Turmoil in the Levant: Inconclusive Conclusions

TY - CHAP

T1 - Turmoil in the Levant

T2 - Inconclusive Conclusions

AU - Jung, Dietrich

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - What is IS [the Islamic State] a case of?” This question Jillian Schwedler posed in an essay published in February 2015 in the Washington Post. In this article, she discussed the terms that academics and the broader public use in analyzing Islamist organizations in general and the IS in particular.1 Of course, Schwedler had no difficulties in categorizing the IS as a radical and extremist jihadist group. Yet, how is this group different from other jihadist organizations? This question has occupied scholars and media pundits in their assessment of the rise of the IS and its warfare in Syria and Iraq. In an essay for the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, for instance, Volker Perthes, the director of the German think tank Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (German Institute for International and Security Affairs) in Berlin, warned the public not to underestimate the significance of the role of the IS in the Syrian civil war. Instead of talking about a mere terrorist organization, Perthes suggested considering the IS as the central actor in a jihadist state-building process, which is “totalitarian, expansive, and hegemonic” in its nature.2 Perthes’s essay raised immediate responses. In the journal Zenith Naseef Naeem and Daniel Gerlach, to take only one example, criticized Perthes in that talking with reference to the IS about a state-building process enhanced its status and disparaged the concept of the state.

AB - What is IS [the Islamic State] a case of?” This question Jillian Schwedler posed in an essay published in February 2015 in the Washington Post. In this article, she discussed the terms that academics and the broader public use in analyzing Islamist organizations in general and the IS in particular.1 Of course, Schwedler had no difficulties in categorizing the IS as a radical and extremist jihadist group. Yet, how is this group different from other jihadist organizations? This question has occupied scholars and media pundits in their assessment of the rise of the IS and its warfare in Syria and Iraq. In an essay for the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, for instance, Volker Perthes, the director of the German think tank Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (German Institute for International and Security Affairs) in Berlin, warned the public not to underestimate the significance of the role of the IS in the Syrian civil war. Instead of talking about a mere terrorist organization, Perthes suggested considering the IS as the central actor in a jihadist state-building process, which is “totalitarian, expansive, and hegemonic” in its nature.2 Perthes’s essay raised immediate responses. In the journal Zenith Naseef Naeem and Daniel Gerlach, to take only one example, criticized Perthes in that talking with reference to the IS about a state-building process enhanced its status and disparaged the concept of the state.

U2 - 10.1057/9781137526021_10

DO - 10.1057/9781137526021_10

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 9781349576289

T3 - The Modern Muslim World

SP - 191

EP - 210

BT - The Levant in Turmoil

A2 - Beck, Martin

A2 - Jung, Dietrich

A2 - Seeberg, Peter

PB - Palgrave Macmillan

ER -