Cover not available
Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 21:5 (2022) ► pp.675–696

Utopia, war, and justice

The discursive construction of the state in ISIS’ political communications

| Independent Scholar
ORCID logo | Duke University
Between 2014 and 2017, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) morphed from a terrorist organization into a proto-state that held a large swathe of territory, within which its strict interpretation of sharia law was enforced. We argue that ISIS discursively constructed itself politically by appealing to elements of both a traditional Islamic caliphate and a modern legitimate state. Linguistic and semiotic data is presented from political communications through social media that revolve around three key themes, specifically the construction of a utopian state founded on justice and engaged in righteous war, which all rely fundamentally on a conception of the modern state as holding a “monopoly on the legitimate use of force”, in Weber’s definition. We analyze this data from a critical discourse analysis (CDA) perspective, within a theoretical framework that draws on the political sociology of the state and political communications in asymmetric conflicts.
Keywords: CDA, Islamic State, ISIS, political sociology, state theory, Max Weber, asymmetric conflict
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methodological underpinnings
  • 3.Theoretical paradigms
    • 3.1The political sociology of the state
      • 3.1.1Monopoly of legitimate force
      • 3.1.2Coercion and compulsion
      • 3.1.3Authority and legitimacy
      • 3.1.4Territoriality and sovereignty
    • 3.2Asymmetric warfare and political communications
  • 4.Discourses of utopia, war, and justice in ISIS texts
    • 4.1Utopia
    • 4.2War
    • 4.3Justice
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 February 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.21016.moo
References (39)
References
Arreguín-Toft, Ivan M. 2005. How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ayalon, Ami, Elad Popovich, and Moran Yarchi. 2016. “From Warfare to Imagefare: How States Should Manage Asymmetric Conflicts with Extensive Media Coverage.” Terrorism and Political Violence 28 (2): 254–73. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Betz, David. 2008. “The Virtual Dimension of Contemporary Insurgency and Counterinsurgency.” Small Wars & Insurgencies 19 (4): 510–40. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bloom, Mia, Hicham Tiflati, and John Horgan. 2019. “Navigating ISIS’s Preferred Platform: Telegram.” Terrorism and Political Violence 31 (6): 1242–54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brookes, Gavin, and Tony McEnery. 2020. “Correlation, Collocation and Cohesion: A Corpus-Based Critical Analysis of Violent Jihadist Discourse.” Discourse & Society 31 (4): 351–73. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, Chris. 2002. Sovereignty, Rights, and Justice: International Political Theory Today. Cambridge: PolityGoogle Scholar
Brüggemann, Ulf. 2016. “Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State: Objectives, Threat, Countermeasures.” Security Working Paper 9, Federal Academy for Security Policy, 1–5. Retrieved from: [URL], February 9, 2022
Droogan, Julian, and Shane Peattie. 2017. “Mapping the Thematic Landscape of Dabiq Magazine.” Australian Journal of International Affairs 71 (6): 591–620. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
El-Nashar, Mohamed, and Heba Nayef. 2019. “‘Cooking the Meal of Terror’ Manipulative Strategies in Terrorist Discourse: A Critical Discourse Analysis of ISIS Statements.” Terrorism and Political Violence 0 (0): 1–21 (Online). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1992. Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1991. “Governmentality.” In The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, edited by Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, 87–104. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gambhir, Harleen K. 2014. Dabiq: The Strategic Messaging of the Islamic State. Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of War.Google Scholar
Gerges, Fawaz A. 2016. ISIS: A History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ingram, Haroro J. 2017. “An Analysis of Inspire and Dabiq: Lessons from AQAP and Islamic State’s Propaganda War.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 40 (5): 357–75. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jäger, Siegfried. 2001. “Discourse and Knowledge: Theoretical and Methodological Aspects of a Critical Discourse and Dispositive Analysis.” In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, edited by Ruth Wodak, 32–62. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Jessop, Bob. 2007. State Power. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Klausen, Jytte. 2015. “Tweeting the Jihad: Social Media Networks of Western Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 38 (1): 1–22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Klausen, Jytte, Eliane Tschaen Barbieri, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, and Aaron Y. Zelin. 2012. “The YouTube Jihadists: A Social Network Analysis of Al-Muhajiroun’s Propaganda Campaign.” Perspectives on Terrorism 6 (1): 36–53.Google Scholar
