Understanding Jihadist Governance: Contending with a Diverse Problem Set

The jihadist challenge has grown increasingly complex over the years, evolving from a focus on safe havens and alternatively governed spaces to actual governance and statecraft. By this point, jihadist actors from a variety of political, religious, and ideological backgrounds have administered territory from sub-Saharan Africa to Southeast Asia, necessitating policy solutions that go beyond military strategy and sanctions to focus on state bureaucracy, local economics, great power competition, and other factors. To address these complexities and offer insights on the current jihadist landscape, The Washington Institute is pleased to announce a virtual Policy Forum with contributors to the new anthology Jihadist Governance and Statecraft, moderated by Matthew Levitt, the Institute’s Fromer-Wexler Senior Fellow and director of its Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence: Matthew Bamber-Zryd, Advisor on Armed Groups, International Committee of the Red Cross Devorah Margolin, Blumenstein-Rosenbloom Senior Fellow, The Washington Institute; adjunct professor, Georgetown University Aaron Zelin, Levy Senior Fellow, The Washington Institute; creator of the interactive Islamic State Worldwide Activity Map