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81. Islamic Groups’ Social Service Provision and Attitudinal Change in Egypt

Author:
Steven Brooke
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
Islamic organizations’ educational, medical, financial and charitable services benefit millions of Egyptians each year. Scholars and policymakers alike argue that, in the process of meeting Egyptians’ basic needs, this social-service provision Islamizes the population, acclimates them to the use of religiously justified violence, and aggravates sectarian attitudes. Yet authors rarely provide concrete data concerning these facilities, their history, the scope of the services provided, and the audiences they serve. Further, the attitudinal change supposedly under way is neither clearly observed nor easily measured. These twin deficits have limited the progress of research on an area of growing scholarly and practitioner interest. This paper improves on both of these areas. It uses a variety of primary and secondary sources to sketch the history and organizational capacity of three Islamic organizations’ social-service networks: those of the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Gam’iyya al-Shar’iyya, and Ansar al-Sunna al-Mohammediyya. It also reports the results of an original survey experiment of over 3,700 Egyptians, testing how exposure to information about these organizations’ service provision shapes individual attitudes on religiosity, violence, and sectarianism. While in many cases these primes fail to produce statistically significant shifts, results in both the religion battery and that regarding violence are notable. First, exposure to information about the Muslim Brotherhood’s social-service provision produces a significant and conservative shift in personal and social dimensions of religion. However, receiving information about the Brotherhood’s social-service provision makes respondents less likely to support a political role for religion. Second, receiving information about al-Gam’iyya al-Shar’iyya’s service provision shifts an individual’s propensity to tolerate violence in retribution for perceived provocations from non-Muslims.
Topic:
Terrorism, Islamism, and Muslim Brotherhood
Political Geography:
North Africa and Egypt

82. Rethinking Islamist Politics

Author:
Khalil al-Anani, Mokhtar Awad, Steven Brooke, Michaelle Browers, and Nathan J. Brown
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
The Arab uprisings of 2011 radically reshaped the environment within which Islamist movements had evolved over the preceding decades, causing rapid, disorienting changes in their strategies, ideologies, and organizations. The last three years have produced an enormous amount of new information about these movements: detailed election results; factional and generational and intra-Islamist rivalries spilling out into public; varying degrees of political polarization between Islamists and their rivals; the erratic performance of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood after coming to power through elections and the fallout from its removal through popular protest and military coup; the emergence of a sharp public backlash against the Brotherhood in Egypt, at least, and a crackdown on its social services; a new regionwide campaign designating the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization; the surprising evolution of al Qaeda and jihadist movements from Syria and Iraq through North Africa. In January 2014, the Project on Middle East Political Science therefore convened a workshop with fifteen leading academic specialists on Islamist movements in the Arab Middle East and charged them with rethinking key assumptions, arguments, evidence and research programs in light of these three tumultuous years. The workshop brought together European and American academics with specialties ranging from mainstream movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood to jihadists and non-violent Salafists, and with expertise on countries ranging from the Gulf through Egypt and the Levant to North Africa. This special POMEPS Briefing collects the memos prepared for the workshop. The short essays collected here touch on many of these issues, pointing towards a rich set of compelling new theoretical and empirical questions with which the field must now grapple.
Topic:
Politics, Salafism, Arab Spring, Political Science, Islamism, and Muslim Brotherhood
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa

83. Islamist Social Services

Author:
Abdullah Al-Arian, Mona Atia, Steven Brooke, Melani Cammett, and Kevan Harris
Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
What do we really know about the provision of social services by Islamist movements? It’s hard to find a popular article about a group like the Muslim Brotherhood or Hezbollah that doesn’t reference their ability to win popular support by providing social services through their extensive network of charities, clinics and community centers. Most observers have long believed that these charitable activities played a key role in Islamist outreach and organization, built their reputations for honesty and efficacy, conferred a significant political advantage, and helped to promote the Islamization of society. A recent wave of scholarship has challenged many of the prevailing assumptions about the nature and significance of these social services, however. Evidence for the scope, superiority or political utility of these charitable activities has proven elusive. Volunteers in the Islamic charitable sector profess a far wider set of motivations for their participation than just political rewards. The rise of non-governmental charities – and not only Islamic ones – seems to be driven at least in part by neoliberal reforms and the broader structural changes in the region’s political economy. What’s more, whatever explains the patterns and effects of social service provision in the past might no longer apply. Major changes on the ground such as the crushing of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and the dramatic move into service provision by jihadist groups raise serious questions about how these dynamics might play out in the future.
Topic:
Political Science, Islamism, and Social Services
Political Geography:
Middle East

