Salifi Categorization

Recently found a great article on Salafist groups, the biggest thing I found interesting about it was this:

The different contextual readings have produced three major factions in the com- munity: the purists, the politicos, and the jihadis. The purists emphasize a focus on nonviolent methods of propagation, purification, and education. They view politics as a diversion that encourages deviancy. Politicos, in contrast, emphasize application of the Salafi creed to the political arena, which they view as particularly important because it dramatically impacts social justice and the right of God alone to legislate. Jihadis take a more militant position and argue that the current context calls for violence and revolu- tion. All three factions share a common creed but offer different explanations of the contemporary world and its concomitant problems and thus propose different solutions. The splits are about contextual analysis, not belief. 

Then I found another article (this time a capstone project from GWU) that had summary of it with further explanation of the groups and their attitudes towards each other. The best bits I have below, but it seems that there is some literature that explains differing motivations of Islamic groups not by their interpretation of Islam, but by their differing opinions of their capability to influence change. It solidifies the view of Terrorism as being an (objectively abhorrent from the outsiders perspective) extension of political action in the mind of the actor.

 Salafis believe that their “actions should not create a greater evil, such as weakening Islamic (Salafi) propagation” and they are against declaring the state an infidel because that leads to reprisals, which are a “greater evil.” Thus, purists are not above attempting to influence the state, but it should be through a mass movement of “believers,” gained through propagation, not through political action, which leads to corruption, or violence, which puts the Muslim community in danger.

Essentially the purists feel that extending civil society and their control over the public sphere to institute change.


 About politicos:

politicos do not challenge the purists on the Salafi creed; rather, they believe that that purists’ rejection of modern politics has made them irrelevant and out of touch with Muslims. Since physically combating the state would lead to more problems, they believe that the only way to remain relevant, incite change, and gain power is through participating in politics. 

engagement with the state is imperative here. I have nothing other than a hunch to back this up, but I feel that this cadre attracts more moderate muslim participants. If anyone has anything to support this I would love to know for certain. 




And finally the Jihadis:

believing the purists and politicos have been duped, act with more expediency and violently oppose their government to forcefully replace it with one they believe is proper. 

These people are what we recognize as terrorists or as Islamic revolutionaries depending on who you ask. 

RAND Audio on Iran.

I am beginning to think that using this as a depot for stuff we find interesting. And the occasional commentary.

Obama's hypocrisy on Iran...?

It was brought up in a class of mine that Obama was being hypocritical in his recent SOTU speech. A student in my International Security class mentioned that Obama had stated that “all options are on the table” when dealing with the threat of a nuclear Iran. Another student stated that the sentence right after that (I didn’t watch as I have a ridiculous amount to reading to do) was that “…the United States is still open to engagement with the Iranian regime.” The discussion then revolved around Obama’s supposed hypocrisy, Mearsheimer’s Offensive Realism, and the difference between what politicians say and what politicians do (particularly in the US).

The 20 Percent Solution - By Olli Heinonen | Foreign Policy

The 20 Percent Solution - By Olli Heinonen | Foreign Policy: "What has raised the world's suspicions is that Iran continues to produce 20 percent enriched uranium despite the fact that this exceeds its civilian needs and, as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad acknowledged in September, does not make economic sense."

It comes down to capability and motivation. If you shroud your capability in secrecy, we will assume the worst in terms of motivation. Viewed in this context, Iran could sign 50 NPTs and it wouldn't really help...

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State Directed Development

The dominant thinking of the Cold War era was to spread capitalism around the globe. The dominant philosophy of the times being that government was not the solution, but the problem. In its attempt to assist countries develop, the International Monetary Fund implemented policies that forced developing countries to  adopt a neo-liberal approach of economic development. The neo-liberal approach attempts to: reduce the size of government, limit the power of organized labor, open up markets, and stabilize and globalize currency. The thought process was that governments misappropriate resources, and use economic power to further their own goals instead of long term economic development. Atul Kohli in his book State Directed Development argues that there is no evidence that countries with smaller government authorities are more able to develop and industrialize. His argument is that the main factor is the efficacy of the state and state planning that determines the success of economic growth among late-late developers. 

Kohli argues that there are three ideal types of economic regimes in development economics. He uses the term ideal not to mean most beneficial but he means historic patterns of how “state authority is organized and used in the developing world”. At one end he finds the cohesive-capitalist state, at the other the neopatrimonial state. These two extremes will be the models we use in this discussion. Kohli argues that a neopatrimonial state is one where the separation of private and public realms is either weak or nonexistent. His argument is that in developing states with large amounts of political instability where the realms of the private domain and the public domain are blurred, there is an incentive for those in power to use their limited and unstable tenure as a mechanism for rapid wealth accumulation. This is an example of poor governance.

