Reframing Muslim 'Radicalism'
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: History Faculty
Abstract
This study aims to assess Western policy responses to the threat of global jihadi ideology, and to develop a suitable methodology for making them more effective.
Since 9/11, the ideological threat from global jihadism has been widely interpreted as a 'battle of ideas', prompting responses that aim at preventing vulnerable individuals from adopting the violent extremist ideas of Al Qaeda. Western governments are committed to this ideological battle, and a host of civil society initiatives have also arisen in parallel, based on various and sometimes conflicting perceptions of the nature of the threat. Collectively, they reflect the multiple ways in which a discrete global discourse and practice of 'counter ideology', increasingly labelled 'countering violent extremism', has emerged and intensified over the past decade. The relatively novel religious dimension of the ideological threat posed by global jihadism has also fed into long-standing wider debates in the West on issues such as the relationship between: secular and religious practice in the public sphere; language and violence; and security and liberty, particularly in relation to minority Muslim communities in the West.
Counter-ideological strategies remain relatively under-developed despite the resources deployed for the purpose. An immediate limitation is the rudimentary characterisation in public and official discourses of the nature of what is deemed to be global jihadi ideology. This is partly due to the dominance in policy circles of traditional security studies approaches and the burgeoning sub-field of 'radicalisation' studies, and the related absence of any sustained effort to integrate knowledge of jihadi ideas across the range of academic disciplines that currently address them. It is also related to the disproportionate ideological influence of certain civil society actors and think tanks on the process of shaping counter-ideological policy responses. This has moreover resulted in a failure to place the theory and practice of countering violent extremism in historical context, or to draw on contemporary parallels from outside the West. Overlooked, as a consequence, is the need for greater insight into the ways that the dissemination of global jihadi ideas and, paradoxically, the proliferation of counter-ideological initiatives themselves, are catalysing structural shifts in state-society relations where there are substantial Muslim communities.
This study proposes ways of addressing these gaps. It adopts an innovative, inter-disciplinary approach to challenge conventional ways of viewing global jihadism, with the aim of opening up neglected areas of research, deepening academic understanding, and helping to improve policy practice. The study will draw on insights and methods from neglected areas of academic study - including history, political theory, anthropology, sociology, Islamic studies and area studies - in order to expand the knowledge base available to policymakers and practitioners, alert them to the variegated nature and impacts of global jihadi ideology, and deepen their awareness of the ways in which this ideology is shaped in different geographical contexts. It will also draw on field interviews with key experts, policymakers and practitioners in the UK, US and Europe. The study will suggest concrete ways of incorporating its insights into the formulation of policy, and explore ways of measuring the impact of counter-ideological interventions more effectively in light of the fluid and complex nature and varied effects of the global jihadi phenomenon.
Since 9/11, the ideological threat from global jihadism has been widely interpreted as a 'battle of ideas', prompting responses that aim at preventing vulnerable individuals from adopting the violent extremist ideas of Al Qaeda. Western governments are committed to this ideological battle, and a host of civil society initiatives have also arisen in parallel, based on various and sometimes conflicting perceptions of the nature of the threat. Collectively, they reflect the multiple ways in which a discrete global discourse and practice of 'counter ideology', increasingly labelled 'countering violent extremism', has emerged and intensified over the past decade. The relatively novel religious dimension of the ideological threat posed by global jihadism has also fed into long-standing wider debates in the West on issues such as the relationship between: secular and religious practice in the public sphere; language and violence; and security and liberty, particularly in relation to minority Muslim communities in the West.
Counter-ideological strategies remain relatively under-developed despite the resources deployed for the purpose. An immediate limitation is the rudimentary characterisation in public and official discourses of the nature of what is deemed to be global jihadi ideology. This is partly due to the dominance in policy circles of traditional security studies approaches and the burgeoning sub-field of 'radicalisation' studies, and the related absence of any sustained effort to integrate knowledge of jihadi ideas across the range of academic disciplines that currently address them. It is also related to the disproportionate ideological influence of certain civil society actors and think tanks on the process of shaping counter-ideological policy responses. This has moreover resulted in a failure to place the theory and practice of countering violent extremism in historical context, or to draw on contemporary parallels from outside the West. Overlooked, as a consequence, is the need for greater insight into the ways that the dissemination of global jihadi ideas and, paradoxically, the proliferation of counter-ideological initiatives themselves, are catalysing structural shifts in state-society relations where there are substantial Muslim communities.
