“Flexible” capital accumulation in Islamic State social media

This article explores online social media produced by the neo-jihadist group “Islamic State” (IS) from a political-economic perspective. Using a framework developed by anthropologist David Harvey, it examines how IS social media operates within depoliticised neoliberal environments characterised by “flexible” regimes of capital accumulation. It explicates how IS acquires political-economic capital by evoking “spectacle”, “fashion” and a “commodification of cultural forms”. Drawing from Christian Fuchs’ informational theory, the article also considers the roles of agency and competition in accumulation processes where “knowledge and technology reinforce each other”. By revealing how IS both constitutes and is constituted by its flexible approach to social media, the article seeks to illuminate avenues for better understanding neo-jihadist ideations.     

Characteristics of the ＂Islamic State＂

The extreme organization that calls itself the ＂Islamic State＂ has alarmed the world with its rapid rise and grave damage while drawing sharp censure from numerous directions. In his speech on the strategy of dismantling the ＂Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,＂ American President Barak Obama＇ s called it ＂a terrorist organization, pure and simple.＂ 1 Rooted in Middle East turmoil, facilitated by the irresponsible policies of the great powers and nearby countries, the ＂Islamic State＂ （also known as ISIS or ISIL） stands out from among regional terrorist organizations in a number of vital characteristics. ISIS, disowned by the A1-Qaeda, nevertheless challenges it and seems to gain the upper hand. What lies behind its success are at least two powerful characteristics： its religio-political ambition to establish a recognizable country, and its ability to entice the zeal of Western jihadists.     

Religion and Conflict: Explaining the Puzzling Case of “Islamic Violence”

Despite considerable interest in the relationship between Islam and political violence, there is little systematic empirical research that explores the intrastate conflict proneness of Muslim countries, and existing studies provide mixed results. This article examines the causal factors that explain the prevalence of intrastate conflict in Muslim-plurality states and the conditions under which Islam may influence civil war onset. Further, following Ward, Greenhill, and Bakke’s (2010) suggestion, the effects of Islam and other socioeconomic and political factors in actually predicting civil wars are examined by utilizing ROC curves and cross-validation exercises. Utilizing the Uppsala Conflict Data Program’s data for the 1981–2009 period, the findings indicate that Muslim-plurality countries are indeed disproportionately involved in intrastate conflicts, but these countries are also characterized by lower GDP per capita, oil dependency, state repression, autocracy, and youth bulges, all of which correlate strongly with intrastate conflict onset. The significance of Islam disappears when controls for such factors are included in the statistical model. The variable of Islam does not make any significant contribution to either the in-sample or out-of-sample predictive power of models. Among the factors that increase the risk of intrastate conflict, the presence of a youth bulge has the greatest impact in Muslim-plurality countries.     

A Preliminary Analysis of the Islamic World in Transition

The Islamic world represents an important force to be reckoned with in the international political arena. Being endowed with huge oil and gas resources and commanding a special strategic position on a vital route for international commerce, trade and shipping, it has always been a focus of contention among major powers, and is now an area to which the U. S. global strategy pays special attention. Under the double pressure of economic     

IT vs. State Security

Sparking a revolution in the running of national and global affairs, Information Technology (IT) progress has ushered in an age of knowledge economy or information society, the third one in history, following the first and second ages of agricultural and industrial economies. Globalization and the information revolution have been the pair of crucial intertwined moving forces behind global advances in the last quarter of the 20th century. Compared with globalization, the information revolution, however, has been playing a bigger, broader role     

An Analysis of Europe＇s ＂Islamic Challenge＂

Europeans are experiencing anxiety and confusion in trying to absorb a large number of foreign ethnic groups and heterogeneous cultures. This problem arises from the long-term effects of multiple factors. At present and for the foreseeable future, a crucial problem for European countries will be this ＂Islamic Challenge,＂ how to integrate ever-increasing numbers of Muslims into European society.     

