a

counterweight to the Red Crescent Society. The Scienti¤c Medical Associa-

tion operates medical clinics, dental facilities, and a blood bank (Mishal and

Sela 2000, 157). Hamas’s Association for Science and Culture, also started

during the Oslo period, provides K–8 education for thousands of Palestinians.

Perhaps most signi¤cantly in the educational realm, Hamas (through the

Mujamma") operates the Islamic University in Gaza, where the faculty and

student body constitute a hotbed of Hamas support in Gaza. The Mujamma"

took over the Islamic University from Egyptian control following the Egypt-

Israel peace treaty and has run the university ever since. Following the lead

of all the major PLO factions, Hamas even got into the labor union business

when it opened the Islamic Workers Union in 1992.

The PA under Yasir Arafat has had a complex relationship with these or-

ganizations. To paraphrase the old saying, Arafat can’t live with them and he

can’t live without them. These institutions, particularly the medical ones,

provide invaluable support to the general Palestinian population (Hroub 2000,

241).14 If these institutions were suddenly removed, thousands would suffer.

Indeed, it is estimated that 95 percent of Hamas’s annual budget of $70 mil-

Hamas as Social Movement

127

lion went to support these social programs (Journal of Palestine Studies 1996,

169). The PA cannot easily replace these institutions on its own. On the other

hand, during the Oslo period Arafat came under intense Israeli and American

pressure to close down any and all institutions under Hamas control. Peri-

odically, Arafat felt compelled to act, as he did most forcefully in 1997 when

the PA closed down more than 20 charitable institutions belonging to Hamas

(Hroub 2000, 241). Another signi¤cant round of closures occurred in late

2001 and early 2002. Usually, the charitable institutions were allowed to re-

open after a period of time and under a new name—further evidence of the

PA’s nee d to a llow crit ical s ocial s ervices to rema in oper ational.

Hamas has also built explicitly political institutions of mobilization. By far

the most important of these has been the student political parties at Pales-

tinian universities and secondary schools. Throughout the 1980s, Islamist

blocs at Palestinian universities garnered signi¤cant support. In fact, in the

aftermath of the Iranian revolution, Islamist blocs in the West Bank and Gaza

gained control of a number of student councils. For the most part, however,

alliances of various nationalist and leftist factions enabled the PLO to main-

tain its hegemony in West Bank universities, even while it relinquished au-

thority to the Islamist bloc in Gaza. In effect, while the PLO—in particular,

Fatah—remained the dominant political power at most Palestinian universi-

ties in the 1980s, the Islamists represented a powerful counterforce or oppo-

sition. In each of the three elections at Birzeit University that immediately

preceded the Intifada, the Islamist bloc received approximately one-third of

the total vote, second only to Fatah. In the 1985–1986 and 1986–1987 aca-

demic year elections at al-Najah University in Nablus, the Islamist bloc won

38 percent and 41 percent of the vote, respectively. In both elections the Is-

lamist bloc ¤nished second to Fatah (which won 49 percent and 48 percent,

respectively), but far ahead of the leftist PLO factions. Similar results were

seen at Hebron University. At the Islamic University in Gaza, the Muslim

Brotherhood won every election in the 1980s. In the 1987 election, the Is-

lamists won three-quarters of the vote, with Fatah gaining most of the re-

mainder. Only at Bethlehem University, with its large Christian minority and

of¤cial ties to the Vatican, has the Islamist bloc been of marginal importance.

Even during the Oslo period when Fatah and the PA had more direct control

over student elections, Hamas continued to rival Fatah in university elections,

winning majority support in some cases.

In many ways, universities were more important than mosques for the

Islamist movement in the occupied territories, principally because the uni-

versities had greater autonomy under the occupation (Jarbawi 1989). Many

mosques were linked to Islamic endowments, or waqfs, whose administration

was tied to Israeli and Jordanian authorities. The university-based Islamists,

on the other hand, were unfettered by material interests tied to Israeli or Jor-

danian concerns and thus better able to construct ideologies independent of

state interests. Direct Israeli infringement upon Islamist autonomy at Pales-

Glenn E. Robinson

128

tinian universities was generally limited to military coercion during periodic

confrontations.

While these student blocs were the most important mobilizing political in-

stitutions for Hamas, they were not the only ones. Although the National Is-

lamic Salvation Party always maintained that it was independent of Hamas,

groups within Hamas supported its formation in preparation for the 1995

legislative elections in Palestine. For its part, Hamas declined to partici-

pate in the elections directly, viewing them as little more than a legitimization

of Oslo. The formation of the party indicated a split in Hamas’s thinking

about how to engage PA institutions. Given the absence of elections since

1995, including the inde¤nite postponement of municipal elections (in which

Hamas promised to participate), the importance of the National Islamic Sal-

vation Party as a mobilizing structure has never really been tested.

