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Islamist terrorism and the Middle East democratic deficit: Political exclusion, repression and the causes of extremism

2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 13; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13510340600579516

1743-890X

Katerina Dalacoura,

Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies

Abstract The terrorist attacks of September 11 created a consensus among Western, and in particular US, policy makers that authoritarianism in the Middle East undermined Western interests by contributing to the emergence of Islamist terrorism. This study demonstrates, however, that there is no evidence that a necessary causal relationship exists between the democratic deficit in the Middle East and Islamist terrorism. The analysis explores the three main types of Islamist terrorism: the transnational terrorism of al Qaeda; the Islamist terrorism associated with national liberation movements, such as Hamas and Hizbullah; and Islamist terrorism in the context of domestic insurgencies, such as the Egyptian Gamaa Islamiya and the Algerian Armed Islamic Group. The case studies show that the political exclusion and repression of the Islamist movements in question contributed to the adoption of terrorist methods in some cases, but not in others. The account also explores the obverse question, whether political participation leads to the emergence of a moderate Islamism that eschews terrorist tactics. The Turkish Justice and Development Party, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the Tunisian Nahda and the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood/Islamic Action Front are studied in this context. The evidence, again, is mixed: the non-violent nature of some movements is clearly a product of their being included in the political process – but in other cases repression had the same outcome. Keywords: democracyIslamismMiddle EastterrorismIslamist terrorismpolitical exclusionpolitical participation Acknowledgments The writer would like to thank colleagues in the Staff Research Seminar at the International Relations department of LSE and at the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Workshop in Granada in April 2005 for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. The statistical study was carried out by Annika Bolten, to whom I am grateful. Many thanks also to the editors of the volume, Frédéric Volpi and Franscesco Cavartota. Notes 1. Hugh Pope, 'War of words between U.S., Saudi media heightens tensions in the crucial alliance', Wall Street Journal, 21 November 2001, quoted in Josh Pollack, 'Saudi Arabia and the United States, 1931–2002', Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, Vol. 6, No. 3 (2002), p. 13, available at: http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue3/jv6n3a7.html (accessed 5 January 2006). 2. 'President Bush Discusses Freedom in Iraq and Middle East', The National Endowment for Democracy, 6 November 2003, available at: http://www.ned.org/eventsn/anniversary/oct1603-Bush.html (accessed 2 December 2003). 3. `The Opportunity Society', speech by Tony Blair MP, Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party, Labour Party Annual Conference, Brighton Centre, 28 September 2004. available at: http://www.labour.org.uk/ac2004news?ux_news_id = ac04tb (accessed 5 October 2004). 4. Thomas Carothers, 'Democracy: Terrorism's Uncertain Antidote', Current History, Vol. 102, No. 668 (December 2003), p. 404. 5. Jennifer Noyon, Islam, Politics and Pluralism: Theory and Practice in Turkey, Jordan, Tunisia and Algeria (London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2003); and Mohammed M. Hafez, Why Muslims Rebel: Repression and Resistance in the Islamic World (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003). 6. I have used Hafez's criteria here. 7. Here, I have modified Ghadbian's (fourfold) categorization. See Najib Ghadbian, 'Political Islam: Inclusion or Violence?', in Kenton Worcester, Sally Avery Bermanzohn and Mark Ungar (eds), Violence and Politics: Globalization's Paradox (New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 95–6. 8. Jan Screiber, The Ultimate Weapon: Terrorists and World Order (New York: Morrow, 1978), p. 20, quoted in C. A. J. Coady, 'The Morality of Terrorism', Philosophy, Vol. 60, No. 231 (1985), p. 51. 9. Therefore, in my view, the saying 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter' is, strictly speaking, nonsensical: a terrorist can also be a freedom fighter in that he/she can fight for freedom by using terrorist means. 10. Note that the debate on the causes of Islamist terrorism is distinct from the debate on the causes of political Islam. Islamist terrorism is not tantamount to Islamist conservatism either: numerous Islamist movements are conservative, even fundamentalist, but not terrorist. 11. Martha Crenshaw, 'The Causes of Terrorism', Comparative Politics, Vol. 13, No. 4 (1981), pp. 381–5. 12. Luigi Bonanate, 'Some Unanticipated Consequences of Terrorism', Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 16 (1979), pp. 197–211. The concept of a 'blocked society' is intriguing and could be relevant to Middle East societies but Bonanate does not really develop it in this article. 13. Martha Crenshaw, 'The Logic of Terrorism: Terrorist Behavior as a Product of Strategic Choice', in Walter Reich (ed.), Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind (New York: Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars and Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 13. 14. Crenshaw (note 11), p. 396. 15. Leonard Weinberg, 'Turning to Terror: The Conditions under Which Political Parties Turn to Terrorist Activities', Comparative Politics, Vol. 23, No. 4 (1991), p. 432. 16. William Eubank and Leonard Weinberg, 'Terrorism and Democracy: Perpetrators and Victims', Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 13, No. 1 (2001), pp. 155–64. 17. David C. Rapoport and Leonard Weinberg, 'Elections and Violence', in David C. Rapoport and Leonard Weinberg (eds), The Democratic Experience and Political Violence (London: Frank Cass, 2001), pp. 15–50. 