SC Wednesday Talk: Speaker: Aisha Ahmad, Political Science, U of T Title: “Why Jihadists Win” January 18, 2023, 2-4 pm
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January 18, 2023 @ 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
January 18, 2023
Speaker: Aisha Ahmad, Political Science, U of T
Title: “Why Jihadists Win”
Introducer: Charlie Maurer
Abstract: Why are jihadist insurgencies able to withstand massive international military interventions against them, survive long periods of occupation, and then suddenly resurge and take power again? This talk unpacks the economic logic behind this jihadist resilience, in order to explain why these groups have survived – and even thrived – in asymmetric conflicts around the world.
Bio: Aisha Ahmad is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, the Director of the Islam and Global Affairs Initiative and a Senior Researcher of the Global Justice Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, and the Chair of the Board of Directors of Women in International Security-Canada. She is currently a Senior Fellow at Massey College and a Fellow at Trinity College, and was formerly an International Security Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is the author of Jihad & Co.: Black Markets and Islamist Power (Oxford University Press, 2017), which awarded both the distinguished 2017 Mershon Center Furniss Award for the best new book in international and national security, and the 2018 Best Book in Comparative Politics Prize by the Canadian Political Science Association. She has conducted fieldwork in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Mali, Iraq, and Lebanon, and has advised both government and international organizations on global security policies. Her research investigates civil war economies around the world. Dr. Ahmad is also the 2018 winner of the Northrop Frye Award of Excellence for outstanding contributions to co-curricular learning and pedagogical innovation, and also the 2018 UTSC Assistant Professor Award for outstanding contributions to undergraduate teaching at the Scarborough campus. In 2017, she was named one of Toronto’s “most inspiring women” of 2017 in Post City Magazine. In 2018, she was named the 2018 “Muslim Woman of the Year”.
The link to register is https://forms.office.com/r/Th5pJsxqKU. The deadline to register is the Monday before the event at noon. The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only.