Terrorist Transformations: The Link Between Terrorist Roles and Terrorist Disengagement (original) (raw)
Related papers
Why They Leave: An Analysis of Terrorist Disengagement Events from 87 Autobiographical Accounts
Security Studies, 2017
A deeper understanding of terrorist disengagement offers important insights for policymakers and practitioners seeking to persuade individuals to leave these groups. Current research highlights the importance of certain “push” and “pull” factors in explaining disengagement. However, such studies tell us very little about the relative frequencies at which these hypothesized factors are associated with leaving in the terrorist population. Using data collected from 87 autobiographical accounts, we find that push, rather than pull, factors are more commonly cited as playing a large role in individuals’ disengagement decisions and that the experience of certain push factors increases the probability an individual will choose to leave. Importantly, disillusionment with the group’s strategy or actions, disagreements with group leaders or members, dissatisfaction with one’s day-to-day tasks, and burnout are more often reported as driving disengagement decisions than de-radicalization. Finally, our results suggest that ideological commitment may moderate one’s susceptibility to pull factors.
Walking Away from Terrorism: Accounts of Disengagement from Radical and Extremist Movements
2009
'John Horgan’s contribution is immense …This is a must-read book for any person who wishes to understand the complex psychological processes that influence terrorists behavior and especially what makes terrorists relinquish violence.’ - Ariel Merari, Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University 'Walking Away from Terrorism presents a thoughtfully argued and carefully documented examination of why individuals decide to leave radical and extremist movements—an issue that has been largely neglected by researchers.' - Gary LaFree, Director, START Center, University of Maryland 'Why do individuals stop being terrorists? Drawing from fascinating personal interviews, psychologist John Horgan answers this question, demolishing myths and replacing them with real stories about real people...A superb book, packed with welcome insights.’ - Audrey Cronin, US National War College ‘John Horgan`s meticulous research breaks new ground . His acute understanding of the complex factors that can lead to disillusion and withdrawal from terrorism makes this book an indispensable source for academics and the security professionals.’ - Paul Wilkinson, University of St Andrews "An important overview of how and why individuals are likely to leave terrorist movements, as well as the lessons and implications that emerge from this process." - Joshua Sinai, ‘Terrorism Bookshelf: Top 150 Books on Terrorism and Counterterrorism’, Perspectives on Terrorism, Vol. 6, No. 2 (2012)
Turning Away From Terrorism: Lessons from Psychology, Sociology, and Criminology
Journal of Peace Research, 2014
Although research on violent extremism traditionally focuses on why individuals become involved in terrorism, recent efforts have started to tackle the question of why individuals leave terrorist groups. Research on terrorist disengagement, however, remains conceptually and theoretically underdeveloped. In an effort to enhance our understanding of disengagement from terrorism and pave the way for future empirical work, this article provides a multidisciplinary review of related research from psychology, sociology, and criminology. Significant promise for moving beyond the existing push/pull framework is found in Rusbult and colleagues’ investment model from psychology and Ebaugh’s research on voluntary role exit from sociology. Rusbult’s investment model offers insight into when and why individuals disengage from terrorism, while accounting for individual, group, and macro-level differences in the satisfaction one derives from involvement, the investments incurred, and the alternatives available. Ebaugh’s research on voluntary role exit provides a deeper understanding of how people leave, including the emotions and cuing behavior likely to be involved. The article highlights the strengths and limitations of these frameworks in explaining exit and exit processes across a variety of social roles, including potentially the terrorist role, and lends additional insights into terrorist disengagement through a review of related research on desistance from crime, disaffiliation from new religious movements, and turnover in traditional work organizations.
Disembedding Terrorists: Identifying New Factors and Models for Disengagement Research (2014)
This paper forms part of a wider MINECO-funded study on pathways out of terrorism entitled ‘‘Rules of Disengagement: Individual and Collective Ways Out of Terrorism in Spain’’. It aims to synthesise current knowledge on exiting terrorism whilst also researching what more can be learned about the topic from neighbouring fields by identifying relevant concepts and processes. In order to do so it draws on literature from the fields of criminology, armed conflict, labour trends and electoral studies. These key concepts are inserted into a wider discussion which tries to explain disengagement from terrorism from three different levels of analysis: macro, meso, and micro, in turn. This approach was found to be limiting in providing a more parsimonious explanation of exit and so the paper suggests the use of a multi-level analysis model taken from business research and adapted to this context. The use of this layered concept of ‘embeddedness’ would permit more rounded analysis of the dynamics of disengagement and so several recommendations for further research are made at the end of the paper.