Japan''''s State Strategy vs. Anti-Terrorism

The September 11 event upset Japan's diplomatic agenda and ushered in a strategic restructuring with the focus on anti-terrorism and the top priority given to ties with Washington. Its new diplomacy against terror stresses three aspects: policy towards Washington for ensuring strategic center of     

Disintegration and Remodeling of the Islamic World by Western International Order

Irreparable consequences to Middle East geopolitics ensued as the political systems in the Islamic world declined in a process that began under the persistent infiltration and influence of the Western ideal of nation-state.Three progressive stages in this conceptual transformation show how longstanding multinational imperial systems in the Islamic world disintegrated after the introduction of uone nation,one staten forced upon Middle East states an unrealistic model and eroded the principle of supremacy of sovereignty that had just been established.Interventionist theories that took hold meant that the Islamic world's self-transformation has never caught up with the demand of Western strategies.The Islamic realm has failed to achieve what it set out to do because political systems that would have been adaptive to the reality of the Islamic world had collapsed.     

Developing a critical pedagogy of ‘research-based’ teaching in Islamic studies

Studying Islam and Middle Eastern politics has become highly popular, particularly in American and British universities after the 9/11 and 7/7 terrorist events. Unfortunately, the increasing interest in Islam and Muslims in the West is often based on (mis)recognition of images of Muslims in the media. This has created a new set of problems of ignorance and misunderstandings about terrorism and the Islamic world. The intent of this article is to outline a ‘critical pedagogy’ of research-based teaching for Islamic studies and illustrate how this kind of pedagogical engagement better equips students to ‘problematise the natural, cultural and historical reality’ and dominant Orientalist assumptions about the relationship between Islam and terrorism. This article shows how research-based teaching can help students to become critical thinkers to connect knowledge and power while studying Islam and Middle Eastern politics.     

The Current State of Global Military Security

The world military security situation has entered a period of readjustment and transformation following the events of 9/11 and the ensuing war against terror. The "arc of crisis" in peripheral areas of the Eurasian continent and other regions is unsettled or tumultuous. Confronted by these new situations and challenges, military forces throughout the world have reassessed their respective strategic environment and adopted new transforming measures, which have brought about a dramatic change in military circumstances, thinking and operation in every country. More specifically, the U.S. unipolar military power has expanded, while at the same time is constrained by various internal and external factors. Worldwide military competition is becoming more complicated. Nuclear proliferation and upgrading has steadily developed, paving the way for an arms race on land, sea and in the air. Thus, the world's military situation is becoming more complex, with various factors-conflicts between unilateral and multilateral poles, cooperation and competition, readjustment and transformation, stability and instability-all interconnected.     

Terrorist learning in context – the case of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb

ABSTRACT

It is astonishing how many researchers adopt a counterterrorism agenda and suggest researching terrorist learning in order to shape security countermeasures. Posing different questions would lead to different answers. One such question would be, “What makes terrorist learning different?” Terrorist groups operate clandestinely, which means the environment in which they learn is different. This paper investigates the context in which Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has learned. Thus, a qualitative case study analysis of the influence of meso- and macro-level factors on AQIM’s tactical and strategic patterns between 1999 and 2013 will shed light on terrorist learning. Meso-level influences are conceptualised as cooperation and ultimate merging with Al Qaeda, and macro-level influences as government action. The result is puzzling: AQIM has learned tactically from Al Qaeda and strategically from counterterrorism. This is puzzling because scholars commonly question whether it is possible to learn under pressure. Nevertheless, AQIM’s learning has been more profound when faced with pressure than when cooperating voluntarily. The sustainable answer to the question of the political implication thereof is not how to boost counterterrorism measures but how to redefine them. If what is different about terrorist learning is above all the context, we need to question the context.     

Exporting Iran's Islamic revolution: Steering a path between Pan‐Islam and nationalism

This article focuses on the question of whether Iran's foreign policy over the period 1979–94 was a pure reflection of the clerical regime's millenarian crusade and its stated doctrine of exporting the Islamic revolution worldwide. Taking, inter alia, the controversy surrounding Iran's takeover of the island of Abu Musa in 1992, the article argues that Iran's actions were determined by a persistent sense of nationalism which was not less potent than its pan‐Islamic vision. Iran's nationalist tradition has been able to survive as a major force in Iranian political culture, its sometimes ‘Islamicized’ form notwithstanding.     

