This ERC research project had two main objectives:
1. To empirically investigate how jihadist conflicts become transnational and under what circumstances they can be contained.
2. To theoretically synthesize relevant approaches from Religious Studies, Security Studies, and Peace and Conflict Studies in order to investigate different dimensions of transnationalization of jihadist conflicts. This implies combining quantitative data and qualitative methods.
Importance: In various regions of the world, we continue to see a rapid spillover of jihadist violence from one country to a neighboring country, often attracting both foreign state intervention and foreign fighters from different parts of the world. These contemporary trends point at the urgent need to understand the dynamics behind the transnational “potential” of jihadist conflicts, and ways to derail or even prevent escalation.
The TRANSJIHAD project sought to understand how jihadist conflicts become transnational and how this alters the conditions for conflict resolution or containment. The project was based on the analytical concept of transnational conflict constellations to describe structures that bind actors, ideas, and organizations across borders without requiring intentional centralized coordination.
The project brought together scholars from different disciplines (Peace and Conflict studies, Political Science, and Religious Studies) to explore both the pathways of transnationalization (based on case-studies of different conflict-settings) and the implications for preventing further diffusion and escalation.
Two key research questions structured the project:
1. Why and how do jihadist conflicts become transnational?
2. How can such conflicts be contained or resolved, given their transnational nature?
The project was rooted in comparative and interdisciplinary methods, and examined transnationalization from three perspectives (theological, emotional, and political). It combined textual/hermeneutic analysis of jihadist theology with empirical case studies in key regions (South Asia, the Sahel, the Middle East). It also included digital ethnography and interpretive engagement with worldview analysis. Moreover, the project utilized advanced regression-based, large-N methods to identify larger trends and patterns across different conflict zones.
The project has overall demonstrated that the ideational architecture and organizational plasticity make transnational jihadism diffuse and resilient. Understanding and addressing these dynamics requires new frameworks—ones that transcend the territorial imagination and engage the moral-political foundations of violence. The interdisciplinary design has primarily sought to prevent an over-emphasis on selected factors of transnationalization and containment, which ensured modesty and triangulation to make the findings and explanations robust.