Kress, Gunther, and Theo van Leeuwen. 2001. Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. London: Hodder Education.Google Scholar
Luke, Allan. 2002. “Beyond Science and Ideology Critique: Developments in Critical Discourse Analysis.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 221: 96–110. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mahood, Samantha, and Halim Rane. 2017. “Islamist Narratives in ISIS Recruitment Propaganda.” The Journal of International Communication 23 (1): 15–35. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mann, Michael. 1986. The Sources of Social Power Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mayor-Goicoechea, Cristina, and Jesús Romero-Trillo. 2020. “‘They Cowardly Attack Us, So We Nobly Eliminate Them…’: The Emergence of the Translocal Group in the Propaganda of the Islamic State.” Pragmatics and Society 11 (2): 292–315. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McCauley, Tom. 2015. “The War of Ideas on the Internet: An Asymmetric Conflict in Which the Strong Become Weak.” Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, 8 (1): 79–90. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pierson, Christopher. 2011. The Modern State. 3rd ed. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Poggi, Gianfranco. 1990. The State: Its Nature, Development and Prospects. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Roberts, Brad. 2006 [2000]. Asymmetric Conflict 2010. Fort Belvoir, VA: Institute for Defense Analysis/Defense Threat Reduction Agency.Google Scholar
Sassen, Saskia. 2008. “Neither Global nor National: Novel Assemblages of Territory, Authority and Rights.” Ethics and Politics 11 (2): 61–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shehabat, Ahmad, and Teodor Mitew. 2018. “Black-Boxing the Black Flag: Anonymous Sharing Platforms and ISIS Content Distribution Tactics.” Perspectives on Terrorism 12 (1): 81–99.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. 1985. “Bringing the State Back in: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research.” In Bringing the State Back In, edited by Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, 3–43. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Spier, Troy E. 2018. “Extremist Propaganda and Qur’anic Scripture: A ‘Radical’ Corpus-Based Study of the Dabiq ” Discourse & Society 29 (5): 553–67. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ubayasiri, Kasun. 2021. “Islamic State’s Quest for Legitimacy: An Analysis of IS Media Frames in Dabiq Magazine.” Media, War & Conflict 14 (2): 133–49. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Weber, Max. 1946. “Bureaucracy”. In From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, edited by Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills, 196–244. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Wignell, Peter, Kay L. O’Halloran, Sabine Tan, Rebecca Lange, and Kevin Chai. 2018. “Image and Text Relations in ISIS Materials and the New Relations Established through Recontextualisation in Online Media.” Discourse & Communication 12 (5): 535–59. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Winkler, Carol, Kareem El-Damanhoury, Zainab Saleh, John Hendry, and Nagham El-Karhili. 2021. “Intersections of ISIS Media Leader Loss and Media Campaign Strategy: A Visual Framing Analysis.” Media, War & Conflict 14 (4): 401–18. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Winter, Charlie. 2015. The Virtual ‘Caliphate’: Understanding Islamic State’s Propaganda Strategy. London: Quilliam.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth. 2001. “What CDA is About – A Summary of Its History, Important Concepts, and Its Development”. In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, edited by Ruth Wodak, 1–13. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Yang, Shaohua. 2009. “How Can Weak Powers Win?” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 2 (3): 335–71. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Diachenko, Inna, Liudmyla Brodska, Oleksandr Serebriakov, Natalia Samborska & Nataliia Kharytonova
2024. The influence of social and individual determinants on the Ukrainian military during wartime. Interpersona: An International Journal on Personal Relationships 18:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Qi, Yuanbo
2024. Propaganda in focus: decoding the media strategy of ISIS. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11:1 DOI logo
Vale, Gina
2024. The Unforgotten Women of the Islamic State, DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 14 september 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.