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Information Technologies, Islamist Networks, and the Changing Political Terrain in the
Arab World
Michael C. Hudson
Georgetown University
For presentation to the Conference on Globalization, State Capacity, and Self-
Determination in Muslim Contexts, University of California-Santa Cruz
March 7-10, 2002
Introduction
The attacks of September 11 shocked Americans into the realization that the
global environment has indeed changed, not just from the stable bipolarity of the old
Cold War but even from what had seemed to be a new and comfortable world defined by
the globalization of everything from finance to culture under undisputed American
hegemony. The US found itself vulnerable in its very homeland to the assault of Al-
Qa’ida, an Islamist network originating, apparently, in the Arab Middle East but with
networked connections in upwards of 60 countries (according to the US Defense
Department). The President declared war on terrorism, but this was a new kind of
war—an asymmetrical, postmodern war—in which conventional military doctrine and
Westphalian assumptions about state actors and geographical boundaries seemed
inadequate to the problem at hand.
This paper seeks to sketch some propositions that might help elucidate the current
fluid situation, and to illustrate them with evidence drawn from countries in the Arab
east. It begins with a discussion of the changing political terrain in the Arab world,
focusing on challenges to states and regimes, the effervescence in society, and the
disturbing interventions of an American-dominated new global order. The rapid
introduction and spread of new information technologies is accelerating the erosion of the
state’s “monopoly” over the framing and ratification of identities and loyalties, and the
public’s perception of public issues. It is blurring established political boundaries,
opening the door to transnational action. It is having particularly profound effects on the
construction of identities, communities, and ideological projects in society at large. And
not only is it deepening the effects of the global order on the domestic and regional scene
in the Arab world, it is also enhancing the reverse flow of influence from the region to the
world at large, including the United States. Whether we refer to the burgeoning anger in
Arab public opinion over American policies, the rise of politicized Islam waging a war of

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symbols against the West, or—to return to the recent shocks culminating in September
11—the projection of violent and terroristic force against the United States itself, we see
ever more clearly that we cannot remain essentially isolated from the ferment in the
contemporary Arab world.
Theorists of the information revolution and globalization, such as Castells, have
depicted “the rise of the network society” as a phenomenon driven by a pervasive and
peculiarly de-centered (dare we say “democratizing”) technology whose impact is
perhaps disproportionately felt in societies wealthy and technologically advanced enough
both to produce and consume the new information technologies. Hence much concern
about the “digital divide.” But (as these theorists also have observed) the impact is also
being felt in poor and emerging societies, and the implications for authoritarian political
systems are, in theory at least, intriguing. To what extent are the societies and states of
the Arab world becoming “networked” Networks, I argue, are a politically efficacious
organizing model for opposition in the authoritarian environment of Arab politics; and
very recently their political weight has been enhanced with the arrival of transnational
satellite television, the internet, and cellular telephony. With the new ability to frame (or
at least contest the state’s framing of) political agendas, the growing networked
opposition groups and “non-political” NGOs and associations are increasingly effective
in contesting the monopoly of state and regime over symbolic legitimacy resources and
established dogmas. For their part, Arab states and regimes too are seeking to utilize the
new networking capabilities offered by the new information technologies.
Network politics in the Arab world is pervasive, neither the exclusive provenance
of state or society, nor simply a product of the newest information technologies; and it
knows no particular ideology. But on the contemporary scene Islamist opposition
politicians have been conspicuously effective in exploiting the potentialities of
networking. Why does this seem to be the case We look for answers in the breadth and
resonance of Islamic symbols, in the perspicacity of Islamist activists to appreciate and
utilize the new information technologies, and their ability to generate the social capital to
enhance the recruitment and solidarity of Islamist networks even in the face of high risks.
Finally, what does all this mean for the persistence of authoritarianism or the
possibilities for liberalism and even democratization in Arab political systems As one
of the first, and few, “optimists” about possible transitions to democracy in Arab
countries, I am all too mindful of the setbacks to most of the liberalization or
democratization “experiments” that occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s. And it
seems clear that there is no direct or simple causal relationship between the spread of
information technologies and the occurrence (or deepening) of political openings in the
region. Indeed, the “hijacking” of the new de-centered technologies by certain militant
Islamist networks with little discernible liking for democracy in its literal sense (rule by
the people), may perversely have stimulated states and regimes to deploy the same IT
instruments and networking strategies to preserve and extend their monopoly of power.
