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Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the EU, the USA and the UN. It has made itself notorious for its violent radicalism and uncompromising rejection of the Jewish state. So after its victory in the 2006 elections the world was watching. How would Hamas govern? Could an Islamist group without any experience of power - and with an unwavering ideology - manage to deal with day-to-day realities on the ground? Bjorn Brenner investigates what happened after the elections and puts the spotlight on the people over whom Hamas rules, rather than on its ideas. Lodging with Palestinian families and experiencing their daily encounters with Hamas, he offers an intimate perspective of the group as seen through local eyes. The book is based on hard-to-secure interviews with a wide range of key political and security figures in the Hamas administration, as well as with military commanders and members of the feared Qassam Brigades. Brenner has also sought out those that Hamas identifies as local trouble makers: the extreme Salafi-Jihadis and members of the now more quiescent mainstream Fatah party led by Mahmoud Abbas. The book provides a new interpretation of one of the most powerful forces in the Israel-Palestine arena, arguing that the Gazan Islamists carry a potential to be much more flexible and pragmatic than anticipated - if they would think they stand to gain from it. Gaza under Hamas investigates the key challenges to Hamas's authority and reveals why and in what ways ideology comes second to power consolidation.

The Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip first set out to crush the area’s Salafi jihadist groups by force. Once Hamas realized that the Salafi jihadi problem was more serious than it had first anticipated, however, Hamas’s approach shifted gradually, from a strategy of attempted elimination to one of containment and assimilation. Indeed, several of the pursued militants proved to be former colleagues from the Qassam Brigades who had grown disillusioned with Hamas and defected to fringe groups. This article examines how Hamas, as part of a new and progressive approach, aimed to rehabilitate these individuals by enrolling them in a prison-based deradicalization program that sought to appeal to a common ideological and religious base in Islam, treating Salafi jihadists as patients rather than as common criminals.

Dagens palestinska rättsväsende är ett resultat av de olika rättstraditioner som under årens lopp rått på Västbanken, Gazaremsan och i östra Jerusalem. De statsmakter som under olika perioder har administrerat dessa områden – ottomanerna, britterna, jordanierna, egyptierna och israelerna – har var och en på sina sätt satt djupa avtryck i såväl det allmänna rättsmedvetandet som i nu rådande rättsregler. Störst avtryck bland alla dessa har dock en annan ännu tidigare rättstradition gjort: den arabiska sedvanerätten.

This study investigates how the Palestinian Islamists in Hamas came to govern following theirsuccess in the 2006 parliamentary elections. The study poses the overarching research question:How can Hamas's governance in the Gaza Strip between 2006 and 2012 be characterised andunderstood? Hamas has attracted particular research interest, partly due to its seeminglycontradictory nature and actions, and partly due to the fact that this was the first case of Islamistsin the Arab world to ascend to power by democratic means. On the one hand, Hamas has led anarmed struggle against Israel which has even included suicide bombings against the Israelicivilian population. On the other hand, Hamas has more recently shown both the will and theability to participate in electoral processes in a peaceful and democratic fashion.

As a result of this, the case of Hamas relates to two scholarly debates in particular. The firstdebate concerns the nature of Islamism - whether Islamist ideals can be considered fullycompatible with democracy. Ultimately, this debate has come to focus on what the democraticpotential of Islamists would mean in practice, should they get the chance to hold power. Thesecond debate concerns the nature of Hamas - how to comprehend the paradoxal conduct of thisactor and in what direction it is heading politically. There is also a strong extra-scientificrelevance to the study, as Hamas remains a powerful force in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. HowHamas is dealt with, both by Israel and the international community and by the Palestiniansthemselves, will have repercussions on when and in what shape the pending Palestinian state willmaterialise.

Based on existing scholarship on this subject, the aim of this study holds theoretical,methodological and empirical ambitions: Theoretically, the study seeks to contribute to the twodebates mentioned above. Methodologically, it seeks to contribute by suggesting a newframework for the analysis of Islamist governance. Empirically, it contributes by adding a newcase study to the existing research on Islamists in power.

