Islamic State as Pseudo-state in the Middle East (original) (raw)
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Is the Islamic State a " state " according to international law with a foreign policy of its own?
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Several appellants have been used by the international community to call the self-proclaimed Islamic State: ISIS, IS, ISIL and Daesh. This fact remarks not only an evolution in perceiving what the IS stands for, but also in its capacity to acquire power in terms of "soft" and "hard" power. With regards to its roots, puplic opinion tends to assimilate the terrorist group of IS to Al Qaeda because of its radicalism and its violent rhetoric towards the West, losing sight of the inherent differences that permeate its characteristics and its mission. The hypothesis set is whether the IS can be consider a State according to international law. In order to falsify the hypothesis, relevant and consistent analysis have been made. This paper, therefore, will explore the historical roots and peculiarities of the IS, its propaganda, strategies and missions which differentiates it by other groups. Relevant theories of International Relations, social media's opinions and presidential speeches of Obama and Hollande will be examined through a macro-perspective. In conclusion, the IS is not a State in respect with International law because the criteria requested to formally be a State are not met. Nevertheless, the IS plays a certain role in the international scenario as an international actor that is doing a state-building through the use of force and violence.
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The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ( ISIL/IS) threat poses crucial questions of public international law/relations, including, but not limited to: is it a terrorism threat? If not, what is it? Do we really need international law to combat the threat? What lessons can be learnt for international law and international actors from the (apparent causes of the) threat? And what needs to be done as a matter of urgency and strategy? This article does not try to engage with all these timely but complex questions; rather it is meant to invite a scholarly debate and reflection on the challenge of defining and understanding IS as an actor which may or may not have apparent legal or political implications.
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This article examines a category of parastatates that has been largely neglected; the terrorist parastate. The main aim of the article is to fill this gap by scrutinizing the case of the Islamic State (IS), an organization that could be considered as the epitome of a terrorist parastate. Before the collapse of its territorial strategy in 2019, the group had targeted a significant number of states through terrorist attacks, while simultaneously controlling large swathes of territory and developing state-like institutions. During its buoyant period, IS called itself a state (Dawla), it viewed itself as a state (accomplishing a religious obligation), and perhaps more significantly, it was often perceived as a state by its enemies. The article will discuss the future prospects for the Islamic State after the collapse of its territorial/statehood strategy. After conceptualizing the nature of the terrorist parastate, the article will venture into comparative uncharted territory through an examination of the terrorist parastate vis-à-vis its ordinary secessionist counterparts. One of the chief dissimilarities is the fact that IS, and terrorist parastates in general, tend to be less durable projects than secessionist parastates because they lack international sponsorship and they are more susceptible to foreign military interventions.
Islamic State the Product of a Bridging Between Regional Competitions and Islamic Radicalism
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The purpose of this paper is to highlight the origin and evolution of the "Islamic State" (IS) with special focus on the root causes that helped construct its Islamic narrative, such as the idea of the Islamic caliphate. It argues that IS has not concealed all other jihadist groups, and it is just a new face of the same idea associated with political Islam: Salafi-Jihadism. This paper also tries to analyze the changing face of global jihadism through a comparative approach of Al-Qaeda and IS. It has been shown that while both groups have common ideological beliefs, they are in many ways different. By studying and analyzing the Islamic discourse of many Jihadist groups in the Middle East, the paper has showed a case of acute obscurantism which is reflected on the statements and behavior of these groups. However, they are open to communicate between their organizations. For the counter extremism initiatives, the threat of IS and its affiliated groups is not decreasing, but it is changing. What is needed in the region in order to fight this monster is a moment of reflection and reckoning by all Muslims. It requires a revolution in the dominant religious discourse.
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The turmoil that has beset the Middle East since December 2010 deepened the instability and surfaced various conflicts and tensions that have been characteristic of the region throughout history. These events reveal the importance of non-state actors in the Middle East and give rise to the need to rethink "facts, " terms, and concepts connected to the phenomenon of the nation-state, practically and theoretically. Although non-state actors are not new in the global or Middle Eastern political landscape, it is evident that the theoretical and practical discussion, with its political, military, legal, and international aspects, has remained largely "state" in a way that allows little room for a thorough understanding of non-state phenomena. The purpose of this article is to discuss developments in the Middle East, with an emphasis on the actions of non-state actors as significant shapers of regional processes, while discussing the validity of theories and conceptualizations in international relations for an analysis of existing non-state phenomena. The discussion will involve an analysis of two test cases: Hizbollah and the Islamic State.