Hamas has also been cognizant of the importance that public relations play

in mobilizing support and framing issues. During the Oslo period, Hamas

founded the Supreme Council for Islamic Information in order to disseminate

its perspectives in Palestine. It created information bureaus in other countries

as well to broaden the reach of its message.

With all of these institutions of mobilization at work over the past three

decades, how strong is support for Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza? Ac-

cording to the respected polling institution CPRS in Nablus, the mean level

of open support for Hamas between 1993 and 1997 was just over 18 percent

of the population. Hroub believes this number is low, citing the high number

of “no response” answers and the much higher turnout for Hamas candidates

in various professional and student elections. He believes actual support is

more likely about 30 percent (Hroub 2000, 229, 233). With the breakdown of

diplomatic efforts and the start of the second Intifada in September 2000,

other polls suggested Hamas had pulled even with Fatah in overall Pales-

tinian support, although Fatah still controlled “the street.”

Cultural Framing

To effectively popularize its ideology, a social movement must be able to pro-

vide clear summations of its ideology that resonate with its target audience.

Such cultural framings represent the popular, bumper-sticker version of the

broader ideology of the movement. While it is unreasonable to expect its hun-

dreds of thousands of supporters (some illiterate) to have detailed knowledge

of its ideology, Hamas can expect snippets of its ideological worldview to be

known and repeated by all of its followers—indeed to permeate the public

consciousness at large. In this way, Hamas can shape the public debate and

the popular imagination in its own way. Clearly, the array of tools in the cul-

tural toolbox available to an Islamist movement in a largely Muslim society is

far greater than those available to, for example, a Marxist-Leninist group.

Hamas has had a relatively easy time shaping the debate through the way it

Hamas as Social Movement

129

has framed the issues. In this section, I present ¤ve of the major frames em-

ployed by Hamas to depict its overarching ideology. As noted above, a single

cultural toolbox gives rise to multiple competing and overlapping ideologies,

which in turn each produce a handful of frames that best capture the essence

of that ideological worldview.

1. Palestine is waqf. Hamas argues that all of Palestine is a religious endow-

ment (waqf ) given by God for all time exclusively to Muslims. By extension,

therefore, no man or government has the right to negotiate away part of the

waqf to non-Muslims. This argument is clearly aimed at denying Arafat the

ability to settle for a Palestinian state in only the West Bank and Gaza. It also

makes it dif¤cult to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the remainder of his-

torical Palestine. As Hamas put it in Article 11 of its 1988 Charter:

The Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas] believes that the land of

Palestine is an Islamic waqf endowed to all Muslim generations until

Judgment Day. No part of it may be squandered or relinquished. No

Arab country, no king or president, no organization—Palestinian or

Arab—possesses that right. Palestine is Islamic waqf land consecrated

for all Muslim generations until Judgment Day. This being so, who

could claim to have the right to represent all Muslim generations until

Judgment Day? . . . This waqf will endure as long as heaven and earth

last. Any action taken in regard to Palestine in violation of this law of

Islam is null and void.

Like most good frames, the “Palestine as waqf ” argument puts a new twist

on an old institution. It refers to a charitable contribution, usually of produc-

tive land for a ¤xed period of time, for the bene¤t of the Muslim community,

which is administered by the clergy, or ulama. Much of the Old City of Jeru-

salem, for example, is Islamic waqf property, particularly the area in and

around the Haram al-Sharif, or the Temple Mount.

All Palestinians are quite familiar with the institution of waqf; however,

Hamas puts a radical new spin on the notion of religious endowment by

con®ating private property with sovereignty. Traditionally waqf lands were

treated as a form of private property (indeed, the benefactor typically re-

ceived a tax bene¤t for endowing property). Hamas is not saying that all of

Palestine is private property endowed as waqf. Rather, it claims that, in this

case, waqf implies sovereignty—God’s sovereignty over an entire country.

Such an expansive interpretation of waqf has never been so prominently made

before in Islamic history. Yet it is the kind of framing that resonates among

Muslim Palestinians, very few of whom are historical scholars.

2. Islam is the solution. Replicating the most famous frame among Islamist

movements in the Middle East, Hamas has employed the powerful phrasing

Glenn E. Robinson

130

that “Islam is the solution” (al-Islam, huwa al-hall). This phrase is employed

on a regular basis by Hamas supporters in Palestine. Indeed, a constant re-

frain by Hamas is that Palestine was lost, in part, because Arabs turned their

backs on Islam, and only by embracing Islam can Palestine be won back. The

entire Hamas Charter of 1988 reads this way, with numerous quotes from the

Qur#an used to motivate Muslims to return to the fold. A few (non-Qur#anic)

samples from the Charter (articles six, eight, and nine) should suf¤ce to high-

light the Hamas frame that Islam and only Islam is the right path for regain-

ing Palestinian rights:

