Islamic Fundamentalism: A Quantitative Analysis

Authors

D. Dustin Berna, Nova Southeastern UniversityFollow

Abstract

Islamic fundamentalist movements are inherently anti-system social movements. An anti-system social movement is designed to criticize governmental institutions and the political mainstream while mobilizing disaffected individuals against the existing sociopolitical and socioeconomic institutions. What is lacking in the mindset of many Western politicians, practitioners, the media, and the general public is a basic understanding of Islamic fundamentalism; specifically, the causes. This is the first quantitative analysis of potential causes of Islamic fundamentalism. I have created a unique data set that contains every Islamic fundamentalist group that is or has been in operation from 1970 through 2008. This fundamentalist data set has a total number of 16,072 fundamentalist movements. I will utilize the negative binomial fixed effects regression model and a comparison of each independent variable’s effect on the number of fundamentalist movements by looking at each independent variable’s minimum, mean, and maximum score.

Author Bio(s)

D. Dustin Berna graduated from the University of New Orleans with his Ph.D. in 2008. His two major fields of study were Middle Eastern politics and international relations. American political institutions were a third and minor field. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Conflict Analysis and Resolution in the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nova Southeastern University. His research specializations include Middle Eastern politics, Islamic fundamentalism, religious extremism, social movements, terrorism, and political institutions. He is currently working on the Encyclopedia of Islamic Fundamentalist Movements (Under Contract with Praeger Publishing House): This is a two volume Islamic fundamentalist movement encyclopedia that will categorize, describe, and explain the ideological and biographical backgrounds of more than 700 known Islamic fundamentalist movements that have been in operation since 1970. Email: db1315@nova.edu

Keywords

Americanization, anti-system social movement, globalization, Islamic fundamentalism, social movement theory, westernization

Publication Date

5-2012

DOI

10.46743/1082-7307/2012.1136

Recommended Citation

Berna, D. Dustin (2012) "Islamic Fundamentalism: A Quantitative Analysis," Peace and Conflict Studies: Vol. 19: No. 1, Article 5.
DOI: 10.46743/1082-7307/2012.1136
Available at: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/pcs/vol19/iss1/5