Muslim Foreign Fighters in Armed Conflicts Jasper Schwampe Muslim Foreign Fighters in Armed Conflicts PhD Dissertation Politica © Forlaget Politica and the author 2018 ISBN: 978-87-7335-232-8 Cover: Svend Siune Print: Fællestrykkeriet, Aarhus University Layout: Annette Bruun Andersen Submitted June 6, 2018 The public defense takes place October 10, 2018 Published October 2018 Forlaget Politica c/o Department of Political Science Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University Bartholins Allé 7 DK-8000 Aarhus C Denmark Table of Contents Preface ........................................................................................................ 7 Acknowledgements .................................................................................... 9 Introduction ............................................................................................. 13 Motivation and Research Objectives ............................................................ 13 Papers, Structure, and Contributions ........................................................... 18 Foreign Fighters in Armed Conflict ........................................................ 23 What is a Foreign Fighter? ...........................................................................23 Foreign Fighter Groups ............................................................................... 29 Theoretical Expectations about Foreign Fighter Groups’ Interactions with Locals ................................................................................................... 34 Research Design ...................................................................................... 39 Case Selection and Units of Analysis ........................................................... 39 Data Collection .............................................................................................. 41 Data Analysis Strategies .............................................................................. 46 Central Findings of the Individual Papers .............................................. 51 Paper 1: Unrooted Cosmopolitans: The Persistence of Foreign Fighter Activism ........................................................................................................ 51 Paper 2: Poisonous Partnerships: The Failure of Alliances between Foreign Fighter Groups and Local Militant Organizations ......................... 54 Paper 3: Local Militant Organizations’ Strategies for Dealing with Foreign Fighter Groups ................................................................................ 56 Paper 4: Explaining Local Mobilization into Foreign Fighter Groups: A Geo-Nested Approach ............................................................................... 59 Paper 5: Group-Switching in Civil Wars ..................................................... 63 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 67 Contributions and Implications for Future Research and Policy ................ 67 Limitations and Concluding Remarks .......................................................... 72 Bibliography ............................................................................................. 75 English Summary .................................................................................... 87 Dansk Resumé ......................................................................................... 89 5 Preface This report summarizes and discusses my PhD thesis “Muslim Foreign Fight- ers in Armed Conflict”. The dissertation was written at the Department of Po- litical Science, Aarhus University between February 2015 and June 2018 un- der the supervision of Thomas Olesen and Lasse Lindekilde. The dissertation consists of the following papers: Schwampe, Jasper and Thomas Olesen, “Unrooted Cosmopolitans: The Persistence of Foreign Fighter Activism”, under review. Schwampe, Jasper and Emil Souleimanov, “Poisonous Partnerships –The Failure of Alliance between Foreign Fighter Groups and Local Militant Organizations”, working paper. Schwampe, Jasper, “Local Militant Organizations’ Strategies for Dealing with Foreign Fighter Groups”, under review. Schwampe, Jasper and Roman Senninger, “Explaining Local Mobilization into Foreign Fighter Groups – A Geo-Nested Approach”, working paper. Schwampe, Jasper, “Group-Switching in Civil Wars”, under review. The summary presents the general ideas and conceptual basis of the project, outlines the connection between the different articles and discusses the thesis’ overall contribution. For details on specific theoretical arguments, methods, data, and analysis, the reader should refer to the individual articles. 7 Acknowledgements The last three and a half years were one of the most intense phases of my life. Since starting my PhD in Aarhus in February 2015, I moved four times within Denmark alone, spent half a year on research and fieldtrips in Bosnia and the United States, visited so many international conferences, workshops, and summer schools that I knew my passport number by heart at some point, com- muted twice per week between Kiel and Aarhus, listened to 39 audiobooks, drank about 3800 cups of coffee (756 working days x 5), wrote a dissertation, got married, and became father to a wonderful little daughter. Hello Ida! Nat- urally, I owe an almost insurmountable amount of debt to those people who accompanied me during this period. To begin with, I want to thank the members of my assessment committee, Thomas Hegghammer, David Malet, and Morten Brænder for thoroughly reading my thesis and providing valuable feedback. The comments are much appreciated and will substantially improve future publications. When I ar- rived in Aarhus, I was warmly welcomed by the Political Sociology Section and my supervisors Thomas Olesen and Lasse Lindekilde. Thomas and Lasse were incredibly helpful by commenting on my work, motivating me when I was wor- rying about my progress, and making me feel at home in Denmark. Im- portantly, I always felt that both were not only interested in my professional development, but also in my personal well-being. I am also thankful to Anne Binderkrantz who stepped in as a supervisor when Lasse spent a semester in the United States. At the department, I had the privilege of getting to know a group of great colleagues like Jonas Gejl Pedersen, Mathilde Cecchini, Anne Pintz, Nicolas Burmester, David Parker, Alexander Bor, Casper Sakstrup, Kristina Jessen Hansen, Rachel Beach, Mathias Osmundsen, Mikkel Jagath Hjelt, Sadi Sha- naah, Svend-Erik Skaaning, Tonny Brems Knudsen and many others. Every- one at the department supported me in different ways. Be it by inviting me to football games, helping me with administrative matters, housing, translations, or simply conversations about the challenges of being a PhD candidate. Thank you all. As heads of the graduate school, Christoffer Green-Pedersen and Peter Munk Christiansen deserve praise for their steady and genuine efforts to im- prove the already great working conditions for PhD students. I could not have asked for better research conditions. Closely related to that, I am thankful for the support of the ever-friendly administrative staff. Even on short notice, fi- nancial questions, grant applications, as well as proofreading requests, were handled in an extremely efficient fashion. Unlike the Trump Whitehouse, the department really works like a “well-oiled machine”. 9 While visiting the Program on Order Conflict and Violence (OCV) at Yale University, I was mentored by Stathis Kalyvas. Receiving comments from Stathis and the OCV fellows Anastasia Shesterinina, Martijn Vlaskamp, Juan Masullo Jiminez and Egor Lazarev was an invaluable experience. In addition to that, I am grateful to Emil Souleimanov for offering the opportunity to co- author a paper with him and providing all kinds of advice. Concerning my stay in Bosnia, I want to thank Sead Turcalo and Edina Becirevic from the Univer- sity of Sarajevo. The former sacrificed his own office to provide me with some working space. I am, furthermore, deeply indebted to my local fixers, transla- tors, and interviewees who – I believe – would prefer to remain anonymous. Without your assistance and cooperation, this dissertation would not have been possible. Rest assured that I do not forget about that. Likewise, I want to thank Mads and Johanna for their help in coding parts of the quantitative data for the project. During my first one and a half years at the department, I shared offices with Lasse Lykke Rørbæk and Kristina Bakkær Simonsen. Both were ex- tremely helpful when I started my studies and we could always have a chat over a cup of coffee/tea. I also shared the office with Suthan Krishnarajan. After his arrival in my office academic trash-talk, private banter, and the num- ber of MS Paint collages increased exponentially. No quarter was asked and none was given. Besides that, Suthan is an excellent scholar and – somewhat more importantly – a great friend. Thank you for the good times Suthan. An- other good friend to whom I am seriously indebted is Roman Senninger. I think Roman and I connected because we both suffer from the fate of being fans of underperforming football clubs. Although he is a substantially worse FIFA player than I am, he quickly became one of the most important sources of academic advice at the department. Thank you. Of course, I must also men- tion Philipp Pechmann whom I already met when being interviewed for a po- sition at the department. Over the last three and