This study proposes ways of addressing these gaps. It adopts an innovative, inter-disciplinary approach to challenge conventional ways of viewing global jihadism, with the aim of opening up neglected areas of research, deepening academic understanding, and helping to improve policy practice. The study will draw on insights and methods from neglected areas of academic study - including history, political theory, anthropology, sociology, Islamic studies and area studies - in order to expand the knowledge base available to policymakers and practitioners, alert them to the variegated nature and impacts of global jihadi ideology, and deepen their awareness of the ways in which this ideology is shaped in different geographical contexts. It will also draw on field interviews with key experts, policymakers and practitioners in the UK, US and Europe. The study will suggest concrete ways of incorporating its insights into the formulation of policy, and explore ways of measuring the impact of counter-ideological interventions more effectively in light of the fluid and complex nature and varied effects of the global jihadi phenomenon.
Planned Impact
This research is likely to benefit a wide range of users involved in understanding and combating the threat from global jihadism in the UK and abroad, including the US, Europe and Muslim world.
They fall into four broad categories:
- policy-makers engaged in counter-terrorism and social integration issues
- civil society practitioners involved in countering violent extremism
- private research organisations and policy think tanks
- media and public
1. Policy-makers
UK:
Central government: the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism at the Home Office; the Research, Information and Communications Unit; the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Counter-Terrorism department and relevant geographical departments; intelligence agencies, including JTAC.
Local government: including local officers working on the Prevent strand of HMG's CONTEST agenda (Home Office, Communities and Local Government, Police)
US:
Central government: State Department; Homeland Security
Local government: local officers increasingly engaged with counter terrorist issues and engagement with Muslim communities.
Europe:
Central and local government policy-makers involved in counter-terrorism and community integration in the Netherlands and other member states at the European Union.
Policy understandings of the threat from global jihadi ideas are in their relatively early stages despite the increasing government resources being deployed to counter violent extremism. This research will impact on policy-making in this area in two key ways: increasing understanding of the nature of the threat by providing an innovative approach to addressing the complex contextual factors which drive militant Islamist ideas through a comprehensive and integrated inter-disciplinary perspective which brings to the foreground academic approaches often overlooked in policy circles; critically assessing the efficacy of current counter-ideological initiatives within government and identifying ways to improve them. The impact will be immediate in terms of dissemination of the research findings but it will also be longer-term as governments use the findings to help sharpen their existing practices in this area.
2. Civil society practitioners
Organisations involved in countering violent extremism, including those with transnational reach into the Muslim world.
There are numerous organisations involved in countering violent extremism. But their approaches tend to be based on varying readings of the threat from global jihadi ideas. These are informed both by particular theological standpoints as well as the knowledge base available to them. As key actors at the forefront of the conflict within Islam which jihadism has catalysed (and which governments through their engagement programmes recognise), the research will provide them with a deeper understanding of the ideological threat as well as analytical tools to help shape their counter-ideological responses.
3. Private research organisations and think tanks
The range of research and think tank organisations involved in research on global jihadism and actively engaged in countering violent extremism.
The research will deepen knowledge of the ideological threat and identify how policy and media debates have been driven, in part, by the ideological positions of private research organisations. This will impact on such organisations by deepening their understanding of global jihadism and how counter-ideological initiatives are, in some cases, too narrowly defined and ideologically driven. The research is aimed at catalysing a new research agenda and as such will impact on such organisations over a longer period of time.
4. Media and public
My planned media article on the research findings will ensure coverage to the wider public and deepen public understandings of the societal impacts of global jihadism.
They fall into four broad categories:
- policy-makers engaged in counter-terrorism and social integration issues
- civil society practitioners involved in countering violent extremism
- private research organisations and policy think tanks
- media and public
1. Policy-makers
UK:
Central government: the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism at the Home Office; the Research, Information and Communications Unit; the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Counter-Terrorism department and relevant geographical departments; intelligence agencies, including JTAC.
Local government: including local officers working on the Prevent strand of HMG's CONTEST agenda (Home Office, Communities and Local Government, Police)
US:
Central government: State Department; Homeland Security
Local government: local officers increasingly engaged with counter terrorist issues and engagement with Muslim communities.
Europe:
Central and local government policy-makers involved in counter-terrorism and community integration in the Netherlands and other member states at the European Union.
