Militant ecologies and religious mobilization: divergent outcomes in the Palestinian and Kashmiri arenas

Islamic identities, language, and sources of legitimacy have become increasingly prominent in militant mobilization, yet this resurgence has followed divergent trajectories across conflict arenas. Drawing on an original organization-period dataset covering the Palestinian and Kashmiri arenas, this article traces how militant fields evolved as religious mobilization gained salience. In the Palestinian arena, Islamist-oriented organizations grew within an established, plural national architecture, while Islamic repertoires entered parts of its nationalist core. The result was layering and hybridization without the disappearance of established organizations. In Kashmir, a contested organizational centre and selective Pakistani sponsorship accompanied the decline of the Non-Islamist independence project and the concentration of power within an Islamist and jihadist core. The comparison suggests that religious mobilization takes organizational form through the field in which it develops: formative political projects and institutional centres shape its organizational trajectory, while sponsorship can redistribute organizational advantage.