Rocking the Casbah: Journeying, the Islamic State Foreign Fighter and the Western State

Abstract

Following the onset of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, the world witnessed the largest mobilisation of foreign fighters than any other conflict in history. With the declaration of the Caliphate across Syria and Iraq in 2014, the particular phenomenon of Islamic State (IS) foreign fighters has been on the increased radar of Governments across the world. At the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting on Foreign Terrorist Fighters, members unanimously passed Resolution 2178 urging members to develop measures in response to the perceived threat. How the journeys of foreign fighters relate to various national contexts remains under-researched within the existing literature. Building on an emerging literature that specifically addresses the nuances of these actors distinct from the wider terrorist category, this thesis presents an analysis of the various national approaches towards engagement (and non-engagement) with this cohort. In doing so it analyses how various Western states have conceptualised and interacted with IS foreign fighter journeys. Utilising a conceptual framework derived from Social Movement Theory (SMT), this thesis takes an assemblage approach to presenting empirical insights into these understandings and interaction ‘moments’ across the cases of Australia, the United Kingdom (UK) and Denmark. These various states are demonstrated to have adopted different approaches to understanding and engaging with the phenomenon. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders and civil society members and the analysis of official reports, this research sheds light on these and contributes significant empirical data to a notoriously challenging area of research. Within each case studies examined, the research shows how five key characteristics are understood to epitomise the relationship between foreign fighter individual and the Western state. The research analyses when particular ‘moments’ of interaction occur, and explores how the direction or trajectory of a foreign fighter journey is understood. It is during particular ‘moments’ identified in the journey timeline of foreign fighters that states focused efforts around understanding, threat perception and thus responses. The research demonstrates the way in which foreign fighter journeys resonate and interact with these various nation states speaks to broader debates around structure and agency within International Politics and counter-terrorism narratives. Across the cases, the perceptions of foreign fighters developed by various actors are shown to be shaped by national policies focused primarily on criminal justice measures, with efforts therefore falling within the ‘returning’ phase of a journey. Given such insights, the research reflects on how policy-makers can better address the complexity of experience expressed throughout this research. The research makes four significant and original contributions. Firstly, it provides a comprehensive comparative analysis across Australia, the UK and Denmark in relation to the phenomenon of IS foreign fighters. Secondly, it develops a conceptual framework for researching violent and non-violent mobilisations relevant to research spanning various disciplines. Thirdly, it offers rich empirical insights into the relationship between foreign fighter individual and their relationship with the Western state. Finally, this thesis contributes an approach to researching mobilisations that draws on original data to unearth layered and dynamic ideas spanning the realms of the micro, meso and macro simultaneously. These insights capture a diversity of experience in relation to how structure and agency plays into journeys and understandings of these. With a focus on journeys and interactions, the research highlights the importance of opportunities both within policymaking imaginaries and to foreign fighters as individuals. An approach that captures such ideas is crucial for not only developing understanding of foreign fighter experiences and the responses that seek to address them, but for future issues concerning national security frameworks and the foundations in which these are embedded and built on.