Policy understandings of the threat from global jihadi ideas are in their relatively early stages despite the increasing government resources being deployed to counter violent extremism. This research will impact on policy-making in this area in two key ways: increasing understanding of the nature of the threat by providing an innovative approach to addressing the complex contextual factors which drive militant Islamist ideas through a comprehensive and integrated inter-disciplinary perspective which brings to the foreground academic approaches often overlooked in policy circles; critically assessing the efficacy of current counter-ideological initiatives within government and identifying ways to improve them. The impact will be immediate in terms of dissemination of the research findings but it will also be longer-term as governments use the findings to help sharpen their existing practices in this area.
2. Civil society practitioners
Organisations involved in countering violent extremism, including those with transnational reach into the Muslim world.
There are numerous organisations involved in countering violent extremism. But their approaches tend to be based on varying readings of the threat from global jihadi ideas. These are informed both by particular theological standpoints as well as the knowledge base available to them. As key actors at the forefront of the conflict within Islam which jihadism has catalysed (and which governments through their engagement programmes recognise), the research will provide them with a deeper understanding of the ideological threat as well as analytical tools to help shape their counter-ideological responses.
3. Private research organisations and think tanks
The range of research and think tank organisations involved in research on global jihadism and actively engaged in countering violent extremism.
The research will deepen knowledge of the ideological threat and identify how policy and media debates have been driven, in part, by the ideological positions of private research organisations. This will impact on such organisations by deepening their understanding of global jihadism and how counter-ideological initiatives are, in some cases, too narrowly defined and ideologically driven. The research is aimed at catalysing a new research agenda and as such will impact on such organisations over a longer period of time.
4. Media and public
My planned media article on the research findings will ensure coverage to the wider public and deepen public understandings of the societal impacts of global jihadism.
People |
ORCID iD |
Zaheer Abbas Kazmi (Principal Investigator / Fellow) |
Publications
Devji F
(2017)
Islam after Liberalism
Devji F
(2017)
Islam after Liberalism
Kazmi Z
(2013)
Foundations of Modern International Thought. By David Armitage. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 311p. $85.00 cloth, $27.99 paper.
in Perspectives on Politics
KAZMI Z
(2014)
AUTOMATIC ISLAM: DIVINE ANARCHY AND THE MACHINES OF GOD
in Modern Intellectual History
Kazmi Z
(2017)
Islam after Liberalism
Kazmi Z
(2018)
Beyond compare? Free market Islamism as ideology
in Journal of Political Ideologies
Zaheer Kazmi (Author)
(2014)
Review of The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought, edited by Gerhard Bowering
in The Times Literary Supplement
Zaheer Kazmi
(2014)
The Limits of Muslim Liberalism
in The Los Angeles Review of Books
Description | Since 9/11, global public policy debates on security and liberty have centred largely on the threat of 'radical' Islam. In this climate, radical departures in Islamic thought and practice have been identified solely with forms of Islamist extremism and militancy which threaten the liberal democratic state and its values. This discourse of Muslim radicalism has been promoted both by Western states and a variety of emergent 'moderate' Muslim constituencies who have defined themselves against 'radical' Islam. This project has brought to light a neglected but critical dimension of this development in our understanding of radical Islam - namely, the multiple ways in which, in combating extremism, such a narrow understanding of radicalism has also played a part in closing down free thinking and open debate about the future non-violent trajectories of global Islam. At its core, there are three broad findings arising from the research carried out for this project: - The production of knowledge (academic and policy) about the future of global Islam in an era of rising militancy has been markedly constrained by the limited parameters within which public, policy and academic debates about 'radical' Islam continue to be framed. Crucially, this has meant that policymakers are exposed largely to a narrow band of often partisan evidence despite the proliferation of 'expertise' in this area. - The globalisation of this diffuse expertise on both violent and non-violent forms of Islam has become increasingly privatised and subordinated to market forces in recent years. Partly as a consequence of state-funded projects in their battle against state subversion, this has led to the increased ideologisation of knowledge about Islam which tends to privilege the state and marginalise dissent from it. - Forms of non-violent Muslim radicalism which may be critical of the state, or even anti-statist and anarchistic, but have little or anything to do with extremism and militancy, have been obscured or co-opted by the overweening agenda of Islamic 'moderation' fostered both by states and civil society organisations in the fight against Islamist militancy. These findings have significant implications for both future research priorities and policy formulation on issues of Muslim 'radicalism': - More research needs to be carried out on emergent forms of non-violent Muslim radicalism and the ways in which they expose the limits of Muslim reformist projects which have arisen in opposition to Islamist militancy. There has been very little, if any, research into the specific relationship between Muslim liberalism and non-violent Muslim radicalism. - Expertise - both academic and civil society - from which policymakers draw in trying to understand and combat extremism has increasingly diversified. But the marketisation of this knowledge, and the largely state-driven impetus behind it, has meant that there are deep structural constraints which reinforce a state-centred status quo in our understanding of future trends in Islamic thought and practice. |
