Group choice
What is not well understood so far is why people choose which group for their engagement. What motivates someone to choose militant activity over peaceful action? There is a professional divide though. While students of the Arts and Social Science stick to the intellectually more sophisticated radical groups, engineers and science students are more likely to join militant groups. This resembles their professional skills but the causal mechanism is unknown.
A New Angle of Analysis ?
If the notion of identity as the driving force behind radicalization is correct the explanation becomes surprisingly trivial and can be transferred to other contexts. It might even serve as the basis of theory development. In this perspective the militancy of German socialist groups in the 60s, 70s and 80s can be explained by the identity deprivation that struck the post- WWII generation. The events of the war had disavowed the traditional German identity. One possible solution was to assume membership of the international proletariat. In this perspective the Vietnam War was seen as an attack on this group and the justification for attacks in Germany. For a Political Scientist this would be a sobering result since one would be able to explain terrorism without referring to political agendas, organizational questions and other meso and macro concepts. On the other hand, where do those ideas come from? Do they have a different influence?
Question Answered?
I offered a possible causal explanation for radicalization and possibly militancy. I am not confident if it actually answers the question why some choose to join and others abstain though. But the assumption in this text can also be compared to scholarly work by others. They concur to Marc Sageman’s description of terrorism recruitment along social networks (This is also supported by the case study included in Thomas Hegghammers (2010)). Facilitators seem to be necessary condition for radicalization. Those social networks are also necessary for sufficient military training. It seems that it is actually much harder to build a bomb in your kitchen without education and only armed with an instruction manual from the world wide web. All successful attacks where conducted by people that received at least some basic training. Sufficient training seems to be a necessary condition for successful attack.
Summing up: It is not enough to explain why individual radicalization and the decision to engage in violent actions takes place. We also have to analyze the organizational and ideological level.
How to tackle the problem?
Obviously, it is necessary to circumscribe the possibilities for training and the access to explosive and weapons which can help to foil and disrupt attacks. At the same time you have to tackle the underlying causes. This might mean sufficient community and social work but also the public discussion with radical groups. Those will show most of those group‘s ideas for what they are: illogical gibberish. And who wants to blow himself up for a bunch of crackpots? People will not join groups that are „uncool“. While it is true that it is hard to discuss with militant groups but one can also discuss their ideas without them taking part.
Note that it is necessary for the state to stay relatively neutral in this debate. If a community is specifically targeted the problem of identity and the feeling of exclusion will only become bigger and bigger.
One solution are initiatives by organizations such as Quilliam that challenge radicals from a inner- Islamic perspective and try to shift the discourse within the community. There is good perspective that those organizations have a chance to engage with the vulnerable youth in a much more effective way.
Marc Sageman (2004) Understanding Terror Networks
Thomas Hegghammer (2010) Jihad in Saudi Arabia
