Inside Jihadism: Understanding Jihadi Movements Worldwide

Khosrokhavar (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France) attempts an anatomy of Islamic Jihadism. He explores its diversity, religious foundations, intellectual basis, and social roots and also discusses the impact of state policies and economics, both domestically within the Islamic world and the external roles of the United States and other Western powers. He argues that Jihadism is caused by, in combination, reaction to Western imperialism, a recurring phenomenon within Islam in which movements arise seeking to restore its primal purity, the failure of communist and leftist radicalization in the Muslim world, and hostility to the state of Israel, which is perceived as an offshoot of Western imperialism. His central argument, however, is that Jihadism is a product of "perverse modernization," wherein traditional communities are dissolved through state action and the market economy, but without "the promotion of individual freedoms, the individual capacity to assure social and economic upward mobility by positive involvement in society, the opening up of the political system, and the creation of a new role for government as the defender of social liberty rather than the instigator of blind repression." Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Farhad Khosrokhavar is Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris.