Striving in the Way of God: Justifying Jihad by Young Belgian and Dutch Muslims

Since March 2013, the news has been dominated by young Muslims from European countries leaving for Syria to join the armed struggle against the Assad regime. This is especially remarkable in light of the fact that it would appear that, until very recently, European foreign fighters were far and few between. The armed struggle is a topic that is widely discussed among young Muslims on social media such as Facebook. During the research on which this article is based, I analyzed conversations between young Muslims on Facebook and also conducted interviews with a number of them. The key question was: Why is it that so many young people use social media to profess their willingness to sacrifice their lives in armed struggle while at the same time most of them are not prepared to turn their words into deeds? Despite all the media reports, the fact remains that of the large number of young Muslims who are potentially ready to go into battle, the vast majority prefer to stay at home for the time being. When I confronted the participants in these discussions with this inconsistency they offered a number of reasons as to why martyrdom was not yet granted to them. The way in which these considerations shape their lives and the role played by their religious convictions form the subject of this article.     

The Psychology of Foreign Fighters

The recent influx of foreign fighters into Syria, particularly those aligning with the Islamic State, has brought renewed attention to the security threat posed by people who cross borders to participate in armed conflict. Although foreign fighters have rarely, if ever, constituted the majority of combatants in a war or insurgency, understanding their role is critical for conflict analysis and prevention. This review focuses on behavioral aspects of the foreign fighter phenomenon. Although other books and articles have focused wholly, or in part, on historical dimensions, the behavioral and social science literature on foreign fighters is much more limited. This review first explores the definitions of “foreign fighter” terminology, then analyzes what is known about their motivations and their pathways toward engaging in armed conflict on foreign soil. It examines recruitment strategies and the role of “radicalization” in feeding the transnational insurgent supply, and finally describes more specifically, the nature of foreign fighter involvement in more recent armed conflicts (e.g., Syria, Chechnya, Iraq, and Afghanistan), and speculates about the prospects for their future involvement.     

Gender and cultural patterns of suicidal behavior: young Hindustani immigrant women in the Netherlands

Patterns of suicidal behavior vary among cultures and along gender. Young Hindustani immigrant women attempt suicide four times more often than young Dutch women. This article explores multi-disciplinary explanations for suicidal behavior in this group. The interconnection of Durkheimian concepts of social integration and regulation with ecological insights into family relations and psychological and psychiatric theories on individual distress are relevant. It is suggested that young Hindustani women who display suicidal behavior possess certain personality and cognitive constellations that are interlocked with specific parenting styles in stressful family environments. These families are embedded in a context of moral transformations resulting from migration to a Western culture and may be facing difficulties accompanying the transitional processes encountered in the West, particularly those regarding gender roles. Durkheimian fatalistic and anomic suicides elucidate this. The Hindustani women who appear most at risk are those facing contradictory norms and overregulation, which prevent them from developing autonomy.     

Does the International Trafficking of Cultural Heritage Really Fuel Military Conflicts?

General media outlets are increasingly arguing that the looting of cultural heritage artifacts contributes to the funding of terrorist groups such as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). This article reexamines this claim in light of the political science literature on internal conflicts duration. While we do know that armed conflicts contribute to an increase of looting activities in the territories at war, it is still too early to generalize the ISIS case and conclude that these activities contribute to significantly funding armed non-state actors and to prolonging internal armed conflicts. However, establishing this link may add political weight to archeologists' and art historians' efforts to curb the international trafficking of looted objects.     

Aspirations and Hope Distribution in the Emigration of Maghrebi Europeans in Montreal

Abstract

The article addresses contemporary forms of European emigration more specifically of Belgian and French ‘second-generation’ migrant youngsters of Maghrebi background leaving Europe for Montreal (Canada). Building on an ethnographic field research conducted in France, Belgium and Montreal over a period of four years, this article explores the aspirations that participants pursued through migration and how these aspirations evolved in the course of the migration trajectory. This article describes young Maghrebi European’s experiences as unfolding in different configurations of hope distribution in Europe and Canada. While the emergence of emigration desires is connected with the shrinking hope for desirable futures in Europe, moving to Montreal is experienced as an opening of new hopes albeit with mixed results in terms of actual economic or professional upward mobility.     