Hamas has evolved at a time when Islam has been removed from every-

day life. Thus judgment has been upset, concepts have become confused,

and values have been transformed; evil prevails, oppression and obscu-

rity have become rampant, and cowards have turned into tigers. Home-

lands have been usurped, and people have been expelled and fallen on

their faces in humiliation everywhere on earth. The state of truth has

disappeared and been replaced by the state of evil. Nothing has re-

mained in its right place, for when Islam is absent from the scene, every-

thing changes. . . . Hamas owes its loyalty to God, derives from Islam its

way of life, and strives to raise the banner of God over every inch of

Palestine. . . . In the absence of Islam, strife arises, oppression and de-

struction are rampant, and wars and battles take place. . . . God is our

goal, the Prophet our model, the Qur#an our constitution, jihad our

path, and death for the sake of God our most coveted desire.

This simple message that “Islam is the answer” or “Islam is the solution”

is quite powerful. Needless to say, “Islam” per se has no speci¤c solution to

offer. Rather, it is Hamas’s interpretation of Islam as it pertains to the con®ict

that becomes the real answer.

3. The Jewish conspiracy. Hamas, like most Islamist groups, is fundamentally

anti-Semitic (in the commonly understood sense of the word). This is seen

in at least two ways. First, the Hamas discourse refers primarily to “Jews”

(al-yahud ), less so to “Zionists” (al-sahyuniyun), and almost never to “Is-

raelis” (al-isra"iliyun), thus seeing the con®ict in fundamentally religious, not

nationalist, terms. On this score, perhaps, Hamas can be forgiven because

Israeli Jews themselves quite often refer to “Jews” rather than “Israelis.”

Think of Benyamin Netanyahu’s famous campaign slogan championing him-

self as “Good for the Jews.” However, Hamas is properly termed anti-Semitic

for propagating the slander of Jewish control of the world, particularly the

world’s ¤nancial health. Indeed, according to Hamas, Jews are engaged in a

grand conspiracy, primarily through the United States, against Palestinians,

Arabs, and Muslims. Only this conspiracy has prevented Muslims and Pales-

tinians from acquiring what is rightly theirs. This conspiracy can be seen in

Hamas as Social Movement

131

the (rumored) Jewish hidden hand behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on

the World Trade Center ( Jews, possibly Mossad, were behind the attack, Jews

working in the buildings were warned ahead of time to leave the building,

etc.), and other events. Again, the Hamas Charter vividly describes this Jew-

ish conspiracy. At one point con¤rming the validity of the Protocols of the

Elders of Zion (article 32), the most sustained discussion of the grand Jewish

conspiracy comes in article 22:

The Jews have planned well to get where they are, taking into account

the effective measures in current affairs. Thus, they have amassed huge

fortunes that gave them in®uence that they have devoted to the realiza-

tion of their goals. Through money they gained control over the world

media, such as news services, newspapers, printing presses, broadcast

stations, and the like. With money they ¤nanced revolutions throughout

the world in pursuit of their objectives. They were behind the French

revolution, the Communist revolution, and most revolutions here and

there that we heard about and are hearing of. With wealth they estab-

lished clandestine organizations all over the world, such as the Freema-

sons, the Rotary and Lions clubs, etc., to destroy societies and promote

the interests of Zionism. These are all destructive intelligence-gathering

organizations. With wealth they controlled imperialist nations and pushed

them to occupy many nations to exploit their resources and spread mis-

chief in them. Concerning the local and international wars, let us speak

without hesitation. They were behind the First World War in which

they destroyed the Islamic Caliphate, picked the material pro¤t, mo-

nopolized the raw wealth, and got the Balfour Declaration. They created

the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They

were behind the Second World War, in which they grew fabulously

wealthy through the arms trade. They prepared for the establishment of

their state; they ordered that the United Nations be formed, along with

the Security Council, in place of the League of Nations, so that they

could rule the world through them. There was no war that broke out

anywhere without their hands behind it.

Unfortunately, such anti-Semitism plays well to many common Palestini-

ans, who are ready to believe in the grand Jewish conspiracy. Thus, by fram-

ing the con®ict as merely a by-product of larger Jewish power, Hamas is able

both to produce a message that resonates truth for many people and to absolve

Palestinians of their weakness: there is no way such a simple people could

have beaten such power. Note, however, that this message is in contradiction

with the second frame that Islam is the solution. Implicit in that frame is the

notion that had Palestinians and Arabs not abandoned Islam, all would be well

today. Consistency is not a requirement in cultural framing.