The study addresses the research question by focusing on how the new government perceivedand reacted to three key challenges to its exercise of power: relating to the political system and themain opposition party; countering violent radicalisation and local splinter groups; and reestablishingsocietal order and reforming the legal system. The analysis is based on a recentlycollected set of primary data consisting of both observations and interviews. The respondentsinclude ministers, advisors and civil servants in the government, as well as military commanders,internal security personnel and members of the Qassam Brigades. They also include some of theHamas government's fiercest critics, notably Salafi-Jihadis, youth dissidents and members of theFatah party.

The study finds that the Hamas government lacked the necessary organisation, knowledge andexperience to carry out its duties. It also finds that the government perceived itself to be subjectedto an imminent threat of being overthrown. The study shows that while the Hamas governmentwas far from fulfilling the democratic promises it had set out in its reform programme, it did notproceed to change the political system into any sort of Islamic theocracy governed by sharia. Asthe analysis concludes, Hamas's governance could be characterised neither as singularlyauthoritarian and Islamic, nor as merely democratic and secular. Rather, Islamist governanceHamas style has been a blurred combination of all these traits together, firmly guided by a farreachingideological pragmatism and a continuously perceived necessity for further powerconsolidation.

There can be many different approaches to the study of governments and their policies. Each of them has its advantages and disadvantages. One of the approaches would be a comparative case study which would give a clear frame of reference in relation to other states. In such a study it is possible to identify similarities and differences and relate the findings of one case to the findings of another. Such a study is useful but, because of the quantity of material, it might limit the depth of each case study. Comparative case studies are important, especially when no clear frame of reference is in place. In the case of states’ contemporary policy on Islamism, this frame is however already in place. Many of the theories of policy analysis emphasise extraordinary events as playing important roles in causing policy alterations. It is evident that for instance Nine Eleven led to changes in both western and eastern states’ stance towards Islamism. Knowing that, this thesis analyses whether any such events can be identified in the Egyptian context. Was Nine Eleven e.g. followed by a policy change in Egypt as well? Apart from the effect of extraordinary events, other causal factors are also illuminated. International relations, policy inheritance and the domestic situation can be mentioned as potentially interesting in further explaining policy stasis or change. This thesis aims at critically analysing the driving factors of the Egyptian state response to Islamism and Islamic extremism. In order to structure and systematise the data, the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PE) is applied as a tool of analysis. The thesis attempts to understand and explain policy change in President Mubarak’s Egypt by adapting a state-centric perspective and mainly using PE as a tool of analysis.

Inom terrorismforskningen har flera teorier presenterats som förklaringar till varför och hur stater drabbas av terrorism. En stor del av diskursen handlar dock om ursprunget till terrorism och en betydligt mindre del om hur stater skall hantera detta problem. En av de förhållandevis få teoretiska slutsatser som föreslår hur stater bör agera och förhålla sig till terrorism är netwar-konceptet. Det är de positiva antagandena i detta större normativa teoretiska koncept som jag valt att undersöka närmare i uppsatsen. John Arquilla och David Ronfeldt, forskarna bakom netwar, hävdar att stater måste börja organisera sig på samma sätt som terroristgrupperna för att nå framgång i sin bekämpning av dem. De förordar ett nytt sätt för staten hur den bör betrakta dessa motståndare. Till grund för en normativ teori föreligger vanligtvis flera positiva teorier eller antaganden. Det normativa i denna teori, uttalandet om hur stater bör agera, underbyggs av positiva antaganden om hur verkligheten ser ut. För att någon längre fram skall kunna uttala sig om teorins rådgivande slutsatser, om hur det bör ske, behövs först en matchning av hur väl de positiva antagandena stämmer överens med verkligheten. I den positiva delen av teorin beskriver Arquilla och Ronfeldt teoretiskt hur terroristgrupper, netwarriors, är uppbyggda och fungerar. Forskarna bakom netwar-konceptet ställer det relativt kontroversiella anspråket att teorin passar all sorts terrorism. Genom att kartlägga hur väl den teoretiska beskrivningen av en netwarrior passar på en slags terrorismgrupp vill jag försöka komma fram till huruvida teorins normativa del kan anses ha väl underbyggda antaganden.