Moreover, it is in no way an apologia for the Arabs’ “immunity to democratization” to
observe that the United States government plays a role in the maintenance of several of
the region’s authoritarian regimes, sometimes (in the case of “friendly” regimes) by

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design and sometimes (in the case of “rogue” or “evil” regimes) through counterproductive
policies. Nevertheless, it is difficult not to believe that eventually the
dominant effect of IT-enhanced societal networking will be a liberating one.
I. The Changing Political Terrain
In the Arab political landscape of the post-World War II period, up almost to the
present time, the state steadily emerged as the dominant feature. It grew dramatically in
terms of size, revenues, and coercive capacity. It also enjoyed, early on, a certain
legitimacy derived from the successful struggle against Western imperialism in its
various forms. One group of states embarked on a nationalist-reformist project, led
mainly by military officers and a professional, reform-minded middle-class stratum. The
authoritarian-populist regimes in these states framed the public priorities in terms of
economic development through import-substitution-industrialization, egalitarianism
through land reform and emasculation of the very wealthy, and mobilization to unify the
Arab nation, redress the grievous nakba (catastrophe) of Palestine, and prevent Western
neo-imperialist designs on the Arab region. For them the Soviet Union became a
balancer against Western encroachment and, to some extent, a model for political and
economic development. Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Iraq, North and South
Yemen pursued this course in their various ways. A second group, while passively
accepting much of the nationalist project, including the leading role of the state, featured
regimes with an avowedly “traditional” and “patriarchal” character. These included
Saudi Arabia, the other small Arabian states, Jordan, Lebanon, and Morocco. Unlike the
“nationalists” these regimes celebrated their Islamic authenticity rather than relegating it
to a lower priority. Many were rentier-states--major oil exporters in which vast revenues
accrued directly to the state or the dynastic regimes. Their well-to-do classes were
coopted rather than suppressed, and harnessed to non-“socialist” development plans; and
their external orientation favored the West as a bulwark against the challenges posed by
the transnational ideological appeal of the “progressive” states. Both groups of states,
however, practiced, in varying degres, a monolithic populist mobilization strategy.
Political liberalization, let alone pluralistic democracy, was not on the agenda. The state
led, framing the public agenda; society followed, deferentially and passively. The postcolonial
Arab state, and state system, came to occupy a subordinate position in the post-
World War II, bi-polar superpower dominated global order. As pan-Arabism waned,
following the defeat of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel-Nasser in the 1967 war with Israel, some
Middle East specialists observed what they believed to be a “maturing” of the Arab state
system: individual states were becoming more autonomous, self-contained, selfinterested,
Weberian, and Westphalian. The states of the region were behaving as
structural-realist international relations theory would have them behave: as rational, selfhelp
units, pragmatically sensitive to the global distribution of power. From the
perspective of the two rival superpowers, the Middle East was a region of contestation in
which each constructed client blocs that came to mimic their patrons in what Middle East
scholar Malcolm Kerr called “the Arab cold war.”

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The global and regional terrain began to shift in the 1980s. States that seemed
dominant over their societies began to falter, unable to continued to deliver on the
socioeconomic promises that had tacitly fostered political passivity. Decades of
considerable economic growth came to an end with the collapse of oil prices in the mid-
1980s. The oil-rich rentier regimes experienced huge revenue declines. The nationalistprogressive
ideological formulas of regimes began to fade. And the bi-polar global order
came to an end with the eclipse and demise of the Soviet Union, leaving the United States
the hegemon of an increasingly integrated global economy and financial system informed
by an ascendant ideology of economic and political liberalism. International financial
institutions, heavily influenced by the United States, came to intervene in the most
sensitive of domestic policy issues in countries around the world, including most of those
in the Islamic and Arab worlds. Westphalian sovereignty as a practical matter was being
undermined everywhere. In the military sphere, where only the United States possessed a
global reach, “humanitarian interventions” (even failed ones) served notice on dictators
that “the international community” might intrude militarily against regimes whose
internal policies egregiously violated international standards.
