When Bullets and Ballots Collide: How the Dissolution of the Anti-Islamic State Coalition Stalled Iraq’s Transition to Peacetime

Why do some multiparty elections lead to political violence while others do not? Despite extensive literatures on democratization, civil war, and violence against civilians in civil war, the topic of electoral violence has received less attention. We develop a set of theoretical propositions to explain this variation, testing them on an original dataset on African elections from 1990 to 2008. We find that elections in which an incumbent presidential candidate is running for re-election are significantly more likely to experience electoral violence, both prior to the election and after voting has taken place. We argue that clientelism is behind this pattern, and that clients often resort to electoral violence to protect a reliable incumbent patron. On the other hand, when an incumbent candidate is not running for office, we argue that clients are less willing to assume the risks of participating in electoral violence because candidates in the election have not established a record of delivering patronage at the executive level. We further find some evidence that pre-existing social conflicts increase the risk of pre-election violence. We suggest that this finding is due to the tendency of political elites to mobilize voters around pre-existing political and economic grievances to promote their candidacies, in turn heightening tensions and divisions. We also examine, but find little support for, a number of other possible determinants of electoral violence, such as regime type, income level, international observers, ongoing civil war, pathway to power, and first elections after civil war. The article contributes not only to a small but growing literature on electoral violence but also to a burgeoning literature on political behavior in African elections.

Elections are now held in almost every country in the world. Yet the introduction of electoral processes in developing countries has led to a mix of voting and violence rather than the establishment of peace and stability, as violence in recent elections in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Kenya, and Zimbabwe illustrates. Developing countries display various forms of violence closely linked to elections, such as incumbents intimidating opposition candidates and voters, armed groups using violence to disrupt electoral processes, or rioting between the supporters of opposing political parties. Until recently, a lack of globally available data complicated efforts to properly describe and understand election violence. This paper uses disaggregated event data from the Electoral Contention and Violence (ECAV) dataset to provide a global, post-Cold War assessment of election violence in the developing world. We first present a descriptive assessment, beginning with temporal and regional patterns, which show that most election violence occurs in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. We then examine timing, election type, electoral systems, and the actors and targets of election violence. Second, we probe the link between armed conflict and election violence. Violent elections in countries such as Afghanistan or Iraq highlight the challenges of holding elections during civil war, yet existing research has not been able to assess to what extent election violence takes place inside or outside of ongoing armed conflict. We conclude our systematic assessment of election violence with implications for scholarship and policy.

Syria

Election-related violence is rampant in many developing countries that receive foreign aid. However, it is not well understood why voters often elect representatives who are associated with such violence. In this article, I investigate why voters might support politicians who resort to violence. I argue that the poor tend to vote for candidates who deliver tangible local benefits through foreign aid projects even when those candidates use violence during election periods. To support this argument, I conducted a nationwide survey in the Philippines that included an experiment about the effects of foreign aid and violence on voters’ electoral support for a candidate. I find that poor voters who reside in a region where basic public goods and services are deficient are more likely to support a candidate whose district has received foreign aid, regardless of her alleged electoral violence. This research sheds light on a mechanism that links poverty to electoral violence in less developed countries. It also reveals an unintended consequence of foreign aid: increasing the likelihood of electoral violence.

