Description
Building on the logic of “Islamist environmentalism” laid out by Karagiannis (2023), this paper is dedicated to unpacking the interrelationship between (violent) Islamism and climate-related issues, which are no new phenomenon but have intensified with climate change. The regional focus is on three Maghreb countries (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia), where climate-related struggles are becoming increasingly evident and related conflicts, for example over land or food, are gaining momentum. At the same time, all three countries have a shared history with Islamism: from Islamist parties to non-institutional, sometimes violent forms of Islamist activism (Salafist/Salafi-jihadist movements), both of which have been present in the region for decades. How do Islamist actors in the respective countries deal with and react to the upscaling climate crisis and its (in)direct consequences? Against the background of social movement studies, the paper discusses the current state of research on the so-called climate-conflict nexus and identifies central lines of argumentation. By bringing these arguments together with scholarship on Islamism (in the Maghreb), I develop and lay out possible repertoires of action of Islamists towards “the climate”. To take up these mechanisms analytically, the last part of the paper presents first findings on the Tunisian case.