Across the Arab world, then, states began to weaken, relatively. At the same time
societies began to display greater vitality than before, with associations and NGOs
emerging during the 1980s to articulate alternative agendas and priorities, although rarely
to participate in the policy-making process. Political scientists observed the new trend
and produced a number of studies depicting the growth of what Norton (1995) described
as more “vibrant” political studies, while also subjecting the once all-powerful, stable
“mukhabarat (national security police) state” to revisionist interpretations—of which
perhaps the most cogent was Nazih Ayubi’s book, Over-Stating the Arab State (1995).
But it was far from clear where the new societal energy would lead. While a stratum of
intellectuals and business leaders sought to advance projects of political liberalization and
democratization, it did not appear to be garnering a broad popular constituency. The far
more rooted societal tendency belonged to the Islamists. And on the global level, as
leader of a new global order, the United States during the 1990s struggled to define its
role, whether as “umpire”, during the Clinton administration, or perhaps as “empire”, as
the administration of George W. Bush seemed to be leaning during its first year in office.
Owing the America’s overarching presence in the Middle East, particularly after the
collapse of the Soviet Union, by virtue of its oil connection and its support for Israel, the
direction of American policy could not but have a major impact both on states and
societies. But by the same token, developments in the region could not be ignored for
long in Washington, especially were they to spill over into the United States itself.
Against this backdrop of weakening states, societal ferment, and the new global order the
twin developments of transnational information technologies and political networking in
the Arab world have the potential to accelerate sociopolitical change, contestation and
uncertainty.
II.
The Information Revolution in the Arab World

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Just a few years into the Arab region’s information technology (IT) revolution,
the number of participants has reached impressive levels, both on the satellite TV and
Internet sides. Granted that reliable and meaningful numbers are hard to come by,
conservative estimates of viewership on Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel (ASC) run in the
low to mid hundreds of thousands, depending on time of day and the “newsworthiness”
of events. An increasing proportion of viewers - perhaps 30 percent - are women. While
audience share trails entertainment-oriented satellite channels like LBC (Lebanese
Broadcasting Company) and the state-run channels in many Arab countries, there seems
little doubt that Al-Jazeera has a significant if not predominant presence within its
targeted audience of educated, professionally oriented individuals in or near the circles of
political influence; and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that Al-Jazeera is
“must” watching for leaders, high officials, politicians, diplomats, the intelligentsia,
business leaders, and “opinion-makers” across the region. It is thought to have a high
degree of saturation among Arab communities of the diaspora, especially in the United
States and Europe. These numbers may not seem impressive in an Arab world of 250
million or more people; but bear in mind that they describe a news and opinion media
platform comparable to the traditional print news media and much more broadly inclusive
and a scant half-decade old. Bear in mind also that Al-Jazeera has exerted an imitation
effect on other region-wide satellite channels like Abu Dhabi TV and to some extent on
local government-operated stations. Of singular importance is the fact that Al-Jazeera
and its imitators are significantly more interactive with their audiences than traditional
TV outlets. This is borne out by the volume of response to on-screen polls and by e-mail
response to particular programs as well as in Al-Jazeera's stated policy of providing a
forum for "the other opinion."
The numbers on the Internet side are equally interesting. First, we note the recent
proliferation of Arab portals – according to Jon Anderson, more than 50, with most of
them operating in Arabic as well as (or instead of) English. The recently launched
companion to Al-Jazeera TV, Al-Jazeera.net, receives some 300,000 visits a day, making
it one of the Arab world’s busiest websites. And when Al-Jazeera.net invites its
“community” to participate in on-line polling on current affairs, sports, Islam, or the like,
it will pull in 20,000-35,000 “votes.” Again, in terms of our inquiry about community
and identity, it is important to underline the interactive behavior of the web audience.
Consider too that similar “publicly oriented” websites, such as those established by major
print newspapers, not to mention portals catering to a particular ideological tendency or
material interest from Islam to youth culture, pop music, fashion, and business are also
drawing - and no doubt expanding - publicly active on-line communities.