Paris—Just inside the front door of the sprawling mother ship of the Hermès empire on the Rue Saint-Honoré stands a young Chinese woman prepared to welcome the wealthy shoppers from Beijing and Shanghai who share her mother tongue. Just beyond her, one recent Fall morning, were several of her countrymen who’d filled the largest bright orange Hermès shopping bags with cartons of €6,000 ($7500) handbags, €650 ($800) sneakers, and a few €2,700 ($3350) wristwatches thrown in for good measure. This was all they could reasonably manage, staggering out of the store to their limousines waiting outside.But down the street, in the less brandname boutiques that represent the true height of French fashion, at least to the real cognoscenti, two or three sales persons stared gamely at each other, hoping someone would walk through the door. In Madrid, on the fashionable Serrano, even the likes of Gucci and Cartier had barely a shopper or two casually browsing the otherwise empty aisles. Chinese billionaires, Russian oligarchs, these are the lubricants of commerce in today’s Europe—but a thin veneer on a fragile, often fracturing structure that is teetering beneath the surface. Europe today is a disaster waiting to happen. Indeed, in many corners it is already upon us.The continent is firmly in the grip of a crisis from which the United States is only just emerging and on the brink of which China and Russia are balancing as well. Disasters can take many forms, morph in strange, often unpredictable ways. There are economic disasters, terrorist attacks, tsunamis, and earthquakes of every stripe. How nations and their leaders cope is very much a measure of their resilience and innovation, indeed their very viability, not to mention their success in providing for their people now and for decades to come. Governments rise and fall on the effectiveness of this coping mechanism, but often simply on the perception of their adequacy to the task.Today, with all too many uncertainties in life and commerce, often overlaid by terror and mayhem, no corner of the world is in any sense comfortable, nor should any leader be complacent at all.In the economic sphere, the hedge has become the most prized economic vehicle—an inoculation against catastrophe—from Wall Street to Threadneedle to the Place de la Bourse to Shanghai. But there are political and social hedges as well that are less easily denominated, though no less tangible, if not apocalyptic. So when the violence spawned by the Islamic State (IS) in northern Syria is carried to the very doorstep of neighboring Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hedges his bets, forbidding the launch of lethal air strikes from NATO bases in his nation that could turn the tide of battle, while quietly allowing hundreds of Western jihadi fighters to slip from Turkey into IS strongholds.The physical scale of Europe has not changed in centuries. It is still geographically defined as the vast land mass between the Ural Mountains in Russia and the Atlantic Ocean. Its political and diplomatic area, however, has morphed dramatically, ever since the immediate post-World War II years. With the arrival of the European Union, which has continued to expand its borderless frontiers to the very doorsteps of Russia, to the introduction of the euro and the expansion of the eurozone where the eponymous currency is accepted at face value, Europe continues to change its inner and outer essence, often with little understanding of the consequences.The speed of this transformation and the scaling of the continent have failed to keep pace with many of the external forces preying on its weaknesses. And these disasters are only looming larger.Demographics plays a central role. The fastest growing country in Europe is Norway, whose population is expanding at an annual clip of 1.32 percent. But that’s only the 97th most rapid growth registered in the world. In Europe, Norway is followed by Switzerland at 1.07 percent. And though geographically in the heart of Europe, it’s not even a member of the European Union or the eurozone. Every other EU nation is growing at less than 1 percent. Indeed Greece, Hungary, Portugal, Lithuania, and Latvia are actually shrinking in population, which puts them alongside Japan, in the same economic boat—a once surging economic power, now rowing desperately just to stay in the stream.The scale of Europe is shrinking or stagnating as clearly as its economic prospects. Lisbon’s magnificent opera house, the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in the heart of the Chiado, was in hiatus in the middle of September. The building, a precise replica of Milan’s magnificent La Scala and inaugurated July 30, 1793 by Queen Maria I, is empty. The Portuguese government had been forced to cut its subsidy in half, slashing €15 million ($18 million). Instead of performing, the great singers were hanging outside at the stage door preparing to rehearse, and rehearse again. The lights were illuminated briefly for two visitors, to show off the magnificent interior. The lights were dimmed immediately after the visitors’ departure.With the shrinking scale comes an end to what philosopher George Steiner calls l’esprit européen, which he traces to the destruction wrought by the two great wars of the last century in Europe that left 100 million soldiers and civilians dead. But why stop there? Further back, there were the Napoleonic Wars, or the earlier Thirty Years War that laid waste vast stretches of Germany and Italy, Bohemia and the Low Countries. This conflict was brought to an end only by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, enabling the rise of the Europe’s modern nation states. Or we could go even further back, another two centuries, to the Hundred Years War between England’s ruling Plantaganets and France’s House of Valois for control of France. That conflict could well have set the stage for the British view that “the wogs begin at Calais”—perhaps another, if a trifle offbeat, reason why the British have insisted on retaining the pound as their currency rather than join the Franco-German-led euro.If we are seeking demographic disasters, we can also continue back through the 200 years worth of Crusades that destroyed much of the flower of European chivalry in the High and Late Middle Ages, or even before that to the Gothic Wars that laid waste the Roman Empire, or the Peloponnesian Wars that pitted Athens against Sparta a half century before Jesus. Along the way there were a host of other disasters, notably the Black Death, the epidemic of bubonic plague that wiped out half of Europe’s population—as many as 200 million people in four years, and as many as 80 percent of the population in the south of France, Italy, and Spain.Yet despite these wars and scourges that have swept across Europe in the previous three millennia, after each, the continent and its people have managed to recover and prosper. Along the way, Europe came to dominate the world or at least large portions of it. Yet in