Resolving Jihadists Conflicts? Religion, Civil War, and Prospects for Peace
One of the most pressing challenges on the contemporary agenda for peace and security is armed conflicts involving militant Islamist groups such as IS (Islamic State) in Syria and Iraq, Boko Haram in Nigeria and the Taliban in Afghanistan. However, we know surprisingly little about the conditions under which jihadist conflicts, partly or completely, may be resolved through peaceful means. In particular, there is a gap in peace and conflict research concerning if, how, and to what extent, our existing theories on conflict resolution are applicable to solve jihadist conflicts. This project sets out to fill this lacuna. The purpose is to explore the potential, as well as the limitations, for conflict resolution in these contexts by examining the research question: under what conditions are jihadist conflicts likely to be resolved? In order to address this pertinent and highly complex research problem this project brings together peace and conflict scholars with scholars of religious studies in general and Islam in particular, and we expect to see important synergy effects by doing so. Drawing on this multidisciplinary expertise, the project seeks to develop a theoretical framework that focuses on 1) who the actors are, 2) the issues at stake, and 3) and the behavior of these actors. The project combines quantitative and qualitative research methods and analyzes and compares jihadist conflicts to other types of conflicts, and explores variations within jihadist conflicts.
Final report
Project aim, development, and implementation
This research project has addressed the overall research question: under what conditions are Islamist armed conflicts likely to be resolved? Islamist armed conflicts – defined as conflict in which at least one side has stated explicit self-proclaimed Islamist aspirations at the onset of the conflict – have for several years constituted more than half of all of the world’s internal armed conflicts. We have examined the potential for conflict resolution in these conflicts. Our project aimed to fill a lacuna in peace and conflict research by exploring if, how, and to what extent, our existing theories and concepts of conflict resolution are useful as analytical tools to understand Islamist conflicts. We have approached this research question through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods and multi-disciplinary approaches and collaborations.
For a large number of the outputs generated in this project, we have been able to draw on a new systematic data collection. We have built themost comprehensive database on religious charac-teristics of armed conflicts to date, the “Religion and Armed Conflict” dataset (RELAC). It provides information on a range of religious dimensions in state-based armed conflicts, 1975-2021. This includes information on, for instance, whether a conflict’s incompatibility has a reli-gious dimension, whether the actors’ claims contained Islamist aspirations or not, as well as the religious identity of the actors. In addition, as part of collaborations with other research pro-jects, we have collected new data on religious actors in peacemaking efforts 1989-2018, which we analyze in an ongoing book project on conflict resolution in Islamist armed conflicts. We have carried out extensive field research involving interviews in a number of countries that have seen Islamist armed conflicts, including Iraq, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Thailand. This work has, for example, resulted in a Special Issue on “Negotiating with Islamist Armed Groups?”, a number of book chapters, as well as several books, published by academic publishers such as Oxford University Press and California University Press.
Because the project is multi-disciplinary in character, we have made a conscious effort to ensure a wide range of scholarly perspectives when addressing the research question (e.g., religious soci-ology, peace and conflict research, Islamic studies, law). This diversity is reflected in the compo-sition of the members in the Core Group, the Advisory Board and the Working Group.
We have also arranged three major international research workshops, two in Uppsala in 2016 and 2021 respectively, and one in Switzerland in 2018. Two of these were followed by research-policy dialogues between scholars, policymakers and practitioners, organized together with the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA), the Swedish government agency for peace, security and de-velopment. The research-policy dialogue held in Switzerland was jointly organized with the Fed-eral Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA). Both Sweden and Switzerland have supported dia-logue and negotiation initiatives in contexts with Islamist armed actors and expressed a desire for increased evidence-based research on the topic.
