Destruction and redemption : the conduct of revealed religious violence in the contemporary era
Abstract
The final
quarter of the twentieth century saw the emergence of a variety of
security threats, perhaps the most pernicious and
least
understood of which
has been the
rise of religiously motivated violence and terrorism. While
a great
deal has been
written on
this phenomenon, much
has been in the form
of
individual
case studies and those more
inclusive
examinations which
have been
offered
deal
more with the causes of religious
violence and not the underlying processes of
justification
and operational activity.
In
cases
where such an approach
has been
attempted these have been
conducted
in
a cursory
fashion,
presenting generalisations which are not necessarily valid across the entire
spectrum of religious violence.
The
purpose of this thesis is to offer a
holistic
examination
of violence within the three revealed religions
(Judaism, Christianity
and
Islam) in
order to
establish common
features in the conduct of violence across the faiths
and to provide a
framework
whereby the ideological
and operational processes and mechanisms can
be
understood collectively rather than individually. In the process, a number of commonly
accepted generalisations regarding religiously motivated violence will
be
modified or
challenged.
The
method chosen consists of the identification
of a number of
key
components common to all revealed violent groups, ranging
from the formation
of an
ideology
which
justifies
violence to the tactics that are employed, and these key
components are then used to examine the behaviour
of three distinct
group types. The
three group types are represented by ten case studies, chosen to reflect the variety of group
types that have
existed and continue to exist.
The
objective
is to present a
broad
framework
which will enable a greater understanding of
how
religiously motivated
violence
is justified both to internal
and external audiences, the manner
in
which this
violence
is
expressed operationally, and the degree to which the course and trajectory of
group violence may
be
anticipated.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
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