My Knowledge about Tunisia and the Tunis State Administration College

AttheinvitationofChineseAssociationforInter-nationalUnderstanding,analumnidelegationof12membersfromtheadvancedclassoftheStateAd-ministrationCollegeofTunis(Ecolenationaled'ad-ministrationdetunis),headedbythehonorablepresidentofthecollegeMr.MohamedElJeri,visit-edChinaduringtheperiodofApril19to29of2004.Ihadthehonortokeepthemcompanyforthevisit.ThroughmytwopreviousshortstaysinTunisia,acountryinnorthAfrica,Ihavehadagoodimpressionofitsbeautifulsceneryaswellasthepeopleandtheculture.Thankstothem…     

State terrorism research and critical terrorism studies: an assessment†

This article explores the value of scholarship on state terrorism for the critical study of terrorist violences. The article begins by identifying four primary contributions of this scholarship: first, a rethinking of the status and significance of terrorism; second, an unsettling of broader assumptions within International Relations (IR) and terrorism research; third, an ability to locate state violences within pertinent, but potentially camouflaged, contexts; and, fourth, a prioritisation of critique as a responsibility of scholarship. The article’s second section then argues that the purchase of this work could be further extended by greater conceptual engagement with the state itself. In particular, we point to the value of contemporary approaches to the state as a terrain and outcome of social and political struggle, rather than as a singular actor of unitary purpose. Rethinking the state in this way has value, we argue, first, for moving research beyond the identification and typologising of state terrorisms; and, second, for circumventing the perennial problem of identifying intentionality in efforts to designate violences as (state) terrorism.     

Islamic versus other identities in the Greater Middle East: Comments on the Ex‐Soviet Muslim republics

The six newly independent, ex‐Soviet Muslim republics share many characteristics. Common to all are identity conflicts based on ethnic ties, cultural traditions and attitudes to Islam. Most ethno‐nationalist groups have been mythologizing their past history and culture. Islam remains, however, the most important factor determining identity throughout the area, although in diverse ways. Realizing this, most political elites take an unfavorable view of the flow of extreme religious propaganda from Iran and Saudi Arabia and of the incursions from Afghanistan. Aware of the revival of Islam, some political leaders of the new states strive to encourage various patterns of moderate religion as a bulwark against militant Islam.     

“逃票”“化缘”“挂靠”及其他

怎么,这就是“逃票”了 铁岭开原志愿者协会会长李荣安。最近组织一批志愿者到象牙山去捡垃圾,却被景区的负责人拦住了,说志愿者们借捡垃圾之名,行“逃票”之实。     

China＇s Web Diplomacy： Current State and the Way Forward

In the information age, web diplomacy can serve as a powerful tool for the realization of soft power by way of providing backing in technology and information, support in cultural values and identity, and foundation for diplomatic credibility. But at present, China＇s web diplomacy, still at an initial stage, is confronting a host of problems. To effectively respond to various challenges, China needs to step up its efforts in the research in internet technology and the collection,     

Social Protection in India: A Welfare State Sans Public Goods?

Of the two principal components of social welfare policy—basic public services and social protection—India has focused disproportionately on the latter in the last two decades, expanding existing social protection programs and creating new ones. By contrast, the country’s basic public services, such as primary education, public health, and water and sanitation have languished. What explains this uneven focus? Why has India prioritized social protection over public services? This article considers explanations suggested by the existing literature on welfare states and concludes that they do not account adequately for the Indian case. Instead, it argues, the prioritization of social protection in India results from a combination of political, ideational, and institutional factors rooted in India’s political economy.     

“负债率”和“偿债率”

目前一些书刊对于“负债率”和“偿债率”这两个术语的解释和用法比较混乱,引起一些不必要的误解。对此,本刊编辑部特请学时同志,根据个人的理解,对以上术语作了说明,仅供读者参考。