The Syrian wars of words: international and local instrumentalisations of the war on terror

Abstract

This article presents a study of the ‘wars of words’ among selected parties involved in the Syrian conflict. Based on a combination of content analysis and critical discourse analysis (CDA), it examines actors’ discourses within the United Nations Security Council (2011–2015), the global arena of confrontation and international legitimisation of armed actions. Here, it investigates their instrumentalisation of the word ‘terrorism’ and the war on terror narrative, and it explores the dynamics of discursive (de)legitimisation of the use of violence in Syria. The article shows how parties instrumentalised this narrative to criminalise their enemies while legitimising their own violent actions. By doing this, the paper also offers a broader reflection on the global narrative on terrorism, and its different reception and instrumentalisation by core and peripheral actors.     

Taking Murals Seriously: Basque Murals and Mobilisation

The purpose of this article is to take the admonition of taking the visual seriously into the realms of murals. It will present empirical data on contemporary murals in the Basque Country with a view to examining why murals are important to the abertzale-left, the broad left-wing nationalist movement in the Basque Country which includes but ranges far beyond the armed group ETA. The struggle for Basque autonomy from Spain has its roots in a nationalist awakening in the late twentieth century. It has developed through the struggle with fascism; the prolonged authoritarian, centralist state; and the transition to democracy after the death of Franco. Central to this development has been the definition of Basque identity in terms of culture rather than birth. Language has been key, but there has also been a visual strand to the struggle. The article will examine the state of that visual strand currently by examining murals on a range of themes: language and culture, independence and socialism, armed struggle, political prisoners, torture and repression, martyrs and heroes, women and environmental issues.     

Transitional Journeys Into and Out of Extremism. A Biographical Approach

This article describes an empirical study into processes of homegrown radicalization and de-radicalization of young people. Researchers in Denmark and the Netherlands set out to answer the question regarding what pathways in and out of extremism (mainly far-right or Islamist) look like “from the inside.” The analysis is informed by grounded theory, based on interviews (N = 34) with “formers” and their family members on their life courses. The study shows that radicalization often concurs with distinct social–emotional developmental challenges that young people face in the transition between youth and adulthood. A practical implication of the marked transitional sequences in these processes is that each type of radical journey may call for a different type of (re)action.     

Women’s Radicalization to Religious Terrorism: An Examination of ISIS Cases in the United States

Abstract

American women joining Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have increased and their roles evolved beyond auxiliary and domestic provisions, demonstrating both agency and tenacity for pursuing, recruiting, supporting, and spreading extreme Islamist ideals and terrorism. Social learning theory was applied to information gained from open-source court cases as a way of examining how thirty-one?U.S. women acquired, maintained, and acted pursuant to radicalization to religious terrorism for ISIS. Internet functionalities, reasons, roles, and support types for radicalization and illegal activities for ISIS were examined using self-, dyad-, and group-classifications. A gendered interventive program based on social learning theory’s extinguishing of radicalized ideology and behavior was outlined.     

Armed Groups as Political Parties and Their Role in Electoral Politics: The Case of Hizballah

In recent decades, armed groups have shown an increased interest in creating political parties to take part in institutional politics. By using these political wings to participate in elections and win public office, some of them have gained enormous political power. However, despite the important real-world implications of this trend, the existing literature on the topic is still underdeveloped. This article contributes to a better understanding of this subject by examining the factors that motivate armed groups to set up a political wing and compete in elections and by assessing how political participation affects an armed group's strategic outlook. The hypotheses on political wing formation and development are tested by analyzing the decision-making patterns of Hizballah. The findings suggest that the political involvement of armed groups does not follow a linear development process from armed to political organization, but instead assumes cyclical patterns: political accommodation and armed struggle are chosen in turn in response to shifts in the relation and the internal balance of power between a given group's political and armed wings.     

