Atlas / Comparisons / Islamic State vs Institutional Revolutionary Party
Islamic State and Institutional Revolutionary Party
Measured distance across six axes
Different families with real common ground. They agree within three points on EC, AU, SC. They diverge by eight points or more on CH.
Axis by axis
| Axis | ISIS / Daesh | PRI | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | +01 | +01 | 0 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | +10 | +04 | 6 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| AU · Organisation of power | +10 | +08 | 2 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| SC · Scale of decision | +09 | +07 | 2 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| ID · Rule of membership | +10 | +03 | 7 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| CH · Method and tempo | +10 | −04 | 14 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →
The evidence behind the widest gaps
A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.
ISIS / Daesh · CH +10
At the ceiling: mass violence as constitutive rather than instrumental.
- Documented act or statutePublic executions and their filming were a central instrument of governance and recruitment.
PRI · CH −04
Coded −4: built specifically to institutionalise a revolution and stop the coups that followed it.
- ScholarshipFounded in 1929 after the assassination of a president-elect, to route succession through a party rather than through the army.
What this comparison does not establish
Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.
Islamic State
2013– · Iraq, Syria
Restoration of a universal caliphate through mass violence, with obligatory allegiance and death for dissent.
Institutional Revolutionary Party
1929– · Mexico
A party built to institutionalise a revolution and end military coups, which then held the presidency for seventy-one consecutive years.
Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.
Open in the atlas