An Analysis of the Relationship between Political Development and Tendency toward Radical Islam in Central Asia:A Case Study of Islamic State (ISIS)

The present article aims to investigate the relationship between the political indicators development and the tendency toward extremist Islam in Central Asia. The research data were extracted after the presenting of theoretical approaches for theoretical explanation of the subject using the quantitative method from the type of secondary analysis and referring to the facts and figures of the political development indicators published on the website of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (2015) related to the Central Asian countries (five Commonwealth countries including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan). While comparing the global ranking of indicators among the surveyed five countries, the data was analyzed and tested in two sections: descriptive analysis and inferential analysis. Results of the inferential analysis and comparative assessment showed a significant difference at the level of 0.01 between the political development scales of the commonwealth countries having citizens fighting for ISIS according to Kruskal-Wallis Test. The findings of inferential analysis and bivariate analysis showed a significant relationship at the level of 0.01 between political development scales of commonwealth countries and tendency toward ISIS group. Rule of law and freedom of media scales showed the highest level of regression with regard to political development scales of the countries with citizens having fighters in ISIS, respectively.