Atlas / Comparisons / Islamic State vs UK Conservative Party
Islamic State and UK Conservative Party
Measured distance across six axes
Opposed programmes with little shared ground. No axis places them within three points of each other. They diverge by eight points or more on AU, CH.
Axis by axis
| Axis | ISIS / Daesh | Tories | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | +01 | +06 | 5 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | +10 | +05 | 5 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| AU · Organisation of power | +10 | +02 | 8 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| SC · Scale of decision | +09 | +03 | 6 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| ID · Rule of membership | +10 | +03 | 7 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| CH · Method and tempo | +10 | −05 | 15 | 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 · AU +10
At the ceiling: absolute clerical-military command with no institution outside it.
- Programme textA caliphate was declared in 2014 requiring the allegiance of all Muslims on pain of death.
Tories · AU +02
Coded +2: parliamentary in method, with several recent confrontations with legal constraint.
- Documented act or statuteThe 2019 prorogation of parliament was ruled unlawful by the supreme court.
- Documented act or statuteJudicial review was narrowed and legislation was introduced to disapply parts of human rights law in specific policy areas.
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.
Tories · CH −05
Coded −5: incremental by disposition, with Brexit as a deliberate discontinuity achieved by referendum.
- Documented act or statuteEU withdrawal was pursued through referendum, legislation and treaty rather than outside them.
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.
UK Conservative Party
1834– · Britain
Fiscal restraint, national sovereignty, property ownership, controlled migration, gradualism.
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.
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