The Islamic State

Violence and Ideology in a Post-colonial Revolutionary Regime

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2236822
AutoresBrian Mello (0000-0003-3544-6531, Muhlenberg College, autor de correspondencia)
Año2018
Volumen12
Número2
Páginas139-155
Fecha de publicación2018-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Political Sociology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1749-5679 • E-ISSN: 1749-5687
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ips/oly003
OpenAlexW2803636366
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas21

This paper seeks to counter popular and academic discourse that emphasizes the uniqueness or unprecedented nature of the Islamic State. Many of these claims highlight the violence perpetrated by ISIS as evidence of its unique ideology. This essay draws from the work of Foucault and Fanon, as well as from Richard Sakwa’s thinking on the changing nature of the concept of revolution, in order to counter these popular narratives. The paper begins by reading ISIS’s public executions through the lens of Foucault’s discussion of the spectacle of violence in Discipline and Punish. What is often described as unique, irrational, unprecedented violence is reread as advancing particular rational goals. Yet, rather than dismiss ISIS’s ideology altogether, the paper argues that ISIS is best understood as exhibiting qualities of an anticolonial revolutionary regime. Through violent actions, it forges new collective identities grounded in a national culture rooted in an effort to find authenticity in precolonial Sunni Islam.

Colonialism · Criminology · Ideology · Islam · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science) · Theology · Computer Science · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Philosophy · Political Conflict and Governance · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence