MECHAM AUDIT final v2

M A S S A C H U S E T T S I N S T I T U T E O F T E C H N O L O G Y M A S S A C H U S E T T S I N S T I T U T E O F T E C H N O L O G YAugust 2006M I T C E N T E R F O R I N T E R N A T I O N A L S T U D I E S 06-11of the Conventional WisdomWhy Do Islamist Groups BecomeTransnational and Violent?Quinn MechamMiddlebury Collegeince al-Qaeda’s rise to prominence as the most commonly rec-Sognized Islamist group worldwide, Islamist movements are increasingly viewed as violent, transnational organizations. Most Islamist groups, however, are actually non-violent and focused on the domestic audience of their home countries. They can become both violent and transnational as their domestic contexts and incentives change, however. The reasons that Islamist movements move from non-violence to violence, and from national to transna-tional strategies, have far-reaching implications for the way we deal with Islamist groups and are critical for policymakers to under-stand. Looking at the ContinuumPrimarily domestic, peaceful Islamist groups are often powerful political actors, yet they command far less foreign policy attention than do violent transnational groups. While much of the attention to violent transnational groups may be justified, such groups must be understood within the broader continuum of Islamist organizations of which Center for International StudiesMassachusetts Institute of Technology they are a part. In addition, the historical context in which ...