84. Journal of Advanced Military Studies: Spring 2013

Author:
Paolo Tripodi, Winston Harris, Valentina Bartolucci, Kathleen Reedy, and Terri K. Wonder
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Advanced Military Studies
Institution:
Marine Corps University Press, National Defense University
Abstract:
re world becomes more complicated by the day, and the challenges the military faces as we attempt to operate in the current environment become more complicated also.rere are those who think that, with our involvement in Afghanistan winding down, there will be less for U.S. Armed Forces to do around the world. rey could not be more mistaken. If anything, this issue of the Marine Corps University Journal serves to illustrate the chaos and violence that predominate in perennial hot spots. As our resources continue to dwindle, our options for dealing effectively with these hot spots seem just as limited. It is very likely that we will continue to be asked to do more with less. Doing more with less is even more difficult under challenging circumstances, as is doing the right thing. For instance, when confronted by a morally abhorrent situation, how do we as a nation and as a military force respond? In these situations, nations, leaders, and peacekeeping forces are sometimes required to make the ultimate decision: strictly follow orders or do what is both moral and right. Military personnel have faced this dilemma in hostile places, such as Rwanda and Srebrenica, often with tragic consequences. In the opening article, Paolo Tripodi describes similar challenges faced by United Nations peacekeepers when civilian lives became the responsibility (or not) of force commanders.Tripodi argues that, in spite of their orders, commanders at various levels had (and still have) a moral responsibility to protect the lives of citizens, even at the risk of their own lives.
Topic:
Terrorism, Military Affairs, Islamism, Kurds, and Atrocities
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Africa, Europe, Syria, Rwanda, Maghreb, and Srebrenica

85. Understanding Islamist Activism and Islamic Movements

Author:
Cenap Çakmak
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
BILGESAM (Wise Men Center for Strategic Studies)
Abstract:
Islamist activism takes growing attention in political discussions and literature of scholarly accounts as well. Islamic movements and activism is often associated with terrorism in these accounts. However, this is a simplistic approach and ignores the dynamics and rationale behind this phenomenon. In other words, Islamism needs to be explored and understood for a proper analysis and discussion.
Topic:
Islam, Terrorism, Political Activism, Islamism, and Jihad
Political Geography:
Turkey

86. Fransa’da İslamofobik Söylemin Ana Akımlaşması ve Arap Baharı’nın Etkisi | Effect of Arab Spring as Islamophobic Discourse Becomes Mainstream in France

Author:
Ömer Behram Özdemir
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:
Arap Baharı sırasında yaşananlar ve bunların dolaylı ve doğrudan etkileri, sadece Ortadoğu ve Kuzey Afrika’da değil Batı’da da tartışmalara neden olmuştur. Pek çok uluslararası aktörün Ortadoğu politikalarının değişmesinin yanı sıra, bu sürecin söylemlerde de şekillendirici bir etkisi olduğu bu makalenin dayandığı ana fikirdir. Makalede Fransa örneği üzerinden Müslüman kimliğine karşı İslamofobik söylemlerin siyaset ve medya dilinde ana akımlaşması ve bunun toplum tabanında karşılık gördüğü tezi görsel medya materyalleri ve toplumsal araştırma sonuçlarıyla desteklenirken, “İslamcı” kavramının Arap Baharı süreciyle kullanımındaki değişim ve Müslüman kimliğinin görünürlüğü sorunsalı tartışılacaktır. Böylece Arap Baharı’nın kavram ve söylemler üzerinde şekillendirici bir özelliği olduğu tezi savunulacaktır. | With its consequences, direct and indirect effects, the Arab Spring became a matter of debate not only in the Middle East and North Africa but also in the West. It has a formative effect which has an impact on discourses as well as policies towards the Middle East. In this article, this impact will be discussed in the case of France. The rise of Islamophobic discourses in media and politics, enemization of the concept of “Islamism” and visibility problem of Muslim identity will be discussed in the light of some visual media materials and social researches. Thus, the effect of the Arab Spring on Islamophobic discourse of French politics, media and society will be focused on.
Topic:
Arab Spring, Islamophobia, Far Right, and Islamism
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, and France

87. The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West

Author:
Lorenzo Vindino
Publication Date:
08-2010
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
In Europe and North America, networks tracing their origins back to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist movements have rapidly evolved into multifunctional and richly funded organizations competing to become the major representatives of Western Muslim communities and government interlocutors. Some analysts and policy makers see these organizations as positive forces encouraging integration. Others cast them as modern-day Trojan horses, feigning moderation while radicalizing Western Muslims. Lorenzo Vidino brokers a third, more informed view. Drawing on more than a decade of research on political Islam in the West, he keenly analyzes a controversial movement that still remains relatively unknown. Conducting in-depth interviews on four continents and sourcing documents in ten languages, Vidino shares the history, methods, attitudes, and goals of the Western Brothers, as well as their phenomenal growth. He then flips the perspective, examining the response to these groups by Western governments, specifically those of Great Britain, Germany, and the United States. Highly informed and thoughtfully presented, Vidino's research sheds light on a critical juncture in Muslim-Western relations.
Topic:
Islam and Islamism
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, and Western Europe
Publication Identifier:
9780231522298
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN