Greece Unscathed by Jihadism

Banoutsos, Andreas Georgious (2019) Greece Unscathed by Jihadism. Doctoral thesis, University of Buckingham.

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Abstract

This thesis examines why Greece has, at least so far, remained unscathed by the threat of Jihadist terrorism. It attempts to explore why the level of Jihadist threat in Greece remains low in comparison to that in other European countries such as the UK, by looking to foreign policy, counter-terrorism policy and wider political, social and geographical characteristics. In doing so, it first explores the concept of Jihadism, adopting a new framework for the analysis of this phenomenon and, by extension, a new means of evaluating the threat it poses to Greek national security. The UK is used as a comparison largely because of its struggle with Jihadist terrorism, and this comparison is useful in shedding light on the twin issues of home-grown terrorism and radicalisation among sizeable Muslim communities across Europe. These two issues were further used as analytical instruments to examine the level of the Jihadist threat to Greek national security. Although this work relies on a substantial literature review in setting out the scope and scale of the problem of Jihadist terrorism, it also produces primary data, contributing to existing awareness of the issue in both scholarly literature and in the wider political arena. Elite interviews, carried out with distinguished Greek experts and security officials, as well as leading figures from the Muslim community, were utilised for the purposes of gathering primary data for this investigation. These interviews were conducted across two separate time periods, in order to improve validity and reliability, as well as to provide the researcher with the chance to observe any changes in attitude toward the topic. Content analysis, a useful, tried-and-tested mode of qualitative data analysis, was then used to interpret this data, revealing that Greece is currently experiencing low levels of threat from Jihadist terrorism. The data collected and analysed here also suggests that this is attributable to Greek’s continued attempts to maintain excellent political, economic and cultural relations with the Muslim world; the lack of negative history with the Muslim community that the UK holds due to recent involvement in wars in the Middle East; the successful integration of the Greek Muslim population made up mainly of first-generation immigrants looking to earn a living peacefully; and the usefulness of Greece as a transit country for terrorist organisations. Based on the primary research conducted within this research, as well as the literature consulted in the preparation of the literature review, this thesis suggests that to ensure continued peace, security and positive relations with the Muslim community, it would be beneficial to adopt elements of the UK’s policies on counter-radicalisation and counter-terrorism.

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