| Since September 11, 2001, studies of Al Qaeda and international terrorism have focused almost exclusively on the roles of religious ideology, psychological deviation, and internal organizational features of terrorist organizations. Absent is an appreciation of the international systemic roots of Al Qaeda and it emergence. Applying a multi-method approach---employing comparative historical analysis, process tracing, discourse analysis, and intra-case comparison---historical cases similar to Al Qaeda are offered in order to test and build theory concerning these types of structurally and behaviorally deviating actors. In addition to Al Qaeda, the cases are the Nizari lsmailis or "Assassins," the Mongols, and the Barbary powers, actors and contexts previously overlooked in international relations theory. By limiting the appreciation of international systems to those composed of "like units," neorealism excludes episodes where actors deviate from dominant modes of organization and accepted practices. This study challenges neorealism's underspecified axiomatic logics of emulation and socialization, which consider unit isomorphism a deterministic outcome of anarchic competition. Under certain circumstances "systemic change" (change within the system and its distribution of power) leads to "system change" (change of the system and certain units' configuration). These rare but highly significant episodes transform like unit systems through the introduction of structural and behavior deviants (or "monsters") that manage to escape the likening pressures of the pitched competition of the international system. The ''logic of dissimilation" and ''logics of concealment" explain how peripheral actors escape the pressures to imitate the dominant members of their systems, and how their straitened conditions help influence deviating behaviors that heighten systemic uncertainty. The disorder and heightened uncertainty in such systems affects the development not only of the material but the social content of such systems, influencing normative adjustments to reestablish equilibrium conditions while enhancing common identity. These circumstances of structural and behavioral deviation not only have pronounced effects on the international system but also the development of international society. |