Violent Radicalization in Europe: What We Know and What We Do Not Know

When, why, and how do people living in a democracy become radicalized to the point of being willing to use or directly support the use of terrorist violence against fellow citizens? This question has been at the center of academic and public debate over the past years as terrorist attacks and foiled plots inspired by militant Islamism have grabbed European and American headlines. This article identifies and discusses empirical studies of radicalization and points to the strengths as well as the weaknesses characterizing these studies. The aim is to take stock of the current state of research within this field and to answer the question: From an empirical point of view, what is known and what is not known about radicalization connected to militant Islamism in Europe?     

‘Rising Power’ Status and the Evolution of International Order: Conceptualising Russia’s Syria Policies

Abstract

Taking Syria’s armed conflict as a case study to illustrate the processes of normative contestation in international relations, this article is interested in re-examining the typology of Russia as a ‘rising power’ to account for ‘rise’ in a non-material dimension. The article integrates the concept of ‘rising power’ with the literature on international norm dynamics to reflect on the rationale for Russia’s engagement in Syria despite adverse material preconditions. It will argue that Russian norm divergence from alleged ‘Western’ norms illustrates Moscow’s ambition to co-define the conditions for legitimate transgressions of state sovereignty.     

The Neglected Role of Charismatic Authority in the Study of Terrorist Groups and Radicalization

Recent scholarship has called for additional research into the role of charismatic authority in terrorist groups and the process of radicalization. However, the sociological concepts of charisma and charismatic authority are being widely misused in terrorism studies. Current radicalization research often indirectly flirts with core concepts of charismatic authority, but fails to properly tap into its analytical utility. This article proposes to begin addressing this gap in knowledge in three ways, with: (1) a synthesis of social scientific research on charismatic authority, (2) a critical analysis of how charismatic authority is being misused and overlooked in the terrorist radicalization literature, and (3) an exploration of challenges and opportunities for future research concerning charismatic authority and terrorist radicalization.     

Kim Jong-il's military-first politics and beyond: Military control mechanisms and the problem of power succession

Military-first politics has been at the heart of the unexpected regime stability in North Korea under Kim Jong-il and his son Jong-un. This article analyzes Kim Jong-il’s military-first politics as a strategic choice for regime survival, in which the locus of political power switched from the party to the military. At the same time, Kim Jong-il formulated a complex system of circumventing the possibility of the armed forces' political domination, including personalistic control using sticks and carrots, fortifying security and surveillance institutions, and compartmentalizing the security institutions for intra- and inter-organizational checks and balances to prevent the emergence of organized opposition to the regime. Although an effective short-term solution, military-first politics could never be a long-term strategy for building gangseongdaeguk (a powerful and prosperous nation). The current Kim Jong-un regime needs to conduct sweeping reforms to address dire economic difficulties, which might result in a departure from his father's legacy and downgrade the military's power. In this process, the current regime's (in)stability will depend on how it maintains a balance between revoking military-first politics and preserving the armed forces' allegiance.     

Quantifying and Qualifying Charisma: A Theoretical Framework for Measuring the Presence of Charismatic Authority in Terrorist Groups

In the past four decades, there has been increased multidisciplinary scholarly interest in the study of charismatic authority. However, there has yet to be any systematic examination of charismatic authority in the context of terrorism, despite widespread acknowledgment of the importance of charismatic leaders in the recruitment, radicalization, and operation of terrorist groups. This article seeks to contribute to future empirical research by presenting a theoretical framework for measuring the presence of charismatic authority in terrorist groups that is based on Max Weber's seminal work on legitimate domination (herrschaft) and on theoretical insights drawn from the study of charismatic authority in new religious movements. The framework is then applied to an illustrative case study of the relationship between charismatic authority and the radicalization process within the far-right terrorist group “the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord.” The article concludes with a discussion of findings and suggestions for future research.     

