The Repatriation Dilemma: European Countries and Islamic State Foreign Terrorist Fighters

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: Why have some European countries repatriated Islamic State foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) while others have not? Following the territorial defeat of the Islamic State (IS), the United States urged its allies and partners in Europe to take back their citizens who travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight for the caliphate. This thesis is the first study to explain the variation in responses to this request. Using an original dataset of FTF repatriation across 16 European countries, I apply a nested analysis research design to evaluate four explanatory variables: a country’s history of jihadist attacks, the quality of a country’s legal system, a country’s NATO aspirations, and the prevalence of anti-Muslim views in a country’s population. I test these hypotheses through a medium-N cross-national analysis and case studies of the United Kingdom and the Republic of North Macedonia. I find that NATO aspirants are more likely to repatriate FTFs and that evidentiary challenges in the domestic prosecution of FTFs present a hurdle to repatriation. This thesis expands the counterterrorism scholarship to address an unresolved question regarding a salient policy debate and offers policy suggestions to improve the handling of FTFs.

Type of resource	text
Date created	May 25, 2020

Author	Lokay, Andrew Warren
Degree granting institution	Stanford University, Center for International Security and Cooperation
Primary advisor	Grzymala-Busse, Anna
Advisor	Felter, Joseph

Subject	Center for International Security and Cooperation
Subject	foreign terrorist fighters
Subject	foreign fighters
Subject	repatriation
Subject	Islamic State
Subject	ISIS
Genre	Thesis

Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/wf013rx5274

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License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

Preferred Citation: Lokay, Andrew Warren. (2020). The Repatriation Dilemma: European Countries and Islamic State Foreign Terrorist Fighters. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/wf013rx5274

Stanford University, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies, Theses

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