The Impact of Jihadist Foreign Fighters on Indigenous Secular-Nationalist Causes: Contrasting Chechnya and Syria

Jihadist foreign fighters have become common in civil conflicts in Muslim countries. While research exists on the impact they have upon returning home, less attention has been given to their influence on the opposition cause that they mobilize in support of. This article looks at the impact that jihadist foreign fighters on the Chechen and Syrian resistance causes, evaluating their influence on oppositional cohesion and ideology, domestic and international perceptions of the movements, and on governmental narratives regarding the conflicts the foreign fighters engage in. It is concluded that foreign fighters have overwhelmingly damaged the Chechen and Syrian opposition movements, making the likelihood of opposition success more remote.     

Driving Factors behind Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq

With the rise of the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the phenomenon of foreign fighters became a significant security concern. Governments around the world have become preoccupied with the possibility of their citizens leaving for combat zones and then coming back with training and experience. While previously foreign fighters participated in such conflicts as Afghanistan, Bosnia, or Chechnya, today ISIS has attracted record numbers of individuals from various backgrounds. This article examines factors that might be connected with the outflow of foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq. The analysis is based on 190 countries with 103 of them serving as countries of origin for 33,815 foreign fighters. Negative binomial regression is used to evaluate the connection of political, economic, demographic, and social factors to numbers of foreign fighters. The findings indicate that more foreign fighters come from countries with higher Human Development Index levels, unemployment rates, percentages of youth, population size, percentages of Muslim population, emigration levels, Internet penetration, and the presence of Al Qaeda cells. However, the findings further indicate that the effect of these variables is not uniform across majority Muslim and majority non-Muslim countries.     

Muslim Youth Unemployment and Expat Jihadism: Bored to Death?

Empirical studies analyzing the push factors of expat jihadism are scarce and typically give contradictory results. We hypothesize that youth unemployment, as opposed to overall unemployment, is a significant determinant of foreign fighters flow to join the Islamic State. Moreover, we also consider the interaction between youth unemployment and the Muslim population share as another meaningful variables affecting expat jihadism. Controlling for several variables including gross domestic product per capita; Gini; geographical proximity; the share of manufactures and services as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product; Polity score; and fractionalization, we provide strong evidence for the hypothesis that Muslim youth unemployment is a driver of expat jihadism not only for Muslim-majority countries, but globally.     

Becoming Patani Warriors: Individuals and the Insurgent Collective in Southern Thailand

Focusing on the case of Thailand's ongoing insurgency in its southern Malay Muslim majority region, this article examines the circumstances surrounding individual's choices to engage in violent revolt and their conformity and non-conformity with the norms and disciplines of the movement in which they operate. Insurgent-driven violence in Thailand's southern border provinces has attracted considerable attention, but little has been published about the people who become “Patani Warriors” (juwae). Based on the authors’ direct encounters with current and former insurgents and study of Thai official documentation and captured insurgent propaganda material, this article presents the most detailed information currently available on southern Thailand's shadowy fighters. We argue that there is no single type of Malay Muslim insurgent: this variegated reality defies the normative ideals projected in insurgent's indoctrination material while it also poses a challenge for the Thai authorities to define in simple terms those who oppose the state.     

The Homecomings: What Happens When Arab Foreign Fighters in Iraq and Syria Return?

What threat do foreign Arab jihadists returning from the war in Syria and Iraq pose to their home states and the broader Arab world? Foreign fighters come back as hardened veterans, steady in the face of danger and skilled in the use of weapons and explosives. While in the conflict zone, they will form networks with other radicals, embrace techniques like suicide bombings and beheadings, and establish ties to jihadists around the world. Different countries have different mitigating factors that limit the danger. The presence or absence of strong and focused security services is particularly important. Returnees' ambition, regional focus, lack of discipline, and brutality often mean they create more enemies than they vanquish and anger local populations. Most terrorism will be locally and regionally focused, with international terrorism probably less of a priority. Area regimes can reduce the risk of bleedout by hindering the travel of volunteers and constraining their ability to organize, stressing the internecine nature of the violence in the Sunni Muslim community, and developing effective de-radicalization programs. Regional and international cooperation to monitor and disrupt travel is also valuable. Many regimes, however, are also likely to take advantage of the jihadists' presence to gain more support from the United States, delay democratic reforms, and crackdown on non-jihadist opposition. Improving intelligence sharing and offensive counterintelligence is important, and the United States can play an important facilitating role.     

