Emotions, Poverty, or Politics: US military perspectives on Islamic Movements

Anne Marie Baylouny of the US Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey writes a fascinating article that sheds some light on how the US military is thinking about ‘violent movements in the name of Islam’ here. It’s a short, and interesting take. Without wanting to give away the punchline, Anne tells us that we need to spend more time understanding the issues - “Islamism is one of the most important foci of policy makers and scholars today, yet misconceptions about it abound. We lose a great deal by ignoring the knowledge generated through years of study in other parts of the world, data that could aid in correctly identifying what Islamism is, what causes it, when it turns violent, and how best to meet our policy aims.

Reducing urban violence through participatory methodologies

Caroline Moser, Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution writes a fascinating paper on how participatory methodologies typically used for poverty reduction are being used to try to reduce urban violence in developing countries. The paper can be found as a pdf here, and a summary is posted below.

“US policy, not poverty, ‘is cause of terrorism’” say leading academics

Alan B. Krueger (Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University) and Jitka Maleckova (associate professor at the Institute for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Charles University in Prague) wrote a fascinating paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research in July 2002 entitled “Education, Poverty, Political Violence and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?”

The idea that poverty and desperation fuel terrorism is a seductive one, that many influential people have advanced, for example;

“If the mind is more open, that will automatically bring less fear. Education can narrow the gap between appearances and reality. The reality is that we and ‘they’ are not different.” (Dalai Lama);

“At the bottom of terrorism is poverty. That is the main cause. Then there are other religious, national, and ideological differences.” (Kim Dae Jung);

“External circumstances such as poverty and a sense of grievance and injustice can fill people with resentment and despair to the point of desperation.” (Desmond Tutu); and

“What is it that seduces some young people to terrorism? It simplifies things. The fanatic has no questions, only answers. Education is the way to eliminate terrorism.” (Elie Wiesel).

These authors make the case that this simply is not true, that education and poverty are not the cause of terrorism, indeed, the more educated and prosperous are actually more likely to support certain types of violence. Their argument is that it is, in fact, US Foreign Policy, not poverty and ignorance, that is fueling terrorism.

Local Government and Conflict

This USAID paper on local government and conflict juxtaposes two concerns that we usually don’t consider together. Generally when we think of local government we think of corruption, lack of capacity, lack of resources, incompetence and apathy. We do not usually think of it as a player in conflict. This paper draws attention to the very real role that local governments play in conflict and how we as development practitioners can support them to mitigate rather than exacerbate violent conflict. It is central to the Do No Harm sort of approach to work with local governments as they work to enhance security, provide better representation, improve service delivery, and cope with decentralization.