Glenn E. Robinson

132

4. Pati ence (sabr) is paramount / The peace process will fail on its own. Hamas

has responded to the peace process, begun with the Madrid conference of

1991, with a call for patience (sabr) (Mishal and Sela 2000). The concept of

sabr has been utilized by Hamas to justify a number of strategic and tactical

decisions. Strategically, the notion of sabr underlies the argument that Oslo is

fatally ®awed and will collapse under its own weight and lack of logic—it is

just a matter of time. Hamas leader Musa Abu Marzuq stated this:

From the outset, Hamas has said that this type of agreement will not

work. The Oslo agreement is a very obscure document which, because

of its special nature, will never be able to free Palestine from Israeli oc-

cupation. It will not put the Palestinians on the road to an independent

state. Decisions in Oslo will always be made by the stronger party, which

in this instance is Israel. The Palestinians will achieve nothing from the

Oslo agreement, and we told Yasir Arafat so from the outset. (1997)

This logic, of course, means that Hamas need not be impatient in trying

to hasten the collapse of Oslo since it will happen in any case. Thus, when

Hamas is relatively quiescent, sabr explains the inaction. On the other hand,

when Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades undertake an attack, that does

not contradict sabr either, as patience certainly does not require complete in-

activity.

On the tactical side, the notion of sabr has allowed Hamas leaders to take

the apparently contradictory position of rejecting the very legitimacy of Israel

while showing a willingness to accept a Palestinian state in only the West

Bank and Gaza, next to Israel, as an “interim solution.” Through the lens of

sabr, they can take the long view and accept such a state as merely an inter-

mediary step in the eventual liberation of all Palestine. This argument is

made regularly by Hamas leaders, as in the following statement by Hamas

political bureau chief Khalid Mish#al during a 1997 NPQ interview:

We have no problem accepting the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as a

transitional solution, but without giving up our right to the rest of the

land of Palestine and without giving legitimacy to the state of occupa-

tion and aggression [Israel]. This transitional liberation is only one stage

in our quest for the total liberation of Palestine. (Question: “You are

then ready for an interim solution, but in the long run you refuse to

coexist with a Jewish state?” Answer: “Of course.”)

The notion of being patient while Oslo fails and taking the long view of gen-

erations had undeniable appeal among Palestinians, particularly as year after

year of “peace” went by without much to show for it (except more settle-

ments). In other words, as Oslo collapsed, Hamas was in a perfect position to

say, “We told you so.” This has only enhanced the credibility of Hamas’s

message.

Hamas as Social Movement

133

5. Hamas offers a more authentic nationalism. The Palestinian national move-

ment has a long history, and a contender for power in Palestine dismisses

nationalist sentiment at his peril. In a philosophical vacuum, Islamism and

nationalism share little in common. What Hamas has needed to do, and has

done, is to frame nationalism in a different way and then suggest its variant

of nationalism is more authentic and powerful. Hamas has come a long way

in this regard. In the early 1980s, nationalist parties openly condemned the

Muslim Brotherhood as a prop for the occupation. The framing of the nation-

alism question has thus had to be done very carefully so as not to raise these

old ghosts. The Charter is Hamas’s ¤rst attempt to praise Palestinian nation-

alism and the PLO while staking out a somewhat different vision. Much of

the Charter praises the legitimate role that nationalism has played in the Pal-

estinian struggle (articles 12 and 14):

Nationalism,15 from the point of view of the Islamic Resistance Move-

ment, is part of our religion. Nothing in nationalism is more signi¤cant

or important than waging jihad when an enemy treads on Muslim land.

While other nationalisms are concerned just with material, human, and

territorial causes, the nationalism of the Islamic Movement has all this

in addition to the more important divine qualities that give it soul and

life. The question of the liberation of Palestine is bound to three circles:

the Palestinian circle, the Arab circle, and the Islamic circle. Each of

these circles has its role in the struggle against Zionism.

Parallel with its acceptance of nationalism, Hamas also gave due credit

to organizations that espoused nationalism, principally the PLO (articles 25

and 27):

The Islamic Resistance Movement respects the Palestinian nationalist

movements and appreciates their circumstances and the conditions sur-

rounding and affecting them. It encourages them as long as they do not

give their allegiance to the Communist East or the Crusading West. The

Movement assures all the nationalist trends operating in the Palestinian

arena for the liberation of Palestine that it is there for their support and

assistance. The Palestine Liberation Organization is close to the heart of

the Islamic Resistance Movement. The PLO counts among its members

our fathers, our brothers, our cousins, and our friends, and the Muslim

does not estrange himself from his father, brother, cousin, or friend. Our

homeland is one, our situation is one, our fate is one, and the enemy is a

joint enemy to all of us.