 Good governance is an important factor in discussing economic development. Verena Fritz and Alina Rocha Menocal argue in their article Developmental States in the New Millennium: Concepts and Challenges for a New Aid Agenda that “The emphasis has shifted from determining the ‘right’ role for the state… to questions about commitment and capacity”. In other words, the global community shifted from focusing on procedure, to focusing on economic outcomes. This shift is in line with calls from economist Amartya Sen in his book Development as Freedom that the problem with libertarian economics is that it is procedure based instead of outcome based. Of the various outcomes, Kohli argues that the states that have had the best outcomes have been the cohesive-capitalist states. Kohli argues that the state that illustrates both cohesion of power, and capitalistic institutions will be the most successful. 

The first element of cohesiveness is a discussion of the nature of the government. Kohli says that these states are “characterized by cohesive politics, that is, by centralized and purposive authority structures that often penetrate deep into the society”. Kohli argues that the states that have developed rapidly in the past fifty years are those with governments that forge bonds with the nations major economic groups and co-opt their resources into the goals of the state, and maintain a strict control over labor. Kohli argues that it is this state capacity to co-opt and control multiple levels of the economy that allows it do direct it in a manner far more apt to industrialization than the free market could. He attests that “for better or for worse, these states have also proved to be the most successful agents of deliberate state-led industrialization in peripheral countries”. 

Development of Freedom

From the impressive mind of Mr. Sam Pagano - 

Recently I have come across Amartya Sen’s book Development of Freedom  which marked a turning point in the thinking of how we measure economic development.

Sen's main argument is that it is not enough to simply measure the results of economic development programs in terms of Gross National Product increases, because those increases only identify the health of the national economy as a whole. Because of this rubric, economic development policy is designed to increase Gross National Product. Sen argues that perhaps this methodology is not indicative of true economic development. 

Sen attests that GNP is only one element of economic development, and is a poor indicator of economic development on a micro level. He proposes that instead of looking at the overall health of a nations economy it is instead more important to understand economic development as an increase in the individuals capacity to participate in the market place. Developing nations generally have extremely weak states that cannot fulfill their economic goals and for the most part have extreme economic disparity. Further, GNP would not reflect political corruption in resource rich nations in Latin America that leads to massive wealth saturation in the already elite. While the state might have an influx of capital, that economic capacity will not always extend to the citizen. In neo-patrimonial states, the public and private spheres become one, where the government seeks to maximize individual gains at the expense of the populace. It is this line of reasoning that led Sen to believe that development should be measured by how much programs increase not the state's capacity to participate in the global economy, but the citizens economic facility to compete in the marketplace.

Developing nations already have massive disparity among the lower class and economic elite. Often times economic aid largely benefits those already with economic capacity. Sen argues that economic development should not be focused just on increasing the pre-existing market within a state, but also the individual ability of the citizens to participate in that market, what Sen calls agency. This agency, Sen uses to describe the individuals capability to participate in making their own goals; their capacity to pursue them without significant social, political, economic barriers; and the ability to choose what to do with the fruits of their labors as freedom. Conversely he labels those obstacles, put in place by social, political, and economic actors, as unfreedoms.

Sen argues that political, economic, and cultural freedom are intrinsically linked, each supporting and allowing the other to continue. He also notes that his finding suggest that because of these connections "sustainable agency emerges as a major engine of development".  He goes on to note that "the freedom to enter markets can itself be a significant contribution to development, quite aside from what market conditions may or may not do to promote economic growth or contribution". 

Sen is not arguing that market conditions and state economic policies should not be considered when evaluating the level or success of economic development programs, rather that by understanding the nature between "incomes and achievements, between commodities and capabilities, between our economic wealth and our ability to live as we would like". He draws the line of reasoning to the observation that we do not generate wealth for the sake of wealth, but because wealth allows us to do those things that we would like. If social, political or economic barriers exist that prohibit the accumulation and use of wealth by the individual, what good is the development of an economy designed to partake in that forbidden exchange?

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What is China up to in Libya?

What is China up to in Libya?: "the Qaddafi government sent personnel to China without the knowledge of the Chinese government"

'via Blog this'

More on the the previous topic from World Affairs Journal. I thought that this nugget was particularly interesting:

"...the Qaddafi government sent personnel to China without the knowledge of the Chinese government."

Wait...what? Is this the same 'Chinese government' that ensures that Google can not function without censorship? That ensures that 99% of the populace doesn't even know that there was an 'incident' in Tiananmen Square? The same government that, when it wants to, can control every minute aspect of its citizens' lives? The same gov't that has the policy (at least in the media that I've read) that for large firms to be successful there needs to be large amounts of graft, corruption, and government collusion...? Yeah...you're right...I bet they had no idea about what was going on with those weapons sales. Also something to keep an eye out for is who purchased all of those gold reserves Gadhafi sold backin April. I mean, 29 tons of gold to 'local traders' as some stories put it seems hard to believe...