some ways, today is different. Suddenly Europe seems to have its back to the wall with no apparent exit. In some respects, Steiner is correct. Europe has lost its heart and soul somewhere and is seeking, at times desperately, to reclaim it. Yet in doing so, by agglomeration, it has truly lost its way.I have long believed that the real strength of a nation is in its uniqueness—its language, culture, history, the human spirit of its people, and the courage and will to preserve what is its own at all cost. It is this spirit that enables nations to survive disasters of any stripe and regain their strength. But Europe today has lost its uniqueness. In its efforts to craft a single, unitary entity— without borders, currencies, tariffs, or a host of other uniquely indigenous qualities, Europe risks losing more than it gains.Japan’s great error was to lose its sense of itself—what made it great. At one point, this small chain of islands off the east coast of Asia dominated the region. Sadly it used that power malevolently—believing that armed conflict was a solution to its own demographic, political, and economic troubles. But the unique resilience of its people enabled it to rise from the ashes of World War II and the horrors of two nuclear bombs dropped on its territory. Again, however, it squandered this energy. Imitation became its mantra. The hard work and innovative efforts of its people were misdirected. In 1974, I accompanied my new bride and her father to Japan for a “buying trip.” He was a dress manufacturer who discovered that Japan was able to produce fine silk and other fabrics for his company’s dresses to be sewed in Hong Kong and shipped to America. The fabrics were produced, flawlessly and on his precise timetable. But in the end, they were little more than “knockoffs.” On the second leg of our trip, in Hong Kong, at dinner one night we were interrupted by a furtive Chinese salesman with a large book of fabric swatches that he thrust eagerly into my father-in-law’s face. He glanced casually at them, then waved off the salesman. “Why?” I asked. “Communist Chinese,” he sniffed, “You can’t count on when the goods will ever show up.” The moment China began operating on Western timetables, producing its own, cheaper knockoffs, Japan was finished. Now, Bangladesh and Vietnam are waiting in the wings, just as the Philippines man call centers for everyone from Citi cards to Microsoft. Yet all of these nations are losing their way as definitively as Japan.Now, Japan, for one, is seeking to recover its mojo. The tsunami that caused the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster of 2011 could not have come at a worse moment. The nation’s growth rate had shrunk to barely 1 percent, and these two catastrophes would push it into negative territory for the year. It is still the world’s third largest nation by GDP, but at the expense of being the world’s largest creditor nation as well. It built this financial muscle at least in part on the strength of spending virtually nothing on military preparedness—trusting its security entirely to the United States ever since it emerged as a conquered power at the end of World War II. But no longer. Suddenly, Japan has begun to recognize that it must assert its uniqueness and stand on its own two feet at every turn.If it can recover, it will be a tribute to the great resilience of its people and a return to its roots—indeed an object lesson of how to emerge from disasters, especially when multiple disasters converge. In this case, there are at least three, all converging. The economic disaster of slow growth and shrinking markets was compounded by the tsunami and nuclear meltdown, and multiplied by the external challenge of a China that recognized it could assert its hegemony in a region so long dominated by an enemy next door.As a first step on its road to recovery, Japan is starting again to care for its own defense. Last Spring, the Japanese Prime Minister told a gathering of Asian leaders that Japan, responding to threats from China barely a hundred miles away, would begin developing a workable defensive capacity that was already in a position to come to the aid of any neighbor whose sovereignty might be challenged. So far Japan hasn’t been taken up on that offer. But China was clearly listening. Threats against Japan from the mainland have largely melted away, though in the case of other neighbors—especially Vietnam and the Philippines—have not evaporated. At some point, Japan could still be called upon to demonstrate its newlyarticulated resolve.Europe could take some lessons from Japan’s experience. The continent broadly and all too many of its component units—I hesitate to say nations since so many have given up vital elements of what has made them truly European nations—are facing disasters like few of their counterparts in Asia or the Americas. These disasters, immediate or incipient, are headlined by unemployment that in too many cases has gotten out of hand. Indeed, unlike Japan, where lifetime service in a company is still in many cases still an achievable constant, the “career” is an all but forgotten memory among millions of a certain age as the French call those in the prime of life. And for their children, the concept is an impossible dream en route to an obsolescence as complete as the Walkman.In Spain, where the official unemployment rate is 25 percent and for youths it soars to 50 percent or more, the routine is for young people to live “at home” with their parents until they are approaching middle age. “Living at home costs them nothing,” says Sebastian Feinblatt, one of those increasingly few young men who’s succeeded in finding his own flat in Madrid. “The small jobs they get, they spend the money on beer.” And those are the ones who stay. Many, including Spain’s best and brightest, simply pack up and leave. With the totally open frontiers of the various member states of the European Union, “they move to Germany, move anywhere,” says Sara Lumbreras Sancho, a lecturer at the Instituto de Investigación Tecnológica. “Even Spanish people with good degrees from good universities go abroad, if only to learn English.” Indeed, Florencia Cidre, an accomplished molecular biologist researching rare pediatric cancers, loves her work, but says “we are paid so badly here. We get such low salaries compared to anywhere else. That’s why if I got an offer from abroad, I would go, for sure. For doing the exact same thing, I’d get paid twice as much.”At a dinner in a Basque restaurant in Madrid, six young people, from 27 to 33 years old, gathered to assess their lives and the prospects of their real or adopted country. Each is a Global Shaper, an elite group of young people designated by the World Economic Forum, representing their generation’s best and brightest. And who mince no words in discussing their concerns and those of their fellow youths.Cedric Kutlu, founding partner of a private equity firm known as the Fools Fund and who speaks five languages, has perhaps the most direct