Militant Islam: A Sociology of Characteristics, Causes, and Consequences by Stephen Vertigans

Abstract

Ultimately, Militant Islam: A Sociology of Characteristics, Causes, and Consequences identifies and underscores how far two areas of academic inquiry still remain from one another and the pressing need for their synthesis: our ability to understand the making of geopolitically-informed (and not just Western) discourses of political violence, change, and resistance, on the one hand, and the actual, often local sociological processes, structures, and contexts that help explain extremist organizations and the nature of their responses, on the other. Insofar as Militant Islam attempts to bring these research areas together, it has set the research agenda in this area for academics into the current decade – one that will, at its best, help us to understand new formations of political resistance showcased in the ‘Arab Spring’ and emerging paradigms for political stability.

Keywords: Militant Islam, political Islam, political violence, political Islam, sociology, security studies, legal studies