The three main findings in the project and the conclusions
Finding 1. Islamist civil wars are more intractable than other conflicts
Our research demonstrates that Islamist armed conflicts, in general, tend to be more intractable than other types of conflicts. Thus, when conflicts are framed in explicit Islamist terms, they are more difficult to end peacefully. A set of different empirical findings, based on both quantative and qualitative research methods, support this conclusion. For example, we find that Islamist armed conflicts:
• Are less likely to terminate than other conflicts
• Are more likely to restart than other conflicts (by new or old groups)
• With a transnational dimension are less likely to be negotiated
• Are associated with lower chance of mediation
• Very rarely end through rebel victory (Afghanistan isan exceptional case)
Finding 2. Islamist civil wars can be resolved
Given that Islamist armed conflicts tend to be intractable, the project has studied how Islamist conflicts nevertheless can be resolved. Much of our focus has been on examining exceptions to the general trends: Islamist armed conflicts that have been ended, de-escalated, or transformed in some way. While it is more difficult to resolve these types of conflicts, it is by no means im-possible. Our research shows, for example, that:
• There are at least seven conflict resolution mechanisms that have been used to solve re-ligious dimensions in armed conflicts
• There are fourteen cases of Islamist armed actors that have established political parties as part of the transition to peaceful politics, suggesting that Islamist civil wars can be managed through political channels
• East Asia has experienced fewer Islamist armed conflicts than other regions, which may be due to the existence of legal political channels for Islamism. This is in contrast to many countries in Africa, where Islamist political parties are forbidden according to law
• When parties agree on how to deal with the religious dimension of the conflict (‘conflict desacralization), the parties are able to deal with other issues
• The intractability of Islamist armed conflicts is associated with transnational support on both sides
• World-view conflicts (“cosmic wars”) tend to end when armed mobilization dynamic loses its momentum among the population at large
Finding 3. Islamist civil wars are more similar (than different) to other conflicts
A key debate that we have addressed is whether Islamists conflicts are similar or different from other types of conflicts. We have shown, as outlined above, that these conflicts are different from others from a conflict resolution and termination perspective. Still, our research also shows that:
• Cosmic wars end under the same conditions as other armed conflicts
• Religion is rarely the main issue at stake in peace agreements and negotiations
• Mainstream conflict resolution approaches are generally applicable to these conflicts, although they may also require new and innovative mechanisms, for example, related to claims regarding sharia law.
• The particularities associated with Islamist armed conflicts have mainly to do with:
– Their transnational dimension
– Terrorist-listing of Islamist non-state armed actors
To conclude, our research finds that Islamist armed conflicts are not intrinsically different from other conflicts, and explanations for why they are difficult to resolve are more related to how external actors have responded to these conflicts, both the predominately counter-terrorism approaches used by states against non-state Islamist armed groups and the tendency of Islamist armed actors to link up with transnationalnetworks, such as the Islamic State (IS) or al-Qaeda.
New research questions
The project has generated several new and important research questions. One of them concerns the causes of and prospects for collective nonviolent resistance against Islamist groups. We have initiated the coding of a new dataset, which looks at civil resistance against Islamist groups in Syria, based on unique data from local sources, focusing on the years 2015–2018. We also con-ducted survey research during the autumn of 2018 in Mosul, Iraq, interviewing civilians on how they nonviolently resisted ISIS, while the group was controlling the city.
Another research question has focused on the identification of conditions under which transna-tional jihadist networks – notably IS and al-Qaeda – are able to tap into local conflicts and transform the conflict dynamics.
Intra-Muslim sectarianism is a field of research that we had not anticipated in the proposal. This new line of inquiry relates to the instrumentalization of sectarian identities – in particular, Shia and Sunni Islam – and how this influences the intensity of armed violence, but also the pro-spects for conflict resolution and interreligious dialogue. This research has led to the innovation of conceptualizations and measurements of religious identity dimensions.
Dissemination of results
Our research project is an international research endeavor. Most participants at the three work-shops have been from outside Sweden. Both the Core Group and the Advisory Group consist of scholars from Sweden and abroad. We have participated in international conferences and work-shops, published in international journals, and engaged in disseminating our results and insights in international forums. We have established international collaboration with the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies and the Danish Institute of International Studies (DIIS). We have actively participated in various national and international conferences and workshops, presenting our on-going research.
