Islam and Political Violence: Muslim Diaspora and Radicalism in the West

How do we engage with the pressing challenges of xenophobia, radicalism and security in the age of the ’war on terror’? The widely felt sense of insecurity in the West is shared by Muslims both within and outside Western societies. Growing Islamic militancy and resulting increased security measures by Western powers have contributed to a pervasive sense among Muslims of being under attack (both physically and culturally). ＂Islam and Political Violence＂ brings together the current debate on the uneasy and potentially mutually destructive relationship between the Muslim world and the West and argues we are on a dangerous trajectory, strengthening dichotomous notions of the divide between the West and the Muslim world.

Shahram Akbarzadeh is a Senior Lecturer in Global Politics at Monash University. He is Director of the Centre for Muslim Minorities and Islam Policy Studies (CMMIPS). He is the author of ’Uzbekistan and the United States: Islamism, Authoritarianism and Washington’s Security Agenda’. Fethi Mansouri is Associate Professor in Middle Eastern Studies at Deakin University. He is the Project Group chair of the Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation and the founding Convenor of the Refugee Studies Group. He is co-author of ’Lives in Limbo’ and the editor of ’Australia and the Middle East’ (I.B. Tauris 2006).