and at the same time most jaundiced views. “There is a lot of mediocrity in Spain,” he begins sadly. “And this is not something that happened from one day to another—it has been an accumulation of things. Culture, aptitude, education are also factors. The public services are a joke in Spain. The majority of politicians have never practiced in the private sector for a minute in their lives. You have mediocre people helping other mediocre people. And they are kind of proud of being that way. Change is inevitable because it is not sustainable.”The question, however, is not whether the status quo is sustainable, but whether it may be so deeply embedded in so many places in southern Europe that it has become a part of the natural fabric—transplanted from the nation to the broader European Union itself. One Greek-American executive with relatives in Athens returns every few years from a visit shaking her head. “They do nothing but dance and sing in the sunshine,” she says, reiterating a cliché that dates back at least a half century to the film “Zorba the Greek,” but which the Shapers from Spain, in many respects an equally Mediterranean country, echo today.“Oh yes, I would say the whole Mediterranean region is in a very similar situation in general,” Cedric nods. Esther Paniagua, a top technology journalist, agrees. “You go to places like San Francisco or even Colombia, they have sun and sand, but they are ambitious. When I was there last week, I didn’t want to come back here. Here there is only pessimism, and people are complaining.”Europe is in the midst of a malaise that has produced a crisis so profound that even the blame game is no to the political Yet still it is at the And the especially in southern Europe, is increasingly the of Germany, in a in his in the of the Portuguese that Europe in a certain way are the of and her concept of the European The of and Germany are not accepted by the other European these should be on these And the that have emerged from this crisis so far didn’t these Germany that this was the case in Greece, the first such Indeed it is these nations of southern Europe that have been the and of Germany and its of and is an But her is One a in her when he how his has changed the of one of his we can’t say he the words of this military virtually as they emerge from his of miles will get a call from and she will not be That is not So while many at her every even her recognize that she the of Europe, its very as a in her And then Germany can be continues I the situation is very The who should Europe come through is it is recognized that the by are not and even the are not is that Europe can survive and at the same time preserve its own unique When I out that is the only country on the continent in a time with a in Europe, he able to go and Portuguese and I In of that is a tribute to the that and its of half the known world in the and centuries. Its is the that the largest nation in and several still count Portuguese as their mother tongue. But the is long And Europe, or its various must with a that is all but too real and in many cases too is they are still the most country. no one is It to be from the I would never on our Change is to take five to if it can be at of the blame he on the but especially the that continues to the So not a in or in much of and southern Europe has on the challenge in the of Japan’s Prime Minister whose government markets by on an new of to its already the next in an to the nation out of its government has made the our in to have it from the which has continued for more than told The has been a the that will continue has been by Japan to its way out of the disaster in the of Europe is at virtually every and in every of the that has up to service its and At the heart of many of the is the European On virtually every there are that to its most for the deeply of a new of that seems to the euro in any of a that is all but to many external On this for the of the however, the of the are deeply and largely on So that some leaders of the each eurozone member is still to its own central though in has any currency of its own to want to on a For like a they want to the of the country. This would a few like Germany, an any measure they would to their Europe in its most is little than a third of a century when I last there or even a century on the of the first of two world But now there are more outside many of these and especially outside the are to be is so low compared to the United States that someone who comes with a solution for a that is of people or hundreds of immediately it’s very says who that his though in Spain, has made more of its recent in the United States than at the United someone who service is a a someone who become the is largely to the to And then get someone in the You can the And all the time are waiting for them even to come on the few especially southern have any in the euro or the should one every euro we to we get a but not The subsidy is an in especially with ever and nations the Union, and like at the are increasingly to move in the of as de of calls the that in many especially is known as may out those must then their way through various in far off with and off at each stage the way to the or at least salaries of the of including many new in many of these to a Europe seems increasingly not simply go it may well in two years, off from a Europe might be the best real or of Europe in financial or it any for it to its take on any more real or So it should be if no European no NATO has to into to take on IS on its home to it a The NATO in Turkey, can launch only to the northern The leaders of this NATO member not only from but the of the of who still to power in And not even a member of the European other European nation has been prepared to in on disasters of must be for nations with the or the to do Europe has the capacity nor any that would it into capacity to be in for catastrophes still only Russia to Western Europe this to for or terrorist by IS or to the by in young Shapers that it’s first to get their at least a corner of the So a that they will some as to why so many young people have no jobs even no that the is But of the especially the is a young people are in that are a There is little real understanding what to begin their lives in the real world. a of a costs or one is by the And the up to two years to Yet few are very well prepared or to the of is largely only by time abroad, and this often which few but the most can our dinner with the Shapers Cedric has a last change or we from 1 to each but there are waiting outside who want to them their That’s then not money because a out there who to And no we take it. In the United States or Turkey, the lights may already be but if show the is still to take a of also a of Europe how to cope with disasters that are already the the is whether the European can change to off the if the are not among political must across and especially across frontiers is Europe may to return to its as a of nations far more than

