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How Does Terrorism End? 295

as health care, education, and public safety, and the market is an ineﬃcient provider

of income and insurance, voluntary religious organizations act as “mutual insurance

clubs” where the membership provides the access to these services in exchange for

costly commitment signals in the form of sacriﬁces demanded by the membership.

(For economic explanations of the inﬂuence of religious-political organizations, see

also Berman, 2000; Chen, 2003; Gill and Lundsgaarde, 2004.) e latter feature

also makes these groups excellent potential militias—as demonstrated by the experi-

ence of such groups as Hamas, Hizballah, and the Taliban—as it ensures the com-

mitment of members that is crucial for eﬀective functioning of militias (see Berman,

2003). e implication is that an eﬃcient market economy and a functioning secu-

lar state providing basic public goods pose a threat to these aﬃliations as they reduce

the need for their services and raise the opportunity cost of membership. However,

to be eﬀective, social services must be provided both to members and nonmembers

without discrimination, as any exclusion would create incentives for membership

(Berman, 2003). Although this analysis suggests the potential eