Al-Qaeda and Anarchism: A Historian's Reply to Terrorology

This article situates al-Qaeda and similar jihadi movements within the category of anarchism. In so doing, it challenges the central pillar of the terrorology paradigm: the notion that terrorism is useful as an independent unit of analysis. The article takes a two-fold approach; in the first part, it offers a five-part definition of anarchism, based on the literature in the fields of history, political science, and sociology. Anarchism is distinguished by five characteristics: First, anarchism is an episodic discourse which provides its adherents with a prescription for action and which has been consistently available to, but only sometimes adopted by, political actors in the modern world. Second, anarchism makes for itself the claim of being defensive in nature. Third, anarchism is anti-systemic; i.e., the target of anarchist grievances is the very system (the nation-state system, capitalism) anarchists view as the source of oppression. Fourth, by “othering” the source of oppression, anarchists delineate, either implicitly or explicitly, an ideal counter-community. Finally, unlike the disarticulated domain of, for example, scientific socialism, the discursive field of anarchism draws heavily from the specific cultural milieu from which it springs. The second part of the article examines al-Qaeda and similar movements in terms of these five characteristics, contrasts al-Qaeda with other organizations (Hamas, Hizbullah) which have often been conflated with al-Qaeda under the terrorist rubric, and argues that, based on those characteristics, al-Qaeda does not represent a new or sui generis phenomenon, but rather fits squarely into the anarchist mold.