Women's rights in the muslim world: reform or reconstruction?

The issue of gender inequality is an acute problem in countries where women's lives are governed by laws, and configured by customs and traditions, said to derive from Islam. In the second half of the 20th century, two Muslim feminist paradigms have emerged in response to this malaise. Islamic feminists aim to establish women's rights within the Islamic framework by re-interpreting Islam's holy sources. In contrast, secular feminists challenge the particularistic nature of the Islamic framework and advocate the application of a set of standard universal rights for Muslim and non-Muslim women. This article focuses on the writings of the Moroccan feminist Fatima Mernissi, tracing her evolution from advocating secular reconstruction of Muslim societies to a position that resembles Islamic reformism.     

A Review of: “Jonathan Fox,Religion, Civilization,and Civil War: 1945 Through the New Millennium”

According to some terrorist fighters and academicians the constituencies of Muslim extremists are vital to the persistence of the jihad. Interviews and public information were used to examine the accuracy of this claim. The analysis demonstrates that sympathizers are indispensable to some preparative terrorist activities, yet not to others. Extremists depend less on sympathizers for making foreign journeys, generating revenues, and communication than they do for recruiting and sponsoring. So, sympathizers may be important for the persistence of the jihad, yet their role is not self-evident. This implies that receding of sympathy for the jihad will not automatically reduce it.     

Interviewing Jihadists: On the Importance of Drinking Tea and Other Methodological Considerations

The field of terrorism research has arguably long been characterized by a separation of the scholars from their subject of inquiry. Interviews can be used to bridge this chasm, but making contact with potential interviewees, conducting interviews, and analyzing the data pose unique challenges when conducting research into jihadists, especially active ones. This article focuses on the author's experience of interviewing both former and active jihadi foreign fighters. It is specifically intended to contribute to a better methodological understanding of conducting first-hand empirical research into jihadi foreign fighters and builds on fieldwork conducted in Sweden, Iraq, and Lebanon.     

Competing for Foreign Direct investment: Efforts to Promote Nontraditional FDI in Costa Rica, Brazil, and Chile

This article examines government efforts in Costa Rica, Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, and Chile to promote nontraditional foreign direct investment (FDI). Rather than attempting to account for the overall level of FDI attracted, this article seeks to explain the ability of governments to develop a well-targeted, responsive, and sustained strategy specifically to attract nontraditional FDI. It concludes that three independent variables play an important role in making some governments more effective than others at developing strategies to promote nontraditional FDI. These are the extent of the government's autonomy from special interest groups, both domestic and foreign; the extent of the government's transnational learning capacity; and the extent to which there is an ideological consensus among political parties in the country or state in favor of working closely with the business community. Roy C. Nelson is an associate professor of International Studies at Thunderbird, the Garvin School of International Management. He is currently completing a book entitledHarnessing Globalization: The Promotion of Nontraditional Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America.     

Refugee youth in settlement,schooling, and social action: reviewing current research through a transnational lens

How do refugee youth engage in peacebuilding, civic participation, and social action through their educational experiences? This article draws from transnational frameworks, specifically Ajrun Appadurai’s notion of ‘imagined worlds’ with an emphasis on ethnoscapes as a framework through which to review literature on refugee young peoples’ involvement in peacebuilding, participation, and social action in schools, focusing particularly on experiences from countries of settlement outside of refugee camps. This study examines current literature on refugee youth schooling and social engagement along three main themes: the student, the school, and the wider society. Each section considers the implications of the scholarly literature in a transnational framework, identifying what transnational flows (i.e. people, capital, ideas, media, technology, etc.) and what imagined worlds are reflected in the literature. In conducting this analysis, I aim to dislodge peacebuilding education from spatially fixed contexts of ‘fragility’ that assigns a nation-state as the primary reference point of peace and conflict, to instead examine the transnational nature both of conflict and of the agency that displaced youth can mobilize to transform conflict through peacebuilding.     