يهدف هذا البحث إلى الوصول إلى معايير واضحة المعالم تتحد على إثرها رواتب الموظفين، وأوجه التفاضل بين الموظفين في سلم الرواتب، وقد جرى الباحث في هذا البحث على مزيج بين المنهج الوصفي والمنهج التحليلي والمنهج المقارن بين الآراء الفقهية وبعضها وبين الآراء الفقهية والقانونية، معتمدا على القوانين والأنظمة-ذات الصلة-المعمول بها في دولة الکويت. وقد اعتنت هذه الدراسة ببيان تفصيلي لحقيقة الوظيفة العامة في الشريعة الإسلامية، من خلال بيان استعمال المتقدمين من فقهاء الإسلام لمصطلح الوظيفة، والفرق بينه وبين الاستعمال الحالي، کما اهتمت الدراسة ببيان أنواع الوظائف العامة في الدولة الإسلامية في عصورها السابقة، وأي أنواع تلک الوظائف التي تتفق مع زمننا المعاصر؟! کما أفصحت الدراسة عن طبيعة علاقة الموظف العام بالدولة، وهل العلاقة بين الطرفين عقدية أو لائحية، مبينة أولا وجهة النظر القانونية، ومن ثم وجهة النظر الشرعية غير غافلة عن أنواع الوظائف. وخلصت الدراسة إلى جملة من التوصيات والنتائج، ومن أبرز النتائج أن المعيار الأدنى الذي يستحقه الموظف من الراتب هو معيار الکفاية، وأوصت الدراسة بضرورة مراجعة سلم الرواتب في کل سنتين على الأقل؛ وذلک لئلا يخرج العوض الذي يستحقه الموظف عن حد الکفاية، کما ينبغي على الدولة السعي للوصول بالموظفين إلى معيار التوسعة في الرزق. Standards of Determination of Public Servant Salary Juristic Comparative Study Khalid Jassem Alholi Department of Comparative Jurisprudence and Sharia Policy Faculty of Sharia and Islamic Studie ,Kuwait University, Kuwait. s Khaled.alholy@ku.edu.kw E-mail: Abstract: This research aims to reach well-defined standards by which public servant salaries are unified and aspects of differentiation between public servants in the salary scale. In this research, the researcher used a mix of descriptive analytical and comparative methods between the jurisprudential and legal opinions based on relevant laws and regulations applicable in Kuwait. This study concentrated on clarifying, in detail, the nature of the public service in the Islamic Sharia through clarifying former Muslim jurists’ usage for the term “Job” and the difference between it and the current usage. The study also concentrated on clarifying the types of public service jobs in the Islamic State in its previous eras and which types of these jobs are consistent with our current time! Moreover, the study displayed the nature of the relationship of the public servant with the state and whether this relationship is contractual or regulatory, indicating firstly the legal point-of-view, then Sharia point-of-view without ignoring the types of jobs. The study also concluded a series of recommendations and results. The most significant results included that the minimum standard that the public servant deserves is the adequacy standard. The study recommends that the Salary Scale should be reviewed each two years so that the compensation deserved to the public servant shall not be out of adequacy limit. The state should endeavor to convey public servants to the standard of expansion of sustenance. Keywords: Standard - Salary - Servant - State - Public Servant.

