Political psychologists have identified patterns in the use of cognitive categorization for the structuring of the political worldview of foreign policy decision makers. This dissertation uses a case study approach to investigate the political worldview of the Islamic State of I…
Because many militant groups from the Islamist political landscape and beyond have suffered extinction, survival of insurgent groups in a context of insecurity and rivalry is not a fact. In 2010, the Islamic State in Iraq was near extinction and considered as defeated by a myria…
In just over two years, the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) established itself as a global threat unlike any Islamic extremist group that preceded it. ISIS has adopted unprecedented tactics in order to establish, maintain, and develop its ideologies and to create an Islam…
This dissertation explores the possibilities of Islamic statehood in post-colonial Pakistan through the works of three figures involved in framing the idea of the Islamic state: W.C. Smith, Muhammad Asad, and Muhammad Munir. Each of these three thinkers owes their position and p…
This study marks the first attempt in Western scholarship to analyze the evolution of Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist groups’ and the Islamic State’s online branding in the Russian Federation, trying to explain how radicals’ sporadic activities have been transformed into recogniza…
Current efforts at mapping how women engage in violent extremism and terrorist activities highlight a lack of contemporary understanding regarding women’s motivation to support and participate in extremist activity. Traditionally, terrorism studies have focused on men, in large …
This dissertation consists of three distinct substantive papers that are designed to stand on their own as published articles, but which are also arranged in such a way as to form a coherent whole, with a logical progression from paper to paper. They are unified around the theme…
This dissertation examines three periods in Euro-American history that appear disparate but reflect the West’s changing relationship with the Islamic World and with Muslims, in particular with Muslim women, in Muslim-majority countries, the United States, and the United Kingdom.…