Strengthening the Link

Abstract

Through exploration of definitional issues and current migration realities, this article discusses ways in which emphasis on the international dimensions of social work with immigrants and refugees offers opportunities to improve practice and to enhance the relevance of international social work to the profession. The international character of present day migration is illustrated through discussion of the transnational family and the economic and other relationships that tie immigrants to their countries of origin. The paper concludes with recommendations for increased cross-national professional collaboration.     

Politically Engaged Muslims in Malaysia in the Era of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (2003–2009)

Long regarded as an embodiment of tolerant Islam and peacefully co-existing with modernisation within a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society, Malaysia unexpectedly aroused much attention as a potential breeding ground for Muslim radicals in the aftermath of catalytic events which pitted the West against the Muslim world. Malaysian Muslims are said to be susceptible to Middle Eastern-originated radicalism, as exemplified in interlocking transnational contacts and agendas sowed between increasingly globalised Muslim networks adept in exploiting latest trappings of modernity. This article urges readers to engage in deeper reflection on the local dynamics of Malaysia's Islamisation process, in order to arrive at a more nuanced understanding of challenges posed by politically engaged Muslims in Malaysia. It is argued that, belying the regime's profession of a progressive Islam known as Islam Hadhari, Malaysia under Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's Premiership witnessed an abrupt escalation of inter-religious tension which not only threatened to disrupt communal harmony and nation-building, but also posed a security risk. The origins of such instability could arguably be located to the peculiar manner in which politically-laden Islam is applied by the regime, in particular by its home-nurtured Islamic bureaucracy.     

Between Cold War Imperatives and State-Sponsored Terrorism: The United States and “Operation Condor”

Operation Condor was a transnational network of organized state-sponsored terrorism that targeted Communist “subversion.” It was operational in the second half of the 1970s. The key member countries were Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil (Peru and Equador joined the network later on, with a more marginal role). Based on declassified documents from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva and on U.S. documents of various origin, this article will assess the development of the Condor network and the U.S. reaction to such manifest acts of state-sponsored terrorism.     

Construction Jihad: state-building and development in Iran and Lebanon’s Shiʿi Territories

Abstract

Based on fieldwork in Iran and Lebanon, this article compares the Iranian reconstruction and development organisation Construction Jihad with its Hizbullah-affiliated subsidiary in Lebanon. Beyond shedding light on Iranian and Lebanese history and politics, this comparison offers insight into the transnational diffusion of a development organisation by a state actor to its non-state or quasi-state ‘client’ in the Muslim and developing world. Despite the distinct environmental and operational conditions of Iran and Lebanon, Construction Jihad similarly assisted a nascent Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and a fledgling Hizbullah with state-building. The latter consisted of consolidating coercive power against domestic and foreign opponents, increasing administrative capacity through service provision and post-war reconstruction, and strengthening the political and religious identity of citizens and constituents. Regardless of the differing contexts of Iran and Lebanon, Construction Jihad counter-intuitively possessed a similar organisational and developmental model in both countries that did not neatly conform to the dichotomous typologies in development studies. This seemingly contradictory model was largely faith based, exclusive, distributive and top down with certain decentralised, community driven and participatory elements.     

Marketing barriers facing developing country manufactured exporters: A comment

In a recent interesting article, Lall [1991] has noted that conventional export theories tend to neglect the role of marketing barriers to new entrants. In this comment I try to further develop two main ideas. The first is that firms from developing countries may not have the incentive to maintain quality standards. The second is that consumers in developed countries may have a country of origin bias towards new products from developing countries.     