However, Hamas argued that the reason the PLO adopted a secular, nation-

alist ideology was not through informed choice but rather because of “the

ideological confusion prevailing in the Arab world as a result of the ideological

invasion under whose in®uence the Arab world has fallen since the defeat of

Glenn E. Robinson

134

the Crusaders” (article 27). It was only because of the purposeful confusion

perpetrated by “Orientalists, missionaries, and imperialists that the PLO

adopted the idea of the secular state.” While such misperceptions by the PLO

can be understood in their historical context, Hamas argued in article 27,

they cannot be reconciled with the true nature of Islamic Palestine:

Secularism completely contradicts religious ideology in its attitudes,

conduct, and decisions. That is why, with all our appreciation for the

Palestine Liberation Organization—and what it can develop into—and

without belittling its role in the Arab-Israeli con®ict, we are unable to

reconcile Islamic Palestine and secularism. The Islamic nature of Pales-

tine is part of our religion. The day the Palestine Liberation Organiza-

tion adopts Islam as its way of life, we will become its soldiers and fuel

for its ¤re, which will burn our enemies. Until such a day, and we pray

that it will be soon, the Islamic Resistance Movement’s stand toward the

PLO is that of a son toward his father, a brother toward his brother, a

cousin toward his cousin: We will suffer his pain and support him in

confronting our enemies, wishing him to be wise and well guided.

By accepting Hamas’s vision of the proper interpretation of nationalism,

a Palestinian can simultaneously support the Islamist Hamas and still view

himself as a Palestinian patriot. Thus, Abu Marzuq could legitimately claim

to be a Palestinian nationalist because “Hamas now carries the Palestinian

hope and will ¤ght to achieve Palestinian identity and achieve independence”

(1997). Alternatively, Hamas spokesman Ibrahim Abu Ghawsha could declare,

“History shall record that Hamas is the Palestinian group which safeguarded

the fabric of Palestinian society. The picture would have been different had

the Islamists been in power and the secular Fatah movement in the opposi-

tion” (1998). Nationalism is a great thing, but only within the context of

Hamas’s interpretation of what nationalism actually means.

Conclusion

I have attempted to show that social movement theory can shed valuable light

on Hamas and that Hamas is intelligible as a social movement, similar to

other social movements around the world. This would achieve two goals.

First, it would continue the recent trend in Middle East studies to be self-

consciously theoretical in our treatment of data, either through the generation

of new theory or, as in this case, the application of existing social science

theory to a Middle East case study. Second, it would make the point contra-

Orientalism (which exists more in the press and policy worlds than it does

anymore in the academy) that Islamism, like other things Muslim, can be

understood through the application of general concepts and does not exist in

Hamas as Social Movement

135

a parallel explanatory universe where a completely different set of theoretical

tools is necessary to make sense of it.

Moreover, I have argued that SMT is best understood as a middle path

between structuralist and rational choice theories of collective action, which

recognizes the constraints under which choices are made as well as the partial

ef¤cacy of purposeful action. The analytical tools available to social move-

ment theorists can construct a more powerful conceptual understanding of

groups like Hamas than competing analytical approaches.

Finally, I have suggested that the relationship between “terrorist group”

and social movements is far more complex and problematic than simplistic cate-

gorizations can account for. The dynamic relationship between tactical vio-

lence and a social movement has profound policy and theoretical implications.

Notes

1. The following discusses these schools in terms of ideal types. Although I rec-

ognize that there are important attempts to bridge the micro/macro division, for ana-

lytic purposes I highlight the distinctive tendencies in the different approaches.

2. An excellent collection of essays that explicitly use rational choice theory to

explain rebellion can be found in Rationality and Revolution (Taylor 1988).

3. Some rational choice theorists have begun to apply their model to strategic

group decision-making. This would seem to deny the fundamental theoretical under-

pinnings of rational choice theory.

4. Perhaps the most sophisticated statement to date on why SMT provides a bet-

ter explanation of volunteerism and its relationship to structures than either rational

choice or structural theories is Jeffrey Berejikian’s “Revolutionary Collective Action

and the Agent-Structure Problem” (1992).

5. There is some evidence to suggest that in Egypt in the 1990s the pro¤le of a

typical radical Islamist changed somewhat to a younger, less educated individual. Ac-

cording to the Ibn Khaldun Center’s statistics on arrested Islamists, the “typical”

Islamist was younger (the median age going from the upper twenties to the lower

twenties since the 1970s), less educated (four out of ¤ve Islamists in the 1970s went

to university; only one out of ¤ve in the 1990s did), and less urban (55 percent from

large cities in the 1970s; only 15 percent in the 1990s).

6. The ideological arguments for such views were most famously articulated

by Sayyid Qutb in a book (entitled Ma#allim f #il-Tariq, literally “Signposts on the

Road”) that indirectly called for the overthrow of Nasser’s regime. Qutb, who sought

to take the Muslim Brotherhood in a more confrontational direction, was hanged for

his views.

7. While its charter called exclusively for social and cultural activities, the

Brotherhood in Jordan was clearly a political organization as well. The Brotherhood

was used as a counterweight by the regime against both pan-Arabists and more radical

Islamists.

