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This chapter turns to the Middle East, assessing the organizational evolution of the main Palestinian terrorist groups from 1989 through 2005. In addition to testing hypotheses about the relationship between preference divergence and control, the Palestinian case allows one to compare an Islamist group (the religious-nationalist Hamas) to a secular nationalist one (the secular-nationalist Fatah), helping to illuminate what may or may not be unique about Islamist terrorism. Not surprisingly, there is some evidence that one Islamist group, Hamas, is substantially different in terms of how severe a problem it had with operatives, but the group clearly faced similar organizational challenges to its secular compatriots.

This chapter deals with the relationship between development and religion. A renewed interest in religion has spurred a spate of research that tries to establish a causal relationship between the two phenomena. In the case of Egypt, which was once ruled by the caliphate on a religious-political basis, the separation between religion and state has always been tenuous. Since the emergence of the modern state in the early 19th century, all political regimes in Egypt have used religion either as a dominant ideology and source for legislation or as a sub-ideology in periods when more secular regimes emerged. Egypt seems to be unable to decide which ideology and which form of state it should have. The vacillation between semi-secular and semi-religious state has been and still is a dominant characteristic of the Egyptian polity, although dominant power relations and the struggle between different factions of elites mostly determine this vacillation. The last thirty-five years have been marked by a strident religious ideology designed to justify the abolition of the Nasserist system and the reintegration of Egypt into the international economic system. The alliances between the state and Islamist political groups during the 1970s created the conditions for the disappearance of the secular nationalist trend that emerged with the 'Urabi revolt in the 1880s. During the last few years the regime has been attempting to curb the power of the Islamist groups, but still maintains religion as a political ideology in the face of mounting pressures from within and without to liberalize the political system. As long as the state is unable to steer the political ideology to secularism, the crisis between the state and the Islamists will continue, with dire consequences for the country as a whole.

Research shows that repression can lead to both radicalization and deradicalization. When does it drive groups to pick up arms, and under what conditions does it foster disengagement from violence? To answer these questions, it is important to trace tactical changes over time, and to parse the factors that push groups toward or away from violence. The introduction outlines some conventional explanations for understanding tactical choices and shows that recent developments in terrorism studies and in the research on nonviolent resistance leave several puzzles unanswered. It introduces a theoretical framework through which we can understand both escalation and de-escalation, and provides a typology of engagement with violence that can guide the investigation of tactical change. After considering whether Islamist groups are distinctive, the chapter outlines the case-selection strategy and the methodology employed in the book, and then concludes with an outline of the remaining chapters.

This chapter develops a theory of principled and pragmatic adjustment to explain tactical shifts in Islamist organizations. It argues that Islamist groups shift between nonviolent and violent tactics depending on the perceived need for activism, the cost of violent resistance or nonviolent resistance, and the internal and external pressures they face. Groups legitimize violence when their grievances are escalating and violent norms of resistance are prevalent. External pressures from the state or internal pressures arising from competition for authority trigger the shift from violent rhetoric to violent behavior. Once groups engage in violence, their decisions on tactical shifts are no longer about relative grievances, but about organizational imperatives and the cost of violence. Organizational weakness and public opposition to violence raise the cost of aggressive tactics and drive groups to put armed campaigns on hold, or to focus on rebuilding capacity. However, for a group to permanently move away from violence, the organization must be faced with an existential crisis and with public condemnation.

This chapter charts the evolution of political Islam in the Arab world and, in particular, highlights its growing engagement with the state. The decades of experience of groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood provide a rich pool of data from which one can draw more careful conclusions regarding the movement’s posture in a post-authoritarian setting. Some Islamist groups, long considered to be revolutionary forces in Arab societies, have transformed into reform-minded organizations and found some accommodation with the region’s authoritarian regimes. Islamic movements by and large broadened the scope of their missions and adopted the popular refrain of “dignity, freedom, and social justice,” around which millions of fellow citizens had united. This chapter also looks at long-term trends developing out of the contributions of Islamist movements to the emerging governance structures across the Arab world. Specifically, the interpretations of the Shari’a, the understanding of the nature of the civil state, and the shape of democratic participation are set to define future modes of governance. Internally, the Islamist movement faces its own challenges, attempting to temper its traditional ideology to the changing political realities, while also adapting its organizational structure to meet the needs of a democratic society.

This chapter draws some parallels between discourses and practices of governance and opposition in the Middle East and Central Asia, and proposes some tentative suggestions regarding a common rationale for the contemporary framing of post-colonial Islamism. The purpose of the analysis is to contribute to the discussion on the implications of inclusion-exclusion for the ‘radicalization-moderation’ of Islamist groups. By positioning the narrative in relation to general political science debates and highlighting the more structural insights provided by this cross-regional comparison, the chapter recognizes that there is a price to be paid in terms of details and nuances.

This chapter deals with the destruction of the Sufi saints' mausoleums (a World Heritage Site) during the six-month occupation of Mali's northern regions by Tuareg-Islamist forces. Prior to the occupation, the government, foreign entities, and religious NGOs had deeply invested in the field of culture as a strategy to strengthen the influence of moderate Islam in Mali and to counter the Islamist groups' proselytizing in the north. The chapter investigates the symbolic implications the mausoleums' destruction held for different constituencies (e.g. Islamist groups, UNESCO representatives, the local heritage elite, Mali's religious leaders) and charts some of the unintended consequences of the incursions by state and quasi-state organizations into the religious sphere—actions that ultimately produced a conservative shift in the Muslim community. The chapter lends support to efforts promoted by some representatives of Mali's Ministry of Culture to sustain and diversify Mali's cultural patrimony by not limiting heritage work to the protection of Sufi shrines, and suggests the importance of considering some of the debates surrounding the protection and restoration of Sufi heritage sites in Mali today.

The most well-established women’s nonsecular groups in Syria are rooted in faith: al-Qubaysiat and the Syrian Sisterhood. In this chapter, Sana Sayed attempts to understand the activism of Islamist women’s groups in Syria. She gives a historical overview of their movement dating back to 1950 in Syria. She further discusses the problematic presence of these religious, female-led groups and the challenge they face in reconciling their conflicting ideologies with secularists.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of bilateral relations between the United States and China in Central Asia. It was only after September 11, 2001, when the United States began using Central Asia as a transit route to Afghanistan, did greater numbers of Americans learn about air bases and truck routes in Central Asia. Also, it was only then that Americans became more aware of Islamist networks spreading from the Middle East and Afghanistan into Central Asia. Simultaneously with the rise of Islamist groups came the rise of China. These two seemingly unrelated historical developments provided a new platform for the interplay of the United States and China in Central Asia.

This article explores the incidents linked to Baloch nationalism, highlighting what is at play behind this urban armed struggle, with a special focus on the city of Quetta—the capital city of Balochistan, Pakistan's most underdeveloped province. Since 2000, and for the first time, violent clashes of very different natures coincided in the city: target killings by Baloch nationalists, suicide attacks from militant Islamist groups, assassinations against the Shi'ite (primarily Hazara) community, and a growing non-politically motivated criminality perpetuating a number of murders and kidnappings. The legitimization of some aspects of this violence by a population witnessing but not producing it enables the reconfiguration of social relationships and/or spaces in the urban context. In particular, the chapter argues that violence, far from bringing about a rejection and delegitimization of groups using it, can on the contrary redefine the relationship between social groups, leading in particular to the marginalization of the groups it targets.