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To What Extent Can Islamic Trotskyism Be Called a New Factor in Global Politics?

Volozhanina, Tamara
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Abstract
Drawing attention to the striking similarity between Trotskyism, radical proto-version ofCommunism and Wahhabism Salafi jihadism, preached by the Islamic State, this thesis raises thequestion if, despite the intense use of theological backing when justifying violence practices, thegroup mostly exploits religion to accommodate its of lust of power. To analyze the combinedreligious-political nature of ISIS, this thesis introduces 'Trotskyism' as a category, a subset ofviolent ideologies that follow a similar strategic path and adopt similar political language even if themessage they strive to deliver is different. Trotskyism, whether Red or Islamic, employs moralrigidity of religious zeal to produce highly determined movements that consider the population’scosts incurred in the struggle inferior to the greatness of their universal goals. The first theoreticalchapter builds upon the current academic debate on religion’s coercion-inducing potential and theirrationality of religious violence, questioning the very applicability of both. The second datasection chapter demonstrates how Red and Islamic Trotskyisms strongly resemble each other intheir a) origins, b) ideologies, and c) methods. The last chapter considers the movement’s uniquefeatures and conceptual modification caused by the context and ways of its development.The conclusions of this thesis generate valuable practical insights regarding ISIS’ particularcase and contribute to broader theoretical knowledge. The very understanding of militant religion isseparated from the understanding of religion per se: the former becomes a religion-politics hybrid,turning from individual’s self-purification to a forceful restructuring of the public realm. There is nopredestination for this conceptual transformation to occur but rather social, political, and economicconditions, allowing for it. Exposing the flaws of of clear-cut classification between rational andirrational, which exists in scholarly literature now, this thesis highlights the importance ofconceptualized typology of violence, not “religious” versus “secular” but “Trotskyist” versus both.Keywords: Islamic Radicalism, Islamic State, Religious Violence, Religion and Politics.
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Thesis (B.A. in International Affairs, Minor in Communications)--John Cabot University, Spring 2019.
Date
2019
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Keywords
Islam and politics, Islamic fundamentalism
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Volozhanina, Tamara. "To What Extent Can Islamic Trotskyism Be Called a New Factor in Global Politics?". BA Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2019.
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