O Estado Islâmico é um estado?

How much of a state is the Islamic State?, por Quinn Mecham (Monkey Cage):

Rather than assessing the “Islamic” qualities of the Islamic State group, I will focus instead on the “stateness” of this group as it has developed in early 2015. The contemporary name of this group implies both that it is Islamic and also that it is a state. My principal argument is that while the Islamic State does not have all of the characteristics that we usually attribute to states, it does have many of them, and that its trajectory to date is toward increasing levels of stateness. (...)

Scholars and practitioners of international relations often view states as the primary unit of interaction within the international system and as legitimate components of the international order. To date, the Islamic State does not align well with this notion of statehood. A second, and in this case more productive, way of viewing states, however, rests in the understanding of states as institutions that carry out specific functions to be successful. Effective states have a wide range of functions, including “rule of law,” “administrative control” and “creation of citizenship rights,” among many others. For my purposes, I have divided the key functions of a state into six broad categories (...) 1) tax and labor acquisition, 2) defining and regulating citizenship, 3) providing international security and managing international relations, 4) ensuring domestic security, 5) providing social services and 6) facilitating economic growth. (...)

#1 Tax and Labor Acquisition—

Capable states have developed the means to extract wealth (in the form of taxes) and labor (in the form of military or other service) from their citizens. By all accounts, the Islamic state group has been highly extractive from the population in the territory it controls. (...)

#2 Defining and Regulating Citizenship—

Capable states invest significant energy in defining the rules for citizenship and in enumerating the rights and duties of their citizens. In the June 2014 announcement of the Islamic caliphate, there are some signs of an emergent set of norms around citizenship in the Islamic State, although it is not defined explicitly in those terms. (...)

#3 Managing International Relations—

One of the core functions of a state is to manage relationships with other states in the international system and to provide security from external threats. This is an area where the Islamic State has done a very poor job of behaving like a normal state in the international system. Indeed, the Islamic State explicitly rejects the validity of the contemporary state system (...)

#4 Providing Domestic Security—

This is the area by which viable states are most often measured – can they exert an effective monopoly of violence and establish the rule of law over their territory? In the case of the Islamic State the answer is mostly, but certainly not completely. The Islamic State in early 2015 operates much more like a military organization than either a rebel insurgency or a local police force, although it also plays both of those roles. It has tactical units that report to a central command, that are highly metrics-driven and that are designed to clear and hold territory, ensuring subsequent security within that territory.

#5 Providing Social Services—

Capable states provide a wide range of social services in addition to security, including health care, education, sanitation, utilities and support for the vulnerable. Additionally, Islamic groups are historically known for their investment in social welfare provision in their societies. How does the Islamic State group do on social service provision? It is clear that the group has attempted to use a portion of its extensive resources to provide social services in the territory that it controls, although it has not always had the expertise to provide those services in an effective or lasting way.

#6 Facilitating Economic Growth—

Finally, capable states have institutions that effectively manage the economy and facilitate economic growth over the long run. (...) Because the Islamic State has been flush with cash that has allowed it to create its own economy and because oil resources have provided substantial economic rents to the organization to date, it is difficult to measure its success in this area. However, there are a number of early indications that its economic policies are neither productive nor sustainable in the long term. (...)

When taken in comparison with established neighboring states, the Islamic State’s performance across a range of core state functions is decidedly mixed. When compared with other Islamist insurgent groups, or even to where the Islamic State group was with regard to these issues one year ago, however, progress towards development on many of these functions is nothing short of remarkable.

Interrogo-me até que ponto os critérios 5 e 6 não serão um pouco "falácia do escocês".