8. In his 1990 Intifada, Don Peretz has suggested that there were eight offshoots

of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s in Gaza alone (103).

Glenn E. Robinson

136

9. There is some debate over interpreting the creation of Hamas. Ziad Abu-Amr,

in his Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza (1994), argues that the for-

mation of Hamas did not represent a break in the Muslim Brotherhood but was rather

a logical continuation of Brotherhood policy, made by longtime Brotherhood leaders

(67–68). His analysis denies the kinds of internal pressures that had built up in the

Brotherhood, in part because of the changing nature of its recruitment in the 1980s.

At the same time, Abu-Amr admits that a radicalization of the Islamist movement

occurred (134), but gives no sociological explanation for the change. The model em-

ployed above corrects this de¤ciency.

10. For clarity, I refer to Hamas throughout this section without trying to differ-

entiate between pre-1987 Muslim Brotherhood and post-1987 Hamas.

11. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Israel helped set up a system of “Village

Leagues,” local Palestinian organizations designed to act as intermediary institutions

between the local Palestinian populations and the Israeli authorities. Most Palestini-

ans viewed those who participated in the Leagues as collaborators.

12. Poleg served as commander of the IDF in Gaza from July 1988 to March 1990

and was later elected mayor of Natanya. In an interview published December 15, 1994,

in the Mideast Mirror, he stated: “Hamas was set up by us, in the mid-1980s, as a

competitive movement to the PLO. The idea was that Hamas would carry out cul-

tural, educational, and humanitarian activities. Within a few months the movement

became more militant and began leading the violent resistance, including the use of

guns against the IDF” (5–6). Marwan Muasher, Jordan’s ¤rst ambassador to Israel and

former spokesman for Jordan’s delegation to the Washington peace talks, likes to tell a

story that con¤rms this suspicion among public policymakers. When the delegation

went to meet with President Bush, a delegate commented that Israel had “created”

Hamas. Surprised, Bush turned to advisor Dennis Ross and asked if this was true.

Ross replied af¤rmatively (interview with Marwan Muasher, April 11, 1994, Amman).

13. Funding support also occurred (see Shipler 1986, 177). Michel Sela, a re-

spected Israeli journalist, reported that assistance also included arming certain Islam-

ists, although this was certainly a less common form of support. See her article “The

Islamic Factor,” Jerusalem Post, October 25, 1989.

14. The World Bank noted that, before Oslo, Palestinian NGOs (including the

Hamas NGOs) provided 60 percent of the costs of primary health care and 50 percent

of the costs of secondary health care in the West Bank and Gaza.

15. Hamas uses the Arabic wataniyya, not qawmiyya. The former is usually em-

ployed in Arabic to represent state-based nationalism (e.g., Egyptian nationalism),

while the latter has a communal or ethnic sense and is used in the phrase “Arab na-

tionalism” (al-qawmiyya al-"Arabiyya).

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Islamic Activism in Sahel: Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram

Book

Full-text available

Jun 2014

Kabiru Ibrahim Danguguwa

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Thesis

Full-text available

Jun 2014

Kabiru Ibrahim Danguguwa

he transitional zone between North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa – the Sahel – is considered by international community as safe haven and hotbed for violent Islamic activism. This thesis uses social movement theory to examine the rise and development of the popular movements in this region. The Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Boko Haram emerged in Algeria and Nigeria, respectively. The fecundity of social movement theory in studying these movements lies in the presence of tripartite social movement theory factors of political structures opportunity, mobilizing structures and cultural framing/framing process in Algeria and Nigeria to establish the AQIM and the Boko Haram. The AQIM and the Boko Haram were initially established as moderate and conservative movements, respectively but ended as violent movements when what they regarded as free-spaces diminished after they gathered material and non-material resources. This coincided with the radical view of view of the groups’ members. The AQIM was originally a political party – the FIS but changed names to the GIA, GSPC and AQIM each with different modus operandi. The Boko Haram retains its name but espoused anti�system frame alongside violent tactics since 2009. Therefore, these movements followed similar trajectory to radicalization and are more likely to focus on the entire Sahel as the region provides what they regarded golden opportunity to thrive. The AQIM in particular has a strong command in the Sahel and the Boko Haram actors also exist in some Sahelian countries. They had focus of overthrowing governments in Algiers and Abuja, but now threaten the whole Sahel region with violence and illegal activities such as kidnapping, and taking hostages.