Perspectives on the rebel social contract: Exit, voice, and loyalty in the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria

Introduction Daniel Byman (bio) The threat of terrorism—both real and perceived—is shaping international relations like never before. Terrorism’s roots are ancient, and in its modern form it has existed long before the attacks of September 11, 2001. Nonetheless, that day marked a historic shift in the attitudes of peoples and governments around the world. No longer was terrorism a dramatic but essentially minor strategic concern: now its jihadist variant would top the list of foreign policy objectives and contribute to foreign interventions, aggressive new laws at home, and massive resource commitments. Although the United States and Europe understandably focus on the threats directly affecting their own countries and citizens, the problem is far greater in the Muslim world. Europe and America have both seen spectacular acts of terrorism that have sown panic and fear within their societies. In the Middle East, however, terrorism has morphed into insurgency and civil war, leaving hundreds of thousands dead. Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen all suffer from civil wars in which terrorist acts are daily occurrences. Terrorism, however, is constantly evolving. Just as al-Qaeda displaced other groups to rise to the top of the terrorist hierarchy by the late 1990s, now the Islamic State has eclipsed its former master and emerged as the world’s top concern. The group’s staggering brutality, military prowess, and global ambitions have lent it a powerful mix of dread and awe: just as millions of Muslims revile it, tens of thousands have flocked to fight under its banners. Yet the Islamic State is far from the only terrorism concern. Al-Qaeda remains active, and its affiliates are of particular concern. Other groups like Hizballah and Boko Haram foment violence and disrupt efforts to improve governance. The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas now should also be described as a government, controlling the de facto state of Gaza. Although terrorists in general are operationally conservative, the tactics and methods they use also change. Suicide bombings, once a rarity, are now so common as to rarely make the headlines. As networks grow denser and wider, innovations spread more quickly. Groups rapidly learn from one another how to manufacture improvised [End Page 3] explosive devices, execute gruesome methods such as beheadings, and use social media to their advantage, sharing the most effective practices and emulating success. Governments try to adapt to these new threats and changing methods, but inevitably the response is slow, uneven, and imperfect. In the United States, President Barack Obama’s foreign policy has been cautious with regard to intervention in the Middle East in general—leading to criticism that terrorist hotspots like Libya, Syria, and Yemen have been allowed to fester—but the president has proved aggressive in targeting individual terrorists. He is also stepping up U.S. military operations against the Islamic State. Europe’s response varies considerably. Some states, like France, are active members of the military coalition against the Islamic State and are aggressively pursuing terrorists at home—often to the point of alienating their own Muslim communities and increasing the risk of radicalization. Other European states also suffer integration problems, and some have poor intelligence services that do not coordinate well inside or outside their borders. Terrorism has left the technical and security realms and entered that of mainstream politics. In the United States and especially Europe, the perceived threat of terrorism is shaping elections, attitudes toward refugees, and community relations in general. Much of this discourse, however, is histrionic or ill-informed, and the resulting pressure often leads to bad policies or exaggerated views of the threat. No end is in sight. The Islamic State may be suffering setbacks in the Middle East, but no one expects its base there to vanish or a diminishment of the danger it poses regionally or globally. Many other groups also remain active, and the chaos in the greater Middle East offers fertile soil for new threats to grow. As a result, terrorism will remain an important security concern and political issue for years or even decades to come. The articles in this issue offer numerous revelations into the complexity of terrorism and its many faces. They address issues such as the way...

