Islamist Movements as Non-state Actors and their Relevance to International Relations

Abstract

Islamist movements are powerful political actors in the Middle East and also, through their impact on the West, at the global level. Islamism — otherwise termed ‘political Islam’: the ideology that aims to reform society and politics along religious lines given in the Koran and Islamic legal and cultural traditions — in principle rejects the secular concept of the nation-state and deems the state illegitimate. Furthermore, Islamist movements help create multiple links, from social and cultural to terrorist and criminal ones, between members of societies, thus bypassing governments. For these two reasons Islamist movements can be seen as non-state, transnational actors par excellence. As such they provide good indicators for measuring the viability of the modern state (defined as the set of authority structures within territorial boundaries which emerged from the nineteenth century onwards in the Middle East) and assessing whether, as a political entity, it will go from strength to strength or towards obsolescence and ultimate dissolution. They also offer an interesting case of non-state actors in action.

I am grateful to Karin Wermester for assisting me in the research for this paper and to Fred Ilalliday and the editors of the volume for comments on the draft. All responsibility for errors is of course mine.