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On August 14, 2013, the Egyptian security forces raided the Rabaa and al-Nahdasit-ins, marking the largest mass killing in modern Egyptian history. The massacre, aimed at targeting the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood – henceforth MB – did not end its existence; rather, it recast it as a movement in exile striving for organisational survival. Drawing on interview materials, MB media outlets, and a process-tracing of key international and regional events unfolding between 2013 and 2023, this article explores the interactive relationship between exile politics and the MB’s survival action frames from a framing perspective. By mapping four successive phases highlighting its organisational trajectories to pursue survival, the article contends that the MB’s survival action frames result from the interactive relationship between failed mobilisation tactics and changes in the MB’s hosting environment which together affected and sustained intra-movement divisions. Following shifts in exile politics and inefficient mobilisation tactics to face the post-2013 Coup, the MB’s survival action frames included the organisational recentralisation of a demobilised and inactive movement and the re-setting of the group’s priorities amid unresolved leadership strife.

From an Understanding to a Securitizing Discourse: The British Left’s Encounter with the Emergence of Political Islam, 1978–2001

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Ihab Shabana

The outburst of The Iranian Revolution in 1978 generated fear and hope at the same time for several political forces across the West and the East. The emergence of Islam as a political force came as a surprise across all political spectrums in Europe, even though religion was already at the time becoming a determining variable in the field of international relations. The echoes of The Iranian Revolution precipitated even further the making of several organizations of political Islam in the Middle East, forging transnational identities. Through primary and secondary sources drawn from mainly British leftist organizations, this study aims at examining the responses of the British Left towards Islamic revivalism. Thus, this article gives an historical outline of the intellectual production and the strategies of interpretation adopted by the British Left during the period of 1978–2001, by exploring the main historical events that involved (political) Islam, such as The Iranian Revolution, the Lebanese civil war, the Palestinian Intifada and The Algerian Civil War. The main argument postulated is that interpretation trajectories by the British Left were highly dependent on ideological and geostrategic lineages and respective synchronic political alliances, resulting in putting the centre of gravity sometimes on Islamic activism’s regressive nature and sometimes on its anti-imperialist perspectives.

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Securitisation of Sovereign Assets for Sukuk in Nigeria by Aishat Abdul-Qadir Zubair; A Shari’ah Appraisal of Virtual Currencies Based on Historical Perspective, Recent Legal Development and Financial Trends by Badreddine Berrahlia, F. B. Lalaymia, M. Kabir Hassan, Aishath Muneeza, and Ismail Mohamed; A Critical Analysis of the Legal Framework Addressing Violence Against Women and Marital Rape in Lebanon by Beata Polok and Caroline Attie; Nikah-Halala in India: Practice, Precept, and Perception by Mohd Imran; Ensuring Economic Security for Women After Divorce: A Comparative Analysis of Alimony Rights by Syeda Izza Maryam Rizvi; Trial of Civilians by Military Courts in Pakistan: Insights Through Constitutional, Islamic and International Law Lenses by Amina Karim; Islamic Law and the Protection Against Enforced Disappearances by Heidi Kandiel; The Role of Majority Muslim Littoral States to Establish a Prosperous and Stable Indian Ocean by Hasan Yaser Malik; Legal Implications of Environmental Crimes in Islamic Jurisprudence by Iftikhar Hussain Bhat; The Jus ad Bellum and Jus ad Bello Predicament in the Context of Israel – Hamas Conflict by Nehaluddin Ahmad andAqilah Walin Ali; Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, Shariah, and Contemporary Legal Trends, Mohammad Bashayreh (ed), Revival Press, UK, 2024, vi + 110 pp. 978-1-917099-00-4 (eBook) by German Rodriguez Moreno.

Reimagining Redemptive-Resistance Movements: Transactive Engagements, Altruistic Sacrifices, and Sanctified Solidarities

Chapter

Jan 2025

Mehmet Akif Kumral

The second empirical chapter looks at later manifestations of transnational solidarities shaped among pro-Islamic movements spinning through Turkey and Palestine over the 2005–2015 period. Pro-Islamic mobilizations surpass the physical-psychical boundaries overarching the space–time through past memories, present experiences, and future imageries. In that regard, the rising activism of “National View Movement (Millî Görüş Hareketi-MGH)” is taken as a psycho-social case for analyzing transversal implications of altruistic sacrifices in Turkish-Palestinian affairs. In some formidable ways, the unfolding of “Mavi Marmara (MM)” voyage has marked a key turning point in late May 2010, and beyond. The spinning stories of MM voyagers have been influential in reshaping collective memories and transnational imageries beyond pro-Islamic mobilizations. The pragmatist quantal analyses of MM narratives provide thematic points to understand the transversal dynamics of Islamic movement intra-actions beyond the boundaries of the Mediterranean and Levant. By fully and deeply exposing those psycho-social encounters, one may bring to the fore tangling configurations of redemptive-resistant sentiments and sanctified solidarities across space–time. The MM incident implicitly enfolded a kindle of sacrifice that gradually sparked trans-local solidarities and mass mobilizations across the Mediterranean and the Levant. The entangled effervescences spiraled into popular (Arab/non-Arab, Muslim/non-Muslim) uprisings since 2011, which unfolded as another space–time of social “springs.”

