PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE TERRITORIES CONTROLLED BY THE ISLAMIC STATE

Abstract

The transition from an al-qaeda organization, a clandestine resistance movement activating through suicide attacks and harassment, to the territorialization and institutionalization of power, turned the islamic state into a reference point for terrorist organizations. Although statehood and the idea of an islamic state were not a missing piece from the Al-Qaeda doctrine and belief, the islamic state militants were the first to implement such a state in the subdued iraqi and syrian territories, a state on which they could build and promote their political theology. Once a territory was subdued, it was enrolled in the ,,state’s” administrative logic and integrated in the administrative circuit proposed by the islamic state. The administrative institutions of the islamic state replaced the prior legit state administration by implementing new resource and service tax and distribution systems. A new (religious) police and court houses were institutionalized; all of these to mimic the attributions of a state and to convey to the people in those specific territories the feeling that the old administration was replaced with a new, more efficient one, based on its divine mandate.