Violence in the name of god? A framing processes approach to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria

This article was originally published with errors. This version has been corrected/amended. Please see Erratum (https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2017.1397416).

Abstract

Since summer 2014, the insurgent group ‘Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’ (ISIS) has become a major concern for international politics and global security due to its rapid territorial gains, violent operations and the propagation of Salafi-jihadist ideology. This study aims to enhance the academic understanding of ISIS by demystifying the ideological reasoning behind its use of violence. It therefore investigates the link between structural factors that served ISIS’s evolution, its ideological outlook and the significance of this ideology to legitimize violent action. As its theoretical basis, the study employs framing processes within the study of social movements. Methodologically, discursive frame analysis serves to explore the relation of ISIS’s ideology to structural events and experiences to better understand how the group justifies violence. Therefore, the study draws on audio speeches and issues of the magazines Dabiq and Dar al-Islam published by ISIS, which are examined on the rhetoric of othering, collective identity and justifying violence. It is argued that ISIS constructs a collective action frame which creates a social reality that bestows the group with a rationale for action. ISIS’s ideology, based on Islamic symbolism, presents an interpretative lens which assigns meaning to the structural environment of ISIS’s emergence. In this context, violence is justified as a necessity to defend Islam and as an obligation for the true Muslim believer. The discussion concludes that ISIS’s ideology legitimizes the very existence of the group and conceals its mundane struggle for power, territory and wealth through reference to divine authority.

Keywords:

• ISIS
• framing processes
• ideology
• collective identity
• violence
• discursive frame analysis

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Erratum

Notes

This article was originally published with errors. This version has been corrected/amended. Please see Erratum (https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2017.1397416).

1. The concept of jihad divides into the Greater Jihad, the spiritual struggle to overcome the evil within oneself, and the Lesser Jihad, the military struggle against unbelievers (Yapp, 2004).

2. During the ‘Anbar Awakening’ (sahwa) of 2006/2007, about thirty Sunni tribes in the Anbar Province turned against AQI for their aversion to the brutal violence and their drive to restore their autonomous power. (Price, 2014).