Civil conflict increases incumbents’ vulnerability, expands their coercive capacity, enervates public good provision, and stifles public opposition. Consequently, we expect that elections held during civil conflict will feature more incumbent-perpetrated election violence. We test our argument with disaggregated data on election violence, generating two principal findings. First, elections held during civil conflict are more likely to feature violent coercion by incumbents. Second, this effect does not depend on the conflict's intensity or political salience, but is endemic to conflict-affected societies as a class. This raises questions about the nature of elections in conflict-affected societies and the relationship between forms of political violence.

The civil war in Syria created the conditions for the emergence of the Islamic State (IS). It started attracting fighters from all over the region and later took the control of parts of Iraq. Militants came from all over the world, although regional countries represented the most important sources of recruitments for IS. In this context, Tunisia and Morocco played a very significant role as a very substantial number of IS fighters come from these two countries. As such, and the case of Tunisia and the attacks it suffered in 2015 are very indicative, this issue will remain at the forefront of the security agenda for both countries in the foreseeable future. In the very beginning, both countries turned a blind eye on militants’ movement to Syria and Iraq, mainly to reduce the burden on national security services. However, once IS took over parts of Syria and Iraq, it was clear that the nature of the threat was changing and both countries started adopting a more proactive approach to fighting terrorism. The background of Tunisian and Moroccan militants is often similar: they mostly come from impoverished suburban areas and neglected rural and mountainous regions, often distant from the actual centres of – either formal or informal – economic and political power. However, the outcomes of these efforts have been different: Tunisia, as shown by the attacks that the country suffered in 2015, has so far struggled to find an effective solution, and the establishment of IS fighters in neighbouring Libya represents a further threat. Moreover, many IS fighters in Libya are Tunisians who either moved from Syria and Iraq or reached Libya straight from Tunisia. In addition, it is very likely that the changes that occurred in the post-Ben Ali security forces in Tunisia reduced the security services’ capacities of tackling these issues. In Morocco, instead, efforts have been more successful, but in the medium term this will continue to represent a substantial threat, whose impact goes well beyond the narrower security domain.

