Search

Begin New Search Topic Islam Content Type Working Paper

21. An Unholy Alliance of Muslim Extremists and Organized Crime in the Balkans Case Studies: Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia Herzegovina

Author:
Spiros Bamiatzis
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP)
Abstract:
The 1990s wars in Yugoslavia led to the disintegration of the country and ushered an era of poverty, political corruption, organized crime and terrorism. The Balkans became synonymous with the syndrome of a failed state, where civil society institutions are doomed to fail. The area has presented the international community with some unique challenges associated with unemployment, jihadism, crime and all those maladies under the wings of political leaderships that have given many reasons to the international community to doubt their credibility and their belief to the rule of law. This study will prove that a nexus exists between Islamic and ethno-nationalist terrorism and illegal criminal activities, and it will focus mainly in three countries: Albania, Kosovo, and Bosnia Herzegovina.
Topic:
Corruption, Islam, Poverty, Violent Extremism, and Organized Crime
Political Geography:
Bosnia, Herzegovina, Kosovo, Yugoslavia, Balkans, and Albania

22. Iraq 2018 Elections: Between Sectarianism and the Nation

Author:
Isam al Khafaji
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
The 12 May Iraqi elections – the fourth since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein – provided several surprises and contradictions for Iraq’s political landscape. Primary among them was the unprecedented objections to and questioning of the results as announced by the Independent High Electoral Commission – a central focus of this paper. Previous election cycles witnessed objections and complaints, yet none reached an extent that would damaging the clean bill issued by national and international organizations or the Federal Court’s validation of the results. Criticism of electoral transparency reached a point where the Council of Ministers was obliged to create a “higher security committee” to investigate accusations sent to the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), and the United Nations representative in Iraq to send a letter calling on the IHEC to do a manual ballot counting of an arbitrary number of ballot boxes to ensure conformity with electronic ballot counting adopted for the first time this year. This multi-stage drama has reached the point where the Parliament decided, in an extraordinary session, to freeze the IHEC and assign a committee of nine judges to replace it, as well as to cancel the votes of internally displaced persons (approximately 3 million) and of Iraqis abroad (around 1.5 million). Therefore, any interpretation of the current election results must be cautioned with the knowledge that they are subject to change. The results most in question are from several predominantly Sunni governorates (such as Anbar and Salaheddin), Kurdish governorates (such as Sulaymaniyah, Erbil, and Dohuk), or ethnically mixed regions (such as Kirkuk) – where Arabs, Turks, and Kurds are in multiple ongoing disputes. However, the final decisions taken with regards to these appeals will not change the overall results as there is no serious questioning of the accuracy of the results in predominantly Shia governorates, which constitute the majority of Iraq’s population. That most of Iraq’s post-2003 prominent political movements resorted to unprecedented election rigging in 2018 is a tacit acknowledgement of the loss of trust they incurred before massive sectors of their electorates, a trend that has been observed by many for quite some time. Similarly, the public’s loss of confidence in the political class is also manifest in the alarming decline in voting rates, despite the high stakes of this year’s elections. Out of 24.5 million Iraqis eligible to vote, less than 11 million (44.5%) voted. Participation rates in all previous elections – except for governorate council elections – exceeded 60%. This low turnout translates the frustration of many voters at the possibility of changing the political establishment, despite changes in the political parties’ formation and election lists. Contrary to previous elections, where forces of Shia political Islam led by the Islamic Dawa Party were guaranteed to win, the 2018 elections involved bitter conflict among different political visions, each with serious consequences regarding Iraq’s future, and the form of the state to be rebuilt after the destruction wrought by the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) and the policies of previous governments. However, most voters saw the fierce electoral competition as merely a repetition of the same faces, stances, and policies.
Topic:
Islam, Elections, Geopolitics, and Kurds
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, Baghdad, and Kurdistan

23. Indonesian Muslims in a Globalising World: Westernisation, Arabisation and Indigenising Responses

Author:
Martin van Bruinessen
Publication Date:
05-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
In the two decades since the fall of the Suharto regime, one of the most conspicuous developments has been the rapidly increasing influence of religious interpretations and practices emanating from the Middle East and more specifically the Gulf states, leading observers to speak of the “Arabisation” of Indonesian Islam. In the preceding decades, the state had strongly endorsed liberal and development-oriented Muslim discourses widely perceived as “Westernised” and associated with secularism and Western education. Indonesia’s unique Muslim traditions have in fact been shaped by many centuries of global flows of people and ideas, connecting the region not just with the Arab heartlands of Islam and Europe but South Asia and China. What is relatively new, however, is the presence of transnational Islamist and fundamentalist movements, which weakened the established nation-wide Muslim organisations (Muhammadiyah, NU) that had been providing religious guidance for most of the 20th century. The perceived threat of transnational radical Islam has led to renewed reflection on, and efforts to rejuvenate, indigenous Muslim traditions.
Topic:
Islam, Religion, transnationalism, and Secularism
Political Geography:
United States, China, Indonesia, Asia, and Southeast Asia