What do these developments mean for Arab politics in general and for
oppositional networked movements in particular The following propositions come to
mind:
*IT, and the Internet especially, allow for easy establishment and proliferation of
electronic “newspapers” that may perform many of the traditional political functions of
newspapers in the past. In this region, many political parties were essentially built
around newspapers.

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*IT also permits “other voices” to influence the ruling circles by diffusing their
messages globally. An NGO with an Internet site or access to satellite broadcasters gains
attention, and influence, in power centers by channeling its content through centers of
global power and legitimation. The leverage of a human rights group is the "value
added" that its message picks up from being bounced off Washington or Geneva.
*Putting this in American political science terms, we might say that the press as a
potential “fourth estate” in Arab political systems has gained new power and dynamism
through Internet and satellite TV.
*Finally, among the various currents in the region, Islamists, and their
surrounding ambit of Muslims whose activism is not directed politically, seem to have
been far ahead of others in exploiting the possibilities of IT. Why Maybe because their
websites and broadcasts can speak to a well-defined and motivated community of
believers, while more abstracted ideological projects (secular socialism and liberalism)
make demands on their potential audience that they cannot likewise match in action.
III.
Networks and New Modalities of Symbolic Contestation
In today’s Information Age, says Castells, “Networks constitute the new social
morphology of our societies, and the diffusion of networking logic substantially modifies
the operation and outcomes in processes of production, experience, power, and culture”
(410). He continues:
A network is a set of interconnected nodes. A node is the point at which a curve
intersects itself. What a node is, concretely speaking, depends on the kind of
concrete networks of which we speak…. Networks are open structures, able to
expand without limits, integrating new nodes as long as they are able to
communicate within the network, namely as long as they share the same
communication codes (for example, values or performance goals” (411).
Inherent in the network structure or, more precisely, the network experience, is the
potential for the production, consumption and investment of social capital. In a definitive
article, Coleman (1988, 2000) states that social capital is defined by its function, that it is
productive (allowing “the achievement of certain ends that in its absence would not be
possible”), and that “Unlike other forms of capital, socialk capital inheres in the structure
of relations between actors and among actors….” (16). He offers examples of culturally
bound—networked—communities, such as the wholesale diamond market or the Cairo
bazaar, in which a sense of community engenders trust and thus promotes collectively
productive action. The informal hawala money-transfer networks, now famous as part of
the “money trail” thought to support Al-Qa’ida, would constitute a similar example.
Social capital and networking are not confined to modern societies with formal rules and
institutions: they also operate in what Rose (2000) (referring to Russia) calls anti-modern

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societies, providing channels for “getting things done” when formal institutions do not
work. This brings us to the contemporary Arab world.
Our current preoccupation with high-tech networks and “netwars” (as Ronfeldt
and Arquilla use the term) notwithstanding, Arab society has always been permeated with
networks functioning in a variety of areas. In his valuable comparative study of informal
networks in Egypt, Iran and Lebanon, Denoeux argues that such networks can promote
either political stability or instability. They can absorb the dysfunctional social
atomization and personal anomie that might otherwise cause disruptions in fastmodernizing
societies with repressive governments. But by the same token these social
dislocations can lead to the formation of networks based on alternatives to the official
vision of society and thus come to challenge the political order. Where is the tippingpoint
from one to the other
The development of the Arab state in the post-colonial period, as noted above,
took an authoritarian turn almost everywhere. While socioeconomic development began
to establish the infrastructure that might support a vibrant civil society, insecure regimes,
avaricious elites, ideological demands, and international influences converged to create a
mukhabarat state suspicious of societal autonomy, pluralism, and alternative agendas.