Joking about Jihad: Comedy and Terror in the Arab World

Women in Conflict and Post-conflict Situations: An Anthology of Cases from Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Other Countries

Subject The ideological and strategic priorities for the so-called Islamic State. Significance Achieving and preserving statehood, of which governance is a critical component, are ideological and strategic priorities for Islamic State group (ISG). It has shown some governance capabilities in its self-declared 'caliphate', establishing extensive government systems in particular in Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, and in towns such as Deir al-Zour and Ramadi. However, the demands of governing a territory of 8 million people, providing it with a minimum level of public services and law and order, present weaknesses that the international coalition is seeking to exploit. Impacts ISG government has stronger prospects in Syria than Iraq, where it faces greater military and economic challenges Reduced economic resources will lead to a further decline in public service provision in ISG-controlled areas. The destruction of ISG government will require ground forces that can provide credible alternative government.

The research aims to investigate the methods for rewriting techniques to reconstruct the riverbank of the Tigris River in Mosul. This procedure can recall a series of features of the previous settlement involved in the design process, such as permanence, traces, absences, etc. This choice depends on the assumption that reviving city riverbank spaces is an essential phase in the post - war reconstruction, especially for cities with strong connections with rivers – such as Mosul – since riverbanks can become new collective and civil spaces for the post - war life of cities. The definition of rewriting takes inspiration from literary world, but in the academic field of architecture implies a proactive attitude of critically reworking formal characteristics belonging to some features of previous configurations. Mosul, the second largest Iraqi city, is selected to be the case for this research owing to its special status: the Mosul city was established on the western riverbank of the Tigris River in the 6th Century, across from the archaeological relics of the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh, which was prosperous during the ancient era. However, it has been severely affected by the civil war between the terrorist organization – the Islamic State – and the Iraqi government from 2014 to 2017. This civil war suffered a substantial economic and development setback and experienced widespread destruction of civil and industrial infrastructure from systematic and extensive sabotage and looting, which represented the loss of those architectures of collective and symbolic importance for the city’s identity. In this situation of loss of collective facilities and identity, investigating and applying rewriting techniques not only can suit the urgent need for post - war regeneration but also enhance the consolidated relationships between diversity and unity, past and present, tradition and contemporary. The research employs the methodologies of literature review, site analysis, case study, and design research to gain a series of practical principles and methods for the rewriting technique. These principles and methods can guide the design work in the reconstruction process, improving the quality of riverbank space with the site logic and spirit. Furthermore, the theoretical outcome of this research has the potential to significantly advance the discipline more broadly.

The terrorist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) with its leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani has become at the forefront of the current war in Syria. HTS advanced from their home base in the north-western province of Idlib into the big cities of Hama and Homs, finally taking control of the capital Damascus. The group is not the only one to take advantage of the fall of Bashar al Assad’s regime. Other rebel factions are also active there as one of them is the Islamic State (ISIS) which has an opportunity to revive again. It is important to note that actually HTS originated from Jabhat al-Nusra which was formed in 2012 by ISIL (later ISIS). A year later it split from ISIL and pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda. In a similar way the new formation broke ranks with Al-Qaeda and started its own agenda. This paper looks at the current relations of Islamic State and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Syria and analyzes if they can coexist together or shall engage in conflict thereafter. Eventually all enemies of Assad now have to choose between peaceful negotiations or throwing the country into chaos and civil war. The study is divided into two parts. The first one provides a historical overview of how HTS emerged from ISIS and then diverged from it. The second section carries out implications on what role they will play from now on.