Islamist movements and the resort to violence: how charismatic leaders condition the impact of political repression and exclusion (original) (raw)

Legitimised by an appeal to the curbing of religious extremism and violence, policies of political repression and exclusion against Islamists have been in place for decades. Most Islamist movements, however, have in the course of their history been moderate, and primarily confined themselves to peaceful means. The instances in which Islamists did use violence can be treated as anomalies. This study explores the circumstances in which political repression and exclusion cause a nonviolent Islamist movement to resort to violence. Existing literature has demonstrated strong correlations between repression and exclusion on the one hand, and the use of violence on the other. The exact nature of this relationship, however, remains uncertain. What is more, this study addresses the puzzle that revolves around those cases in which an Islamist movement is subjected to repression and exclusion, yet it does not resort to violence. The conditioning variable of charismatic leadership is introduced and it is hypothesised that political repression and exclusion are more likely to cause an Islamist movement to resort to violence at times when it is led by a charismatic leader. To test this hypothesis, the method of structured focused comparison is applied to the cases of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the Tunisian Ennahda movement. It was found that while the theoretical argument is confirmed in the case of the Muslim Brotherhood, it does not convincingly hold with regard to Ennahda. With the increasing role of violent Islamist groups of a Salafist and Jihadist nature, future research should focus on the implications of severe state repression and exclusion over long periods of time, and on the circumstances under which these are more likely to provoke extremist forms of violence.