There have been several spin-off-effects of the project, for example an ERC Starting Grant (led by Kanwal Sheikh at DIIS); involvement in an ERC Horizon 2020 project, and a project fund-ed by Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA). Moreover, we have contributed to other research projects at the Berghof Foundation in Germany, the Cordoba Peace Institute (CPI) in Geneva, and the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich.
We have also been actively engaged with the wider community, through advisory services to policy makers and practioners, public lectures, and media appearances. , We have also published several policy-oriented publications, opinion editorials, and blog posts in news journals and magazines. These publications are important because they help us spread awareness and knowledge about this topic.
This research project has addressed the overall research question: under what conditions are Islamist armed conflicts likely to be resolved? Islamist armed conflicts – defined as conflict in which at least one side has stated explicit self-proclaimed Islamist aspirations at the onset of the conflict – have for several years constituted more than half of all of the world’s internal armed conflicts. We have examined the potential for conflict resolution in these conflicts. Our project aimed to fill a lacuna in peace and conflict research by exploring if, how, and to what extent, our existing theories and concepts of conflict resolution are useful as analytical tools to understand Islamist conflicts. We have approached this research question through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods and multi-disciplinary approaches and collaborations.
For a large number of the outputs generated in this project, we have been able to draw on a new systematic data collection. We have built themost comprehensive database on religious charac-teristics of armed conflicts to date, the “Religion and Armed Conflict” dataset (RELAC). It provides information on a range of religious dimensions in state-based armed conflicts, 1975-2021. This includes information on, for instance, whether a conflict’s incompatibility has a reli-gious dimension, whether the actors’ claims contained Islamist aspirations or not, as well as the religious identity of the actors. In addition, as part of collaborations with other research pro-jects, we have collected new data on religious actors in peacemaking efforts 1989-2018, which we analyze in an ongoing book project on conflict resolution in Islamist armed conflicts. We have carried out extensive field research involving interviews in a number of countries that have seen Islamist armed conflicts, including Iraq, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Thailand. This work has, for example, resulted in a Special Issue on “Negotiating with Islamist Armed Groups?”, a number of book chapters, as well as several books, published by academic publishers such as Oxford University Press and California University Press.
Because the project is multi-disciplinary in character, we have made a conscious effort to ensure a wide range of scholarly perspectives when addressing the research question (e.g., religious soci-ology, peace and conflict research, Islamic studies, law). This diversity is reflected in the compo-sition of the members in the Core Group, the Advisory Board and the Working Group.
We have also arranged three major international research workshops, two in Uppsala in 2016 and 2021 respectively, and one in Switzerland in 2018. Two of these were followed by research-policy dialogues between scholars, policymakers and practitioners, organized together with the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA), the Swedish government agency for peace, security and de-velopment. The research-policy dialogue held in Switzerland was jointly organized with the Fed-eral Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA). Both Sweden and Switzerland have supported dia-logue and negotiation initiatives in contexts with Islamist armed actors and expressed a desire for increased evidence-based research on the topic.