24. Comparing the Governance of Islam in Turkey and Indonesia: Diyanet and the Ministry of Religious Affairs

Author:
Martin van Bruinessen
Publication Date:
05-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
In spite of their overwhelmingly Muslim populations, Indonesia and Turkey are formally secular states though of different kind. However, both allocate a surprisingly high proportion of the state budget to the administration of Islam, considerably higher than most countries where Islam is the state religion. In Turkey during the years 1950-2000 and in Indonesia during the New Order period (1966-1998), the state invested heavily in the education of “enlightened” religious personnel and the dissemination of religious views that were compatible with the drive for modernisation and development. Turkey’s Directorate for Religious Affairs (Diyanet) controls a huge bureaucracy through which the state interacts with the pious conservative part of the population. Schools for the training of prayer leaders addressed the needs of the same segment of the population and were intended to facilitate the integration of these conservatives into the project of secular modernisation. However, these institutions had the unforeseen effect of enabling the social mobility of once marginalised conservatives, allowing them to gradually gain control of part of the state apparatus. Mutatis mutandis, very similar developments can be observed in Indonesia, where the Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA) and the Council of Islamic Scholars (MUI) were expected to provide development-friendly religious guidance and prevent undesirable expressions of religiosity. After the fall of the Suharto regime, the MUI made itself independent of the government and instead became a vehicle through which various conservative religious groups strove to influence government policies, with various degrees of success.
Topic:
Islam, Religion, Social Movement, Secularism, and Modernization
Political Geography:
Europe, Indonesia, Turkey, and Asia

25. Pakistan and its Militants: Who is Mainstreaming Whom?

Author:
James M Dorsey
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
Pakistani militants of various stripes collectively won just under ten per cent of the vote in the July 2018 parliamentary elections. Some represented long-standing legal Islamist parties, others newly established groups or fronts for organisations that have been banned as terrorists by Pakistan and/or the United Nations and the United States. The militants failed to secure a single seat in the national assembly but have maintained, if not increased, their ability to shape national debate and mainstream politics and societal attitudes. Their ability to field candidates in almost all constituencies, and, in many cases, their performance as debutants enhanced their legitimacy. The militants’ performance has fueled debate about the Pakistani military’s effort to expand its long- standing support for militants that serve its regional and domestic goals to nudge them into mainstream politics. It also raises the question of who benefits most, mainstream politics or the militants. Political parties help mainstream militants, but militants with deep societal roots and significant following are frequently key to a mainstream candidate’s electoral success. Perceptions that the militants may stand to gain the most are enhanced by the fact that decades of successive military and civilian governments, abetted and aided by Saudi Arabia, have deeply embedded ultra-conservative, intolerant, anti-pluralist, and supremacist strands of Sunni Islam in significant segments of Pakistani society. Former international cricket player Imran Khan’s electoral victory may constitute a break with the country’s corrupt dynastic policies that ensured that civilian power alternated between two clans, the Bhuttos and the Sharifs. However, his alignment with ultra-conservatism’s social and religious views, as well as with militant groups, offers little hope for Pakistan becoming a more tolerant, pluralistic society, and moving away from a social environment that breeds extremism and militancy. On the contrary, policies enacted by Khan and his ministers since taking office suggest that ultra- conservatism and intolerance are the name of the game. If anything, Khan’s political history, his 2018 election campaign, and his actions since coming to office reflect the degree to which aspects of militancy, intolerance, anti-pluralism, and supremacist ultra- conservative Sunni Muslim Islam have, over decades, been woven into the fabric of segments of society and elements of the state. The roots of Pakistan’s extremism problem date to the immediate wake of the 1947 partition of British India when using militants as proxies was a way to compensate for Pakistan’s economic and military weakness. They were entrenched by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the 1970s and General Zia ul-Haq’s Islamization of Pakistani society in the 1980s. The rise of Islamist militants in the US-Saudi supported war against Soviet occupation troops in Afghanistan and opportunistic policies by politicians and rulers since then have shaped contemporary Pakistan.
Topic:
Islam, Religion, Terrorism, United Nations, Violent Extremism, Secularism, and Domestic Policy
Political Geography:
Pakistan, United States, and Middle East