Failure and Disengagement in the Red Army Faction

This article examines the factors that have contributed to the end of the Red Army Faction (RAF), and places particular emphasis on the causes and characteristics of individual disengagement of RAF members from the armed struggle. It discusses the evolution, ideology, and decline of each of the three generations of the RAF. The article's contribution is twofold. First, by assessing both contextual- and individual-level factors that led to the group's demise, the article bridges two approaches to analyzing the demise of terrorist organizations—the literature on how terrorism ends and why individuals disengage from terrorism. Second, the article helps build a growing empirical body of work on the demise of terrorist groups that can be used to confirm, challenge, or refine existing hypotheses on how terrorism ends, while formulating new ones. The article concludes that different factors contributed to the decline of each subsequent generation of the RAF. Successful German police efforts played a critical role in thwarting the RAF's first generation. Lack of public support and recruits, due in large part to an escalation of terrorist violence, hastened the decline of the second generation of the group. The third generation suffered from serious interorganizational strife, exacerbated by a government initiative that offered to release those RAF members from prison who renounced terrorism.     

Options and Strategies for Countering Online Radicalization in the United States

The purpose of this article is to inform the debate about strategies and options for countering online radicalization within the U.S. domestic context. Its aim is to provide a better understanding of how the Internet facilitates radicalization; an appreciation of the dilemmas and tradeoffs that are involved in countering online radicalization within the United States; and ideas and best practices for making the emerging approach and strategy richer and more effective. It argues that online radicalization can be dealt with in three ways. Approaches aimed at restricting freedom of speech and removing content from the Internet are not only the least desirable, they are also the least effective. Instead, government should play a more energetic role in reducing the demand for radicalization and violent extremist messages—for example, by encouraging civic challenges to extremist narratives and by promoting awareness and education of young people. In the short term, the most promising way for dealing with the presence of violent extremists and their propaganda on the Internet is to exploit their online communications to gain intelligence and gather evidence in the most comprehensive and systematic fashion possible.     

Breaking the glass ceiling,but facing a glass cliff? The role of organizational decline in women's representation in leadership positions in Dutch civil service organizations

Despite efforts to increase gender diversity and equality worldwide, women are still underrepresented in leadership positions in public bureaucracies. This article speaks to the debate on how organizational context, more specifically organizational decline, may influence gender representation in such leadership positions. Based on role congruity theory and glass cliff theory this article empirically examines whether and how excessive workforce reductions are associated with changes in the representation of women in leadership positions in Dutch civil service organizations. Panel analyses on administrative data show that women's representation in leadership positions varies over time, but is not significantly affected by excessive workforce reductions. Overall, the analyses do not provide evidence for a glass cliff for women in Dutch civil service organizations. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.     

Realism and renewals: Perry Anderson and the prospects for the left

Perry Anderson is a commanding figure within anglophone Marxism. Moreover, his position as editor of the English-speaking world's most authoritative Marxist journal, New Left Review , gives a unique influence to his strategic pronouncements. This article challenges Anderson's reading of the contemporary international conjuncture and argues that his outline of the present-day strategic position of the international left is unduly pessimistic. It is argued that his reading of that moment is based upon an understanding of Marxism that is heavily influenced by the thought of Isaac Deutscher. This interpretation of Marxism has led to an elision in Anderson's thought, as the focus of the struggle between capitalism and socialism has been displaced from the point of production to the tension between statist regimes of accumulation and laissezfaire economies. This article disputes both this approach and his suggestion that the victory of the laissez-faire economies in this conflict implies that the struggle for socialism is no longer a viable goal for Marxists.     

A tough act to follow: traumatic executive departure and the post-transformational context

After turning their organizations around, transformational leaders often move on, taking new roles outside or even within the organization. Sometimes these changes occur in abrupt and traumatic circumstances, raising an important question: what is the impact on an organization when the transformational leader suddenly exits? This article examines the factors that shape the “post-transformational context” facing the successor to a transformational figure. These factors are seen to affect the organization's identity and followers' commitment to it. A framework and research propositions are presented, focusing on: antecedent conditions in the organization; the nature of the leader's departure; the emotional responses characterizing such situations; and the effects on organizational systems. These dynamics are examined in an illustrative case, and suggestions are made for further research.