Terrorism and Political Violence, 2019
Recent interest in terrorist risk assessment and rehabilitation reveals the likelihood and risk factors for terrorist re-engagement and recidivism are poorly understood. Informed by advances in criminology, this study develops a series of theoretical starting points and hypotheses. We test our hypotheses using data on 185 terrorist engagement events, drawn from 87 autobiographical accounts representing 48 terrorist groups. We find terrorist re-engagement and recidivism rates are relatively high in our sample and similar to criminal recidivism rates except in the case of collective, voluntary disengagements when an entire group chooses to disarm. We account for why we observe relatively high rates in this sample. With regard to risk factors, we find terrorists are less likely to re-engage as they age. Radical beliefs and connections to associates involved in terrorism increase the likelihood of re-engagement. Social achievements (marriage, children, employment) do not commonly serve as protective factors, at least in the short term, when controlling for beliefs and connections. Finally, those from an upper or middle-class childhood family are less likely to re-engage.
Individual disengagement from Al Qa'ida-influenced terrorist groups
2012
This report, prepared for the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT) in the UK Home Office, presents the findings of a Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) into individual disengagement from Al Qa'ida-influenced terrorist groups. The REA was commissioned to inform policy development in relation to the 'Prevent' strand of the Government's counter-terrorism strategy, Contest II. The REA sought to answer two questions: 'What are the psychological, social and physical factors associated with leaving terrorist groups?' and 'What interventions have been employed to encourage individuals to leave terrorist groups, and is there any evidence as to their effectiveness?' As well as reviewing the limited body of literature on leaving Al Qa'ida-influenced terrorist groups, the REA extended to the available literature on leaving street gangs, religious cults, right-wing extremist groups and organised crime groups. These areas of literature might provide lessons that are potentially transferable to leaving terrorist groups, and thus inform policy and practice in relation to the preventative element of the counter-terrorism strategy. This report should be of interest to practitioners and policymakers in national government, local government and other local organisations seeking to prevent terrorism, as well as to those involved in planning and designing evaluation and research in this area. RAND Europe is an independent not-for-profit research organisation that aims to improve policy and decision making in the public interest through research and analysis. RAND Europe's clients include European governments, institutions, non-governmental organisations and firms with a need for rigorous, independent, multidisciplinary analysis.
Comparing Role-Specific Terrorist Profiles
2011
While research on who and why individuals engage in terrorism has moved a long way since psychopathological and psychoanalytical approaches dominated, there remain gaps and shortcomings in our knowledge and approaches to understanding who is likely to engage in this form of political violence. Conventional wisdom posits that terrorists are typically male, uneducated, impoverished and between the ages of 18 and 23. Studies and emerging patterns over the past decade have refuted many of these stereotypes. Of the existing empirical research in the literature, single--case studies dominate. Although highly informative, they are also context-specific and thus their findings may not easily translate to other conflict areas. To address these shortcomings, the socio--demographic and role profiles of 219 Palestinian suicide bombers are compared with 510 terrorists indicted within the United States. These cases allow us to simultaneously compare the profiles of two very different contexts. More importantly, we are able to evaluate and compare the profiles of suicide bombers with more conventional terrorists.
Psychology and Developing Societies, 2019
This qualitative study aims to explore the personal experience of former prisoners jailed for terrorism-related offenses in Indonesia who have reported or have been reported as having deradicalised or disengaged from violent extremism. The participants were interviewed about their experiences of deradicalisation and disengagement and the perceived implication of the experiences on their identities. Data were collected through semistructured interviews and analysed using a thematic analysis. The results show that most participants reported that they experience identity threats because of their status as former terrorist prisoners from former comrades as well as from the wider society. The threats were said to have impacted negatively upon their positive sense of self; thus, they invoked the strategies to cope with the threats. While participants’ strategies to cope with former jihadist comrades’ threats operated in the intrapersonal level, their strategies to alleviate the threats from wider society occur in the interpersonal level. This study found that most participants re-evaluate their past experiences positively and even utilised them as a part of their present identities primarily when they dealt with former comrades’ criticisms. To resist the wider society’s stigma and suspicion, they concealed their identity as a former terrorist prisoner while, at the same time, bolstered their personal characteristics in terms of interpersonal relationships.
2016
Four decades of scholarly attempts to uncover terrorists’ socio-demographic and psychological traits have proven largely inconclusive. A review of the scholarship would suggest that almost anyone can become a terrorist and provides no consensus on why individuals join terrorist groups. In the current study we examine the challenges that hindered the search for a single terrorist “profile.” Utilizing a unique dataset which includes the social, organizational, and socio-demographic traits of 350 members of terrorist networks, we offer an alternative conceptualization of the terrorist profile. Rather than socio-demographic characteristics, this approach posits social and organizational requirements of the network as the dependent variable, offering an escape from some of the conceptual traps that have long limited our understanding of terrorist recruitment.