Consequently, political parties (other than the regime-sponsored single parties) were
weak, elections (when they occurred) were usually rubber-stamp affairs, and interest
groups, labor unions and the like came under constant government surveillance and
interference. The mass media too, with certain significant exceptions, was coopted into
helping frame the regimes’ political agenda. In addition, the rule of law was too feeble to
protect civil and political space; and the bureaucracies of state-driven economies were
known for opaqueness, inefficiency and corruption. In short, the formal political
structures of a vibrant and participant civil society. Significant opposition, even if it
professed to be loyal to the system, was forced to be clandestine, to some degree, or at
least very low-profile. Is it surprising, then, that such alternative currents that could
survive adopted network structures (formal and informal) and cultures
In Egypt during the Nasser era, political parties having been banned, the two main
opposition currents, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Communist Party, were soon forced
into clandestinity. In the absence of formal political organizations, powerful families and
social networks (shillas) became key and influential players (Springborg 1982). Beneath
the surface of High Politics (oriented around the central government), informal political
networks formed in the poor quarters of Cairo and other cities, and in the villages of
Upper Egypt, for the purpose of coping with important issues of family and marriage,
employment, education, and social services (Singerman, 1995).
In “Bilad al-Sham” and Mesopotamia—the region of “new” states constructed
mostly from the outside (Syria, Transjordan, Palestine (a non-state national community),
Lebanon, and Iraq) political networks took on a transnational quality as well: the Ba’th in
all these countries (before it became a ruling hierarchical-bureaucratic party in Syria and
Iraq), the Muslim Brotherhood, spun off into satellites of the original Egyptian
organization; the Arab Nationalists’ Movement; the Communists; the Syrian Social

8
National Party of “Greater Syria”, and the Palestinian resistance movement, with its
numerous networked factions, in its early incarnation from the mid-1950s to the late
1960s. Lebanon, the one relatively non-authoritarian Arab state, featured legal parties
and regular elections; yet even here, perhaps owing to Lebanon’s highly plural society,
formal political parties were weak and more often than not were organized as informal
networks of notables and their clienteles, usually within a sectarian or regional
framework. The Lebanese (Maronite) Phalange Party emerged out of a quasi-fascist kind
of youth organization. The (Druze) Progressive Socialist Party derived its cohesion and
influence from dominant family networks (the Junblats and Arslans). When the state
collapsed into a long civil war (with significant transnational features) from 1975 to 1990
the Lebanon became a “republic” of networked militias.
In the Arabian peninsula, where family and tribal based patrimonial systems
framed the political agenda, political parties were illegal and elections almost nonexistent.
Yet a societal-based traditional pluralism did exist through the informal
political networks of the diwaniyya in Kuwait, the majlis in Saudi Arabia, and the mafraj
in Yemen. Arabian networks were functionally differentiated as well around
occupational (e.g. business), religious, educational, and social concerns. We learned to
our sorrow, after September 11, of the formidable social capital and network flows (in
Castells’ term) that seem to inhere in militant Islamist networks.
IV.
Explaining Network Success: The Particular Case of Islamist Networks
Islamist networks indeed seem to be particularly successful. There are four
research questions that might help explain why this is the case, questions, however, that
could be asked about network political organizations in general in the Arab east. First,
how potent and socially pervasive is the symbolic content of the value agenda that their
leaders frame Second, how do they recruit, retain, and deepen the commitment of
members of the network Third, to what extent can they build upon and benefit from
existing kinship, occupational, educational or financial networks And fourth, does the
Information Technology revolution allow political networks to extend their reach beyond
face-to-face relationships; or to put it another way, can social capital (and trust) travel
through cyberspace
This is not the place to try and answers these questions exhaustively. But a casual
survey of formal Islamist political networks like the Organization of the Islamic
Conference, and less formal or even clandestine movements such as the Egyptian
gama’at, the Shi’a networks of Lebanon, Iran and Iraq, the Palestinian Islamist groups,
similar organizations in North Africa, and even the notorious Al-Qa’ida suggests that on
all counts they can advance their agendas. First, with respect to the symbolic agenda, one
does not have to go so far as some authors and claim that the whole discourse of
contemporary Arab politics has become Islamicized to observe that the array of programs
and projects encapsulated by the slogan “Islam is the Solution” resonates deeply with
individuals mired in the tensions and contradictions of contemporary Arab societies.