Reclaiming Scholarly Authority: Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi's Critique of Jihadi Practices

This article deals with the attempts by the radical Islamist ideologue Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi to reclaim scholarly authority over jihad, a phenomenon he has helped promote but that has led to excesses he disagrees with and has increasingly become the prerogative of fighters instead of scholars. These attempts by al-Maqdisi to reassert his own jihadi authority are expressed through criticism of certain jihadi practices and advice to jihad fighters. Because al-Maqdisi has been in the forefront of radical scholars calling for jihad, his criticism has been dismissed by some jihadis as revisionism of his earlier views and as the words of a man lacking any fighting experience himself. This article argues that al-Maqdisi's criticism of certain jihadi practices does not constitute revisionism of his earlier views but is an effort to take greater scholarly control of the jihadi trend that he has partly inspired but which—in the hands of militants—has also developed beyond what he sees as useful and even Islamically legitimate.     

Talking to Foreign Fighters: Insights into the Motivations for Hijrah to Syria and Iraq

Little of the discussion of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq is informed by primary data derived from talking with the foreign fighters. This article reports some initial findings from interviews with twenty foreign fighters in Syria. The findings are compared with three other recent studies of European foreign fighters, and aspiring fighters, based on some primary data. While those studies emphasize the role of low social and economic prospects in motivating the choice to go, this study found little evidence of such factors, and alternatively argues more attention should be given to existential concerns and the role of religiosity. Consideration is also given to the methodological challenges posed by using of terrorists' accounts of their motivations.     

French Caribbean organizations and the ‘Black question’ in France

Abstract

Collective remittances are a particular kind of flow, which is gaining more and more attention. It puts into light the role of diaspora associations in promoting the development of the origin countries. The aim of the article is to analyze how diaspora associations cope with development issues and the impacts of these activities in terms of migrants' new forms of citizenship. It draws attention on the relationship between diaspora and transnationalism stressing that, nowadays, the immaterial dimension of ethnic belonging encompasses also a material dimension made of cross-border connections; thus, allowing migrants to participate on the both shores of migration. Using the concept of the Political Opportunity Structure, the article shows the role played by the host country on the way migrants organize themselves and on how they act as citizens at home by engaging in development actions. The comparative approach puts into evidence that the different characteristics of Ghanaian migrants in Italy and in the UK shape transnational development actions but in a different way than one would expect: the relative lack of integration seems to stimulate migrants to better development actions at home since, in so doing, they can be recognized as actors also in the place where they live.     

Waves of the Black Banner: An Exploratory Study on the Dutch Jihadist Foreign Fighter Contingent in Syria and Iraq

Since the violent escalation of the Syrian conflict, 280 Dutch nationals have been flocking to Syria and Iraq to join jihadist terrorist organizations. Attempts to create a more comprehensive understanding of the backgrounds of these jihadist foreign fighters often rely on small-N, qualitative analysis. This exploratory study systematically assesses the backgrounds of 217 Dutch jihadist foreign fighters. Additionally, it further differentiates the different “waves” of fighters since late 2012, by looking at their characteristics and comparing their composition.     

Refugees,Islam, and the State: The Role of Religion in Providing Sanctuary in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

Malaysia has a mixed track record in providing Muslims with refuge, yet it increasingly lays claim to being an Islamic country. This article charts a history of the refugee engagement Malaysia has had based mainly on a shared regional and/or shared religious affiliation (Sunni Islam). I argue that the recent Malaysian history of refugee treatment presents a case for Muslim solidarity, but one tempered by a prevalent racism in Malaysia against people from the Indian subcontinent. Nonetheless, Islam provides an alternative history for providing protection to people in need. The UNHCR has pursued this approach in Muslim majority countries that are not signatories to the refugee convention in the hope of carving out a complementary protection space based on Islamic law and practice. This article traces these attempts and situates them within the Malaysian sociopolitical terrain, drawing out the possibilities and limits to such an approach.