Islamist-leaning armed groups have grown to prominence in Middle Eastern conflicts, and they are often assumed to be ideologically or religiously-driven. In this lecture, Raphaël offers a different approach by asking why these groups tend to recruit many non-Islamist fighters too, and by suggesting that the answer lies in highly localised dynamics and in attempts to gain rootedness in local communities. The lecture delves into how this played out during the Lebanese civil war of the 1980s, and also provides insights into more recent conflicts in Libya and Syria.

Raphaël Lefèvre is a Lecturer in International Relations at SPAIS, where he recently moved after four years as a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford. His research revolves around the dynamics of conflicts in the Middle East with an emphasis on the role of religion in civil wars, and he is the author of the recently published book, Jihad in the City: contentious politics and militant Islamism in Tripoli with Cambridge University Press, which was just co-awarded a prize for Best Book on Middle East Politics by the American Political Science Association (APSA).