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The Salafi movement is a transnational Islamic group that uses mosques to mobilize its followers and promote its ideological framing. The differences in understanding and practicing religious rituals and worship between the Salafi and mainstream Islamic organizations, such as Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Nahdlatul Wathan (NW), have triggered tensions and social conflicts during the construction of new Salafi mosques. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze how Salafi strengthened its existence amid the conflicts by disseminating its ideological framing through the new mosque on the Island of Lombok, Indonesia. Based on the theory of social movement as the cognitive framework, this study also argued that although the ideological framing propagated by Salafi through its mosques fueled social conflicts, it became the strategy for bargaining position amid the mainstream Muslims in Lombok. The emergence of the conflicts was used as the reason for the Salafi group to build new mosques or seize control of pre-existing mosques. This condition did not undermine Salafi as a minority and a new emerging Islamic group. Instead, it empowers the bargaining position of the transnational Islamic group in its own right. For Salafi, owning and controlling the holy places is the opportunity to mobilize collective actions and its social proponents to disseminate the Manhaj Salaf ideology. In conclusion, this study contributed to explicating the dynamics of local Salafi in the discourses of the contemporary global Islamic movement.

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Timea Spitka

This chapter examines Palestinian national protection principles, practices and perceptions under the umbrella of Palestinian Authority (PA), Hamas and mixed Israeli/Palestinian Authority, highlighting the current practices and the gaps in the protection of civilians. Palestinian protection principles and practices are significantly different within the areas of West Bank and Gaza. Unpacking Palestinian security strategies and practices, this chapter examines the prioritization and effectiveness of national and group protection. The chapter outlines PPP of security based on documentation, surveys and interviews with national and international protectors.

A framing-sensitive approach to militant groups’ tactics: the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine and the radicalisation of violence during the Second Intifada

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Feb 2023

Antonella Acinapura

This article examines the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine’s (PIJ) framing to explain the radicalisation and short-term tactical variations of its violent repertoires of action during the Second Intifada. By adopting a framing-sensitive approach, the analysis reveals that PIJ actions should be approached as relational performances that communicated a symbolic message to different audiences, beyond their immediate targets. This, in turn, solves some of the puzzles regarding the mixed effects of repression on political violence. Furthermore, by analysing PIJ thought through the lens of social movement theory, the article contributes to de-orientalise the academic knowledge on this group by highlighting the context-dependent character of its mobilisation strategies against Israel.

The Palestinian HAMAS: Vision, Violence, and Coexistence

Article

Jan 2000
FOREIGN AFF

Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land

Article

Jan 1986
FOREIGN AFF

Rationality and Revolution.

Article

Mar 1989

Hamas: Political Thought and Practice

Article

Jan 2001
FOREIGN AFF

The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice Since 1967

Article

Jun 1982

Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies

Article

Apr 1986

Ann Swidler

Culture influences action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire or "tool kit" of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct "strategies of action." Two models of cultural influence are developed, for settled and unsettled cultural periods. In settled periods, culture independently influences action, but only by providing resources from which people can construct diverse lines of action. In unsettled cultural periods, explicit ideologies directly govern action, but structural opportunities for action determine which among competing ideologies survive in the long run. This alternative view of culture offers new opportunities for systematic, differentiated arguments about culture's causal role in shaping action.

Revolutionary Collective Action and the Agent-Structure Problem

Article

Sep 1992
AM POLIT SCI REV

Jeffrey D. Berejikian

Unraveling the nexus between agents and structures is fundamental to an understanding of political and social change. The two most prominent methodological approaches to explain revolutionary collective action involve either individual reductionism or structural reductionism. Both approaches result in theoretical inconsistencies and/or explanatory anomalies. An alternative proposed here utilizes the concept of framing developed in behavioral decision theory primarily by Quatrone and Tversky. It directly addresses the agent-structure problem by developing the proposition that individuals evoke alternative decision rules in different structural contexts. The result is greater theoretical coherence and resolution of anomalous cases. Additionally, this model begins to define a new role for ideology in explanations of revolutionary collective action.

Is Revolution Individually Rational?: Groups and Individuals in Revolutionary Collective Action

Article

Jan 1994
RATION SOC

Jack Goldstone

An examination of the free rider problem in revolutionary action suggests that this problem can be, and historically has been, overcome by drawing on norms of solidarity developed in preexisting groups, which gain individuals' commitment by providing commonly needed public goods. A simple model of rational action by groups, based on considerations of individual solidarity and cross-group interactions, then predicts many of the well-known macrofeatures of revolutions in different kinds of societies.

Urban Unrest in the Middle East: A Comparative Study of Informal Networks in Egypt, Iran, and Lebanon

Article

Jun 1995

The Framing of Political Opportunity

Article

Jan 1992

Hamas as social Movement

Abstract

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