Exploitation Route | The project will help government, NGO and civil society actors engaged in policies relevant to understanding the evolving nature of transnational Islam and of Muslim communities and radicalism. It sheds light on hitherto almost entirely neglected themes and concerns in debates about radicalisation. The project has the potential to make an impact on two constituencies, or 'users', beyond the academy, in particular: government policymakers; and civil society actors: - Policymakers can use these insights to begin to break free from the intellectual strait-jacket of the discourse of 'the liberal state vs. radical Islam' in their understanding of global Islam, which their own policies have largely set in train. Recent events in the Muslim world - from the Arab Spring to Turkey's Taksim protests, to Iran's Green Movement - have shown that radical forms of Muslim protest do not always fit readily within this template. They expose more decentred, eclectic strands of non-violent radicalism which can be equally critical of Islamism and the liberal state. - For civil society actors (Muslim and non-Muslim), the project also draws critical attention to the limits of the dominant institution-building and representative modes of Muslim civil society engagement. It should alert such organisations and representatives, which are increasingly responding to the threat from Islamist militancy by bolstering institutional orthodoxies, to the inherent tendencies towards marginalising voices and hindering liberty in the propagation of particular ideological, theological and institutional positions. |
Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy Education Government Democracy and Justice Security and Diplomacy |
Description | Up to now, the main direct societal impact of my research has been via publications in media outlets on issues arising from and pertaining to the findings of my ESRC research on 'Reframing Muslim Radicalism'. These have been in two related but distinct areas of my findings: Western public policy debates towards Islamist extremism; and the cultural politics of protest among Muslims. Some of these direct interventions in global public policy and media debates have led to wide coverage in social media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit) eliciting significant feedback and comment. Public policy debates on Islamist extremism: My publications have included a critical analysis of the UK's latest counter-extremism policy in an online piece in Foreign Affairs which is published by the leading US foreign policy think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations. Another piece in the Los Angeles Review of Books was subsequently hosted by the influential Muslim think tank, The Muslim Institute in the UK as well as the Transcultural Islam Research Network in the US - both of which also have wide-ranging public reach online to constituencies outside academia. I have also published two articles on violent extremism and Western policies towards Muslim communities in Open Democracy (a UK based online current affairs publication with significant international reach) - both stem from my research findings which relate to the limits of state policy and civil society approaches to dealing with non-violent dissent among Muslim citizens. As a further illustration of this impact, my Foreign Affairs piece was, for example, tweeted by the UK's Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, while my Open Democracy arguments have been quoted in wider global media, including in reporting into radical Islam in The Toronto Sun newspaper in Canada. The cultural politics of protest among Muslims: I have published a series of essays in the art, politics and culture media arising from my research findings. These include a piece on the relationship between radical Islam and popular music and culture for a Berlin based media and politics blog, Carta. It has also included a piece on ISIS, architecture and violence for the New York based Brooklyn Rail and a piece on Muslim media representation of religious authenticity, violent and non violent, in TANK magazine in the UK. Collectively, these essays have sought to widen the impact of my research to include users in the creative industries connecting my findings on the evolving nature of non-violent 'radical' Islam to shifting artistic and cultural practices in politics and society. |
First Year Of Impact | 2014 |
Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Education,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Security and Diplomacy |
Impact Types | Cultural Societal Policy & public services |
Description | Beyond Muslim Liberalism project (workshop and co-edited book) |
Organisation | University of Oxford |
Department | Asian Studies Centre |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | This strand of my research included a one-day workshop with a group of world leading academics from a variety of countries which is tied to a forthcoming volume which will be co-edited by Dr Faisal Devji and myself. The workshop was held in association with the Asian Studies Centre at Oxford University. A list of chapter contributors can be found on the Beyond Muslim Liberalism edited book output. Additional contributors at the workshop included Professor Michael Freeden (Oxford/Nottingham). |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | The Limits of Muslim Liberalism |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | review article (4000 words) of Tariq Ramadan's The Arab Awakening and Bassam Tibi's The Shari'a State, in the Los Angeles Review of Books The Los Angeles Review of Books |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |