Radical Islam and International Security »

Radical Islam poses a political challenge in the modern world which is like that of no other radical religious movement. Ideologically, it is perceived by Western policy makers as threatening the liberal-democratic ideology by which most states in the West abide and which most other states rhetorically espouse.

This book serves as a welcome addition to the intellectual and policy debate on the nature of the radical Islam phenomenon and how to respond to it. The collection is divided into three parts: the first part seeks to understand the Islamic challenge in broad comparative and historical terms, while the second part deals with specific regional case studies, which seek to identify patterns of uniformity and variation in radical Islam across a wide swath of terrain. The third part is policy-oriented, suggesting possible responses to the Islamic challenge. The contributors include distinguished researchers from Europe, North America and the Middle East.

This book will be of much interest to students of Islamism, political violence, international security and Middle Eastern politics.

List of illustrations     vii
Notes on contributors     viii
Introduction: radical Islam and international security: challenges and responses   Hillel Frisch   Efraim Inbar     1
The challenge of radical Islam: general themes     9
Religious extremism or religionization of politics? The ideological foundations of political Islam   Bassam Tibi     11
Islam from flexibility to ferocity   Ze'ev Maghen     38
An economic perspective on radical Islam   Arye L. Hillman     44
The Islamist challenge: case studies     71
The rise of jihadi trends in Saudi Arabia: the post Iraq-Kuwait war phase   Joseph Kostiner     73
Islamic radicalism and terrorism in the European Union: the Maghrebi factor   Michael M. Laskier     93
Explaining the causes of radical Islam in Europe   Jonathan S. Paris     121
The evolution of Iranian interventionism: support for radical Islam in Turkey, 1982-2003   Patrick James   Yasemin Akbaba     134
The Islamic dimension of Pakistan's foreign policy   Rushda Siddiqui     153
Responding to the Islamist challenge     169
The potential dangers of a "real" jihad   Max Singer     171
Deterring those who are already dead?   Laurent Murawiec     180
Fighting terrorism with democracy?   Daniel Byman     188
Counter-terrorist strategies   Jonathan Stevenson     204
Index     220