IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/nglost/v6y2012i1p18n3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Tribalism Index: Unlocking the Relationship Between Tribal Patriarchy and Islamist Militants

Author

Listed:
  • Jacobson David

    (Founding Director and Professor of Sociology, The Citizenship Initiative, University of South Florida)

  • Deckard Natalie

    (Emory University)

Abstract

Tribal dynamics have been strikingly prominent in the success or failure of militant Islamists, from Central Asia to North Africa. However, to date little systematic research has been undertaken on tribal culture and its interactions with militant Islamist groups. Part of the challenge is the absence of a quantitative measure of tribal culture that can gauge the degree of tribalism. A measure of this sort would assist in the exploration of relationships between tribalism and militant Islam, religiously motivated violence, or the export of that violence. In this article, we put forward such a measure, the Tribalism Index. This Tribalism Index is a predictor of religiously motivated violence, and is effective in parsing the varying relationships of Islam, Islamist militancy and tribal patriarchy to that violence. It is also helpful in predicting religiously motivated violence in diaspora communities in Western nations, and has proved effective in doing so in the United Kingdom. Regression models that include both Muslim population percentage and level of tribalism demonstrate that, in the absence of a clear tribal culture, adherence to Islam does not make for susceptibility to extremism. Furthermore, these models show that it is within tribal environments that Islamist movements are best nurtured. The Tribalism Index proves of greater utility than the Failed States Index for eliciting the dynamics of violence in tribal societies, while illuminating the inaccuracy of seeing militancy as a function of Islam as such.

Suggested Citation

  • Jacobson David & Deckard Natalie, 2012. "The Tribalism Index: Unlocking the Relationship Between Tribal Patriarchy and Islamist Militants," New Global Studies, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-18, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:bpj:nglost:v:6:y:2012:i:1:p:18:n:3
    DOI: 10.1515/1940-0004.1149
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/1940-0004.1149
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/1940-0004.1149?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Coronavirus will test US’s civic health too
      by ? in DJG Blogger on 2020-04-10 12:15:57

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:nglost:v:6:y:2012:i:1:p:18:n:3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.