The three main findings in the project and the conclusions
Finding 1. Islamist civil wars are more intractable than other conflicts
Our research demonstrates that Islamist armed conflicts, in general, tend to be more intractable than other types of conflicts. Thus, when conflicts are framed in explicit Islamist terms, they are more difficult to end peacefully. A set of different empirical findings, based on both quantative and qualitative research methods, support this conclusion. For example, we find that Islamist armed conflicts:
• Are less likely to terminate than other conflicts
• Are more likely to restart than other conflicts (by new or old groups)
• With a transnational dimension are less likely to be negotiated
• Are associated with lower chance of mediation
• Very rarely end through rebel victory (Afghanistan isan exceptional case)
Finding 2. Islamist civil wars can be resolved
Given that Islamist armed conflicts tend to be intractable, the project has studied how Islamist conflicts nevertheless can be resolved. Much of our focus has been on examining exceptions to the general trends: Islamist armed conflicts that have been ended, de-escalated, or transformed in some way. While it is more difficult to resolve these types of conflicts, it is by no means im-possible. Our research shows, for example, that:
• There are at least seven conflict resolution mechanisms that have been used to solve re-ligious dimensions in armed conflicts
• There are fourteen cases of Islamist armed actors that have established political parties as part of the transition to peaceful politics, suggesting that Islamist civil wars can be managed through political channels
• East Asia has experienced fewer Islamist armed conflicts than other regions, which may be due to the existence of legal political channels for Islamism. This is in contrast to many countries in Africa, where Islamist political parties are forbidden according to law
• When parties agree on how to deal with the religious dimension of the conflict (‘conflict desacralization), the parties are able to deal with other issues
• The intractability of Islamist armed conflicts is associated with transnational support on both sides
• World-view conflicts (“cosmic wars”) tend to end when armed mobilization dynamic loses its momentum among the population at large
Finding 3. Islamist civil wars are more similar (than different) to other conflicts
A key debate that we have addressed is whether Islamists conflicts are similar or different from other types of conflicts. We have shown, as outlined above, that these conflicts are different from others from a conflict resolution and termination perspective. Still, our research also shows that:
• Cosmic wars end under the same conditions as other armed conflicts
• Religion is rarely the main issue at stake in peace agreements and negotiations
• Mainstream conflict resolution approaches are generally applicable to these conflicts, although they may also require new and innovative mechanisms, for example, related to claims regarding sharia law.
• The particularities associated with Islamist armed conflicts have mainly to do with:
– Their transnational dimension
– Terrorist-listing of Islamist non-state armed actors
To conclude, our research finds that Islamist armed conflicts are not intrinsically different from other conflicts, and explanations for why they are difficult to resolve are more related to how external actors have responded to these conflicts, both the predominately counter-terrorism approaches used by states against non-state Islamist armed groups and the tendency of Islamist armed actors to link up with transnationalnetworks, such as the Islamic State (IS) or al-Qaeda.
New research questions
The project has generated several new and important research questions. One of them concerns the causes of and prospects for collective nonviolent resistance against Islamist groups. We have initiated the coding of a new dataset, which looks at civil resistance against Islamist groups in Syria, based on unique data from local sources, focusing on the years 2015–2018. We also con-ducted survey research during the autumn of 2018 in Mosul, Iraq, interviewing civilians on how they nonviolently resisted ISIS, while the group was controlling the city.
Another research question has focused on the identification of conditions under which transna-tional jihadist networks – notably IS and al-Qaeda – are able to tap into local conflicts and transform the conflict dynamics.
Intra-Muslim sectarianism is a field of research that we had not anticipated in the proposal. This new line of inquiry relates to the instrumentalization of sectarian identities – in particular, Shia and Sunni Islam – and how this influences the intensity of armed violence, but also the pro-spects for conflict resolution and interreligious dialogue. This research has led to the innovation of conceptualizations and measurements of religious identity dimensions.
Dissemination of results
Our research project is an international research endeavor. Most participants at the three work-shops have been from outside Sweden. Both the Core Group and the Advisory Group consist of scholars from Sweden and abroad. We have participated in international conferences and work-shops, published in international journals, and engaged in disseminating our results and insights in international forums. We have established international collaboration with the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies and the Danish Institute of International Studies (DIIS). We have actively participated in various national and international conferences and workshops, presenting our on-going research.
There have been several spin-off-effects of the project, for example an ERC Starting Grant (led by Kanwal Sheikh at DIIS); involvement in an ERC Horizon 2020 project, and a project fund-ed by Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA). Moreover, we have contributed to other research projects at the Berghof Foundation in Germany, the Cordoba Peace Institute (CPI) in Geneva, and the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich.
We have also been actively engaged with the wider community, through advisory services to policy makers and practioners, public lectures, and media appearances. , We have also published several policy-oriented publications, opinion editorials, and blog posts in news journals and magazines. These publications are important because they help us spread awareness and knowledge about this topic.