18. Christopher Hewitt, 'The Political Context of Terrorism in America: Ignoring Extremists or Pandering to Them?', ibid., p. 340; in drawing this conclusion Hewitt echoes James C. Davies, When Men Revolt and Why (New York: Free Press, 1971). 19. Walter Laqueur, No End to War: Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Continuum, 2003), p. 14. 20. Olivier Roy, Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (London: Hurst & Co., 2004), p. 48. 21. Freedom House, '"Freedom in the World" Index – Methodology for determining political rights and civil liberties rankings', available at: http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2003/methodology.htm (accessed 20 December 2004). 22. ITERATE Data Codebook, 27 July 2003, p. 2. 23. Jason Burke argues that we can describe al Qaeda more accurately as a 'mode of activism and a tactic' or an 'operational hub' rather than an 'organization'. Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror (London: I.B. Tauris, 2003), pp. 8 and 10. 24. International Crisis Group interview with Fahmi Howeidi, Cairo, 28 October 2003; International Crisis Group, Islamism in North Africa II: Egypt's Opportunity, Middle East and North Africa Briefing, Cairo/Brussels, 20 April 2004, p. 5, available at: http://www.icg.org/home/index.cfm?id = 2994&l = 1 (accessed 5 February 2006). 25. International Crisis Group, Saudi Arabia Backgrounder: Who Are the Islamists?, Middle East Report No. 31 (21 September 2004), pp. 5–6, available at: http://www.icg.org/home/index.cfm?id = 3021&1 = 1 (accessed 18 January 2005). 26. Ibid., p. 5. 27. Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002), p. 300. 28. Alisher Khamidov, Countering the Call: The U.S., Hilb-ut-Tahrir, and Religious Extremism in Central Asia, The Brookings Project on U.S. Policy Towards the Islamic World, Analysis Paper No. 4 (July 2003), p. 1. See also, International Crisis Group, The IMU and Hizb-ut-Tahrir: Implications of the Afghanistan Campaign, 20 January 2002, available at: http://www.crisisweb.org/home/index.cfm?id = 1760&I%2B1 (accessed 15 October 2004). 29. On Hizbullah's evolution see Judith Palmer Harik, Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), Chapter 3; Nizar A. Hamzeh, 'Lebanon's Hizbullah: From Islamic Revolution to Parliamentary Accommodation', Third World Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 2 (1993). 30. Since the withdrawal of Israel from South Lebanon in May 2000, Hizbullah has continued skirmishes with the Israeli army over the disputed Sheba'a farms. 31. For Hizbullah's activities since 2000 see International Crisis Group, Old Games, New Rules: Conflict on the Israel-Lebanon Border, ICG Middle East Report No. 7, 18 November 2002, available at: http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id = 1663&l = 1 (accessed 18 May 2005). On Hizbullah and terrorism see esp. pp. 20–3. See also, International Crisis Group, Hizbollah: Rebel Without a Cause? Middle East Briefing Paper, Amman/Brussels, 30 July 2003, pp. 9–10, available at: http://www.icg.org/home/index.cfm?id = 2989&l = 1 (accessed 26 October 2004). 32. Glenn E. Robinson, 'Hamas as Social Movement', in Quintan Wiktorowicz (ed.), Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004), pp. 120–5. 33. Magnus Ranstorp, 'Hamas', Encyclopedia of World Terrorism, Vol. 2 (Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), pp. 402–3; 'Hamas', Alain Gresh and Dominique Vidal, The New A–Z of the Middle East (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), p. 109. 34. Robinson (note 32), p. 129. 35. Gresh and Vidal (note 33), p. 109. 36. Jeroen Gunning, 'Peace with Hamas? The Transforming Potential of Political Participation', International Affairs, Vol. 80, No. 2 (2004), pp. 245–7. 37. Mohammed M. Hafez, 'From Marginalization to Massacres: A Political Process Explanation of GIA Violence in Algeria', in Wiktorowicz (note 32). 38. Hafez (note 5). See also Mohammed M. Hafez and Quintan Wiktorowicz, 'Violence as Contention in the Egyptian Islamic Movement', in Wiktorowicz (note 32). 39. James Toth, 'Islamism in Southern Egypt: A Case Study of a Radical Religious Movement', International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 35, No. 4 (2003), p. 562. 40. Mustapha Kamel Al-Sayyid, The Other Face of the Islamist Movement, Democracy and Rule of Law Project, Global Policy Program, Working Paper Number 33 (January 2003), p. 19. 41. Kepel (note 27), p. 283. 42. Al-Sayyid (note 40), p. 14. 43. Kepel (note 27), pp. 283–98. 44. Although the focus of this section is on the former, there is considerable overlap between 'non-violent' and 'moderate' Islamism. Note, however, that the 'moderate' Islamist movements discussed in this section are not necessarily liberal: although many of them have become more appreciative of democratic and human rights principles they have a long way to go (in my view) until they fully embrace these principles. 45. Noyon (note 5), p. 90, and on the wider issue see pp. 85–90. 46. Ibid., pp. 99, 103–8. 47. Ibid., p. 101. See also Azzam S. Tamimi, Rachid Ghannouchi: A Democrat Within Islamism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 48. Hafez (note 5), p. 63. 49. Hafez (note 5) is wrong in my view when he says that the Islamists suffered only exclusion, not repression in Tunisia. Repression was widespread and has been well documented by numerous Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports. 50. Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, 'The Path to Moderation: Strategy and Learning in the Formation of Egypt's Wasat Party', Comparative Politics, Vol. 36, No. 2 (2004), pp. 205–28. 51. Noyon (note 5), p. 71. 52. Ahmet Insel, 'The AKP and Normalizing Democracy in Turkey', The South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 102, Nos 2/3 (2003), pp. 298–304. 53. On winning the December 1995 elections, Erbakan had to 'submit to the political compromises and contortions of a parliamentary coalition' and also face 'the consequence of insurmountable contradictions between the Islamist political project and the practical reality of running a democratic state linked to the West and hampered by growing disenchantment at the ruling party's electoral base'. Kepel (note 27), pp. 354, 355. 54. Ziya Öniş, 'Political Islam at the Crossroads: From Hegemony to Co-existence', Contemporary Politics, Vol. 7, No. 4 (2001), pp. 293–4.