Abstract

This article explores the relation between the American-led liberal international order and the persistence of ‘violent extremism’ in the Middle East through a questioning of the role of constitutive aspects of this order, namely territoriality of political organization and capitalist organization of world economy, in contributing to the persistence and recurrent formation of militant Islamist groups. It argues that the historical legitimation crisis of this international order in the Middle East and the other conflict-ridden regions of the Islamic world, and the current globalization of this legitimation crisis in the relatively well-off and democratic states of the western world, contribute to the recurrent explosions of alienation, expressed in the form of militant Islamist groups.