Moreover, the pervasiveness of these symbols, especially when associated with
longstanding nationalist concerns extends throughout society and is not simply the

9
concern of members. Thus, an Islamist network like Al-Qa’ida swims in a nutritious
societal “sea”. This is why it is incorrect to designate Al-Qa’ida a cult, and why despite
its commission of morally atrocious acts it enjoys at least passive support across social
strata and also transnationally.
Second, as Wickham (1996) has observed in her study of Islamists in Egypt,
drawing upon social movement theorists such as Douglas McAdam, the network itself
produces the social capital rewards for membership in addition to the instrumental
agendas being put forth. Codes of dress and deportment are among the social cues, and
pressures, that attract and consolidate commitment to the cause. During the repressive
periods in the regimes of Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak the Islamists migrated into the
subaltern and protected spaces in Egyptian society to find sanctuary and launch new
initiatives to participate in High Politics. Third, Islamist networks appear to be able to
“piggy-back” on pre-existing social and cultural networks. Al-Qa’ida, as noted above,
may ride the hawala financial networks. Some say it free-rides on Arabian honey trading
networks. Did Usama bin Laden’s family and business networks indirectly enable the
development of his political network Islamist networks appear to originate in the “old
school ties” of schools and universities. The Taliban founders may have been alumni of
the Deobandi seminary. The Shi’a network organizers of Amal, Hizballah and the Da’wa
form lasting bonds in the seminaries of Qom and Najaf. The Egyptian networkers may
have first crossed paths at Al-Azhar. American Muslim extremists networked in the
storefront mosques of Jersey City and Brooklyn. Non-Islamist opposition networks also
perhaps “piggy-back”. Batatu’s meticulous work on the Iraqi Communists and the Syrian
Ba’thists reveals their sectarian and regional interconnections. The founders of the
Syrian Social National Party and the Arab Nationalists’ Movement perhaps utilized
alumni and student networks of the American University of Beirut as a platform for their
own transnational political projects.
Finally, a case can be made that the internet and satellite television networks may
vastly extend the global reach of transnational Islamist (and non-Islamist) networks.
Whether it is Shaykh Qaradawi’s call-in program on Al-Jazeera or the substantial
communities constructed electronically around the Islam On Line internet portal, these
communities in cyberspace, as Jon Anderson has described them, may constitute an
enormous recruitment pool for future exploitation by the dedicated political networks.
V. Implications for Democratization
The tectonic changes in the Arab political landscape have mixed implications for
the future. The robust implantation of new information technologies undoubtedly
energizes public awareness and enriches public opinion. The IT trend challenges the
dominance of state and regime in framing and prioritizing values and issues. At the same
time, however, the state—usually the early beneficiary of new technologies—utilizes IT
to enhance its own surveillance capabilities.
As for networking, I believe that this is an increasingly effective strategy for
opposition movements and is particularly appropriate in the authoritarian environment of

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Arab politics. The IT revolution amplifies the effectiveness of networks. Islamists have
been especially effective in exploiting the social capital generated by “the network
experience.” By manipulating “religious” discourse and attempting to fuse it with older
“nationalist” issues they have been remarkably successful in reframing the Arab political
agenda and engendering broader support for their network agendas. Other tendencies in
the expanding Arab domestic and transnational civil societies ought to be able to do the
same thing, but the liberals, for example, do not appear to possess the same skills or
determination. But while a more networked civil society supports “alternative centers of
power” (or at least influence) vis-à-vis the authoritarian state, it hardly constitutes a nonstop
ticket to democratization. Indeed, the social capital and value agendas of networks
(as Fukuyama observed) are not necessarily compatible with a larger public interest.
Moreover, the very fluidity of their structure which renders them effective in a harsh
environment also makes them secretive, opaque and unaccountable. If networked
opposition is good in putting down roots and generating access, it can also lead—Mafialike--to
anti-social rent-seeking behavior, corruption, violence, and terrorism.
Networking, then, might be a necessary (if flawed) stage on the road to a more pluralistic,
less authoritarian order, but only if at some future point it facilitates the development of
formal, public, inclusive, and transparent organizations. In the West such organizations
are known as political parties and interest groups. The task for liberals and pluralists at
this juncture in Arab politics is to utilize but then to transcend networking in the struggle
against authoritarianism.
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