Patterns of Islamist Mobilization in the Muslim-Majority World
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Patterns of Islamist Mobilization in the Muslim-Majority World Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Curtis, Justin Glenn Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction, presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 24/09/2021 19:47:04 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/645805 PATTERNS OF ISLAMIST MOBILIZATION IN THE MUSLIM-MAJORITY WORLD by Justin Curtis __________________________ Copyright © Justin Curtis 2020 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC POLICY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2020 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am very grateful to my dissertation committee, Faten, Paul, Pat, and Jen for their support and guidance in crafting this project. We have not always seen eye to eye on fundamental pieces of this project, but they gave me the room to be creative while providing insightful critiques and comments throughout the research and writing process. Other faculty members supported me through early stages of this project by putting up with niche papers on Islamist politics in their graduate seminars. Thank you to Jess, Yaseen, Maha, Samara, and Kamran. Before graduate school, Quinn introduced me to many of the puzzles with which I wrestle here and Joyce taught me to write about them; thank you. I also wish to thank my parents, Jeff and Devon, for their support and encouragement through this long process. They helped us have a lot of fun along the way. I am overwhelmed in my gratitude for Jess. She put up with long hours and unpredictable frustrations, and she provided solace in the hard times and joy in every time. I can’t say thank you enough. Finally, this project is dedicated to Maisy and Chip who arrived at its inception and near its completion, respectively. They always gave me something to look forward to at the end of the day—and probably too frequently in the middle of the day. You both are my inspirations. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables..……………………………………………………………………………….……5 List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………….……6 Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………7 Chapter 1: Defining Islamism and its Puzzles……………………………………………………9 Chapter 2: Patterns of Islamist Electoral Participation: A Set-Theoretic Approach…………….28 Chapter 3: Patterns of Islamist Violent Mobilization: When Can Parties Help?...........................99 Chapter 4: Intersectional Patterns of Islamist Electoral Participation………………………….129 and Violence: The Case of Democratization in Indonesia Chapter 5: Conclusions on the Patterns of Islamist Mobilization………………………………187 References………………………………………………………………………………………193 4 LIST OF TABLES A sample of Islamist groups by ideology, organization, and behavior………………………….1.1 Summary of causal conditions…………………………………………………………………..2.1 Results from set theoretic analysis of each causal condition……………………………………2.2 Observations that changed in the contextualized reanalysis of the outcome set………………..2.3 Results from the set theoretic analysis of each causal condition (contextualized)……………..2.4 All observations for set theoretic analysis……………………………………………………...2.A Regional distribution of country-cases………………………………………………………….3.1 Summary statistics of variables…………………………………………………………………3.2 Zero-inflated negative binomial regression results……………………………………………..3.3 Summary of major Indonesian Islamist parties…………………………………………………4.1 Multinomial logistic regression results for gubernatorial election decisions by Islamist parties (2014-2019)……………………………………………………………………………..4.2 OLS results for provincial vote share changes in national elections between 2014 and 2019….4.3 Distribution of gubernatorial decisions by party (2014-2019)………………………………….4.4 Summary of theoretical expectations in the prolonged process of democratization among the state and Islamist organizations and Indonesian empirics…………………………..4.5 5 LIST OF FIGURES Distribution of the proportion of constituencies in which Islamist parties compete………….2.1 Effect of free association rights by V-Dem regional govt. index……………………………..3.1 Effect of free association rights by V-Dem local govt. index…………………………………3.2 Evolution of Islamist and secular groups in the course of democratization……………………4.1 6 ABSTRACT This dissertation addresses two interrelated questions about mobilization and electoral politics among Islamists in the Muslim-majority world. A fundamental question in the study of Islamist political parties regards the conditions under which they will fully participate in electoral politics and integrate into electoral regimes. Because many—perhaps even most— Islamist parties emerged out of a broader social and religious movement in non-democratic political environments; there was little incentive to publicly declare allegiance to democratic norms and institutions when ruling elites made political democracy an impossibility. When opportunities for electoral participation emerged in the global shift toward more electoral regimes—if not democracies—Islamist groups had to make decisions about forming parties and how intensely to participate in elections. Chapter 2 reviews several expectations about party- level and regime-level inputs that may have caused Islamist parties to limit their participation in elections. I then rely on a set theoretic approach to test the relevance of each of the causal pathways. I find strong support for the hypothesis that the combination of parties that grew directly out of social and religious movements rather than merely adopting an association with these movements after their formation in combination with uncompetitive electoral institutions are nearly sufficient for parties to avoid fully participating in national elections. These results point to the relevance of this—their antecedent organization structure—highly salient and frequently overlooked dimension of variance among Islamist political parties. Over the last three decades both Islamist political parties and Islamist terrorist organizations have proliferated across the Muslim-majority world. Non-democratic regimes often argue that restrictions on Islamist political parties are necessary to curtail levels of Islamist violence, while these parties argue that without opportunities to participate, Islamist supporters may be more likely to turn to violent forms of mobilization. Scholars generally agree that the freedoms of association granted under political democracy will facilitate the organization of violent groups. In chapter 3, I present a theoretical discussion, based on the demands and preferences of Islamists themselves, that argues that opportunities for governance at the subnational level will condition this effect on levels of Islamist violence. Drawing on data from states where Islamist parties are organized and utilizing disaggregated measures of democracy, this hypothesis is tested quantitatively. I find support for the notion that only when there are not opportunities for subnational governance are increasing levels of free association rights are associated with increasing levels of violence. When there are opportunities for subnational governance, there is no relationship between free association rights and levels of violence. These findings highlight the demands of Islamist parties and the potential of subnational governance as a means of disincentivizing Islamist violence. The relationship between democratization and Islamism has traditionally been analyzed through an examination of either Islamist civil society or violent Islamist groups; the former, the argument goes, needs to “moderate” and the latter needs to “deradicalize”. However, Islamist civil society and Islamist violent groups compete over control over the same legitimizing symbols in Islam as well as over support from individuals sympathetic to Islamist ideas in both the populace and the state. Chapter 4 is an extended case study of the process of democratization in Indonesia and the varying relationships that Islamist civil society and violent groups had with each other and the state through this process. I divide the process of democratization into three pieces: the pre-transition phase, the initial transition phase, and the consolidation phase. I then 7 trace the evolution of Islamist civil society into normalized political parties and the rise and demise of violent Islamist groups through these three phases. 8 CHAPTER 1 Defining Islamism and its Puzzles This dissertation project tackles two of the most salient questions in the study of Islamist political parties: 1) when do Islamist parties fully embrace democratic electoral participation, and 2) how might Islamist parties mitigate the prevalence of Islamist violence in the Muslim- majority world? There has long been a fierce debate about the relationship between political Islam, violence, and democratic political culture. It is difficult to escape polemical arguments that Islam. On the one hand, some argue that Islam is invariably linked with violence and that Islamist movements are antithetical to democratic governance on one side (for example: Bale 2013; Mozaffari 2007; Huntington 1996; Fish 2002). On the other hand, others argue that Islam is an inherently peaceful religion and that its legal history demonstrate its unequivocal compatibility