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Variations on a Theme: Radical Violent Islamism and European North African Radicalization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2008

Jonathan Githens-Mazer
Jonathan Githens-Mazer
Affiliation:
University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus
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Takfiri jihadists, typified by an al-Qaeda perspective, claim that the “true” Muslim Umma (the Islamic community) is held together by a centrifugal universality based on religious identity, and that this religion compels people to engage in a form of radical violent Islamism to confront the evils of the Dar el-Harb (non-Islamic World). A closer examination of those mechanisms of individual radicalization (whether cultural, political, social-psychological, etc.), which lead people to carry out violence in the name of Islam, demonstrates that unique combinations of chance encounters; ideological commitments; individual and collective interactions with state and international organizations/institutions; and individual experience account for propensities to support and participate in radical violent Islamism. Individual processes of mobilization and radicalization and “macro-cultural” contexts serve to ground identities and create recruitment potential for radical violent Islamists to encourage others to join and participate in their cause.The support of the British Academy and the Economic and Social Research Council is gratefully acknowledged. This work has been supported by a British Academy Small Grant “Memories and Massacres in the Formation of Algerian National Identity,” reference SG-41624 and an ESRC research grant under the auspices of the program, New Security Challenge, and the article reflects research being conducted on ESRC grant RES-181-25-0017. I would especially like to express thanks for the hard work of Rebecca Fowler in helping with both this article and the symposium in its entirety.

Type
SYMPOSIUM
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 19 - 24
Copyright
© 2008 The American Political Science Association

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