26. Official Islam in the Arab World: The Contest for Religious Authority

Author:
Nathan Brown
Publication Date:
05-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
All Arab states have large, official Muslim religious establishments that give governments a major role in religious life. These establishments have developed differently, according to each state’s historical experience. Through them, the state has a say over religious education, mosques, and religious broadcasting—turning official religious institutions into potent policy tools. However, the complexity of the religious landscape means they are rarely mere regime mouthpieces and it can be difficult to steer them in a particular direction.
Topic:
Islam and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

27. Islam, Christianity, and Attitudes Toward Women's Political Equality: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Author:
Kristin Michelitch and Keith R Weghorst
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Many characterize adherence to Islam as antithetical to women's political equality due to cross-national analyses showing a correlation between Muslim majority countries and higher gender inequality. Others argue that political, economic, and social contextual factors coinciding with religion confound the relationship. A third viewpoint holds that the meaning and salience of religion for women's political equality is fluid and endogenous to such contextual factors. We take a new empirical approach to address these questions by conducting analyses of gender attitudes within and across mixed Muslim-Christian countries in Africa. Consistent with the third viewpoint, we find that within-country gaps between Muslims and Christians are variable in size and direction. Such gaps are generally reduced through within-country matching, indicating at least partial confounding of religion on observable factors. While Muslims are generally more conservative than Christians, the impact of religion on attitudes is far less explanatory than country-level fixed effects and socioeconomic attributes such as gender. Religiosity increases egalitarianism for Christians but has no systematic effect for Muslims. Women of both religions are more egalitarian than men, and the effect of Islam is much larger for men than for women.
Topic:
Islam and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

28. A New Era in American Politics: The Trump Administration and Mainstream Islamophobia

Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Bridge Initiative, Georgetown University
Abstract:
This report analyzes how far-right Islamophobic discourse has been mainstreamed with the election of President Donald J. Trump. Through qualitative research examining the rhetoric employed by the Trump campaign and subsequent administration, the report finds that senior Trump administration appointments share a common belief that Islam and Muslims are a danger to the United States. This view has been present in the far-right world of bloggers and pundits and ballooned following the horrific events of September 11th, 2001, but is now represented in the White House by key members of the Trump administration. Further, the Trump administration has already begun to enact its anti-Muslim and anti-Islam policies. The study finds that the 45th President and his administration’s rhetoric and guidelines normalize Islamophobia thus creating an environment in which discriminatory policies targeting Muslims are legal.
Topic:
Islam, Trump, Islamophobia, and Far Right
Political Geography:
United States

29. A Threat to Stability? Islamic Extremism and Fundamentalism in Indonesia

Author:
Jacques Bertrand and Jessica Doedirgo
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Although the January 2016 Sarinah mall attacks in Jakarta demonstrate the need for continued vigilance, this paper argues that Islamic extremism and fundamentalism are not on the rise in Indonesia. In fact, Islamic extremism in Indonesia reached its height in the early 2000s, with radicalized groups participating in religious conflicts in Eastern Indonesia and carrying out large-scale terrorist attacks, such as the bombings in Bali in 2002. Since then, the capacity of the security apparatus has markedly improved, leading to the crippling of terrorist networks. Today, the majority of Islamists engage in above-ground non-violent activities and pose little threat to the country’s stability. This paper views fundamentalism and extremism as symptoms of broader problems in Indonesia, and argues that addressing these issues should help to further reduce the problems of religious fundamentalism and extremism.
Topic:
Security, Political Violence, Islam, Terrorism, Sectarian violence, and Violent Extremism
Political Geography:
Indonesia and Bali

30. The Year of Our Discontent: A Snapshot From Berlin

Author:
Gary Soroka
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI)
Abstract:
The European Union faces enormous challenges, including flows of refugees, economic stagnation, terrorism, xenophobia, anti-Muslim bigotry and the rise of the far right, the Brexit. Strong leadership is needed but it is in short supply. Germany is the most capable, but it too has domestic problems that are preoccupying the political class, not least the prospect of a federal election next year. Despite all this, the country has shouldered its growing responsibilities in recent years with a new confidence and no one should underestimate what they can achieve.
Topic:
Islam, Terrorism, Elections, European Union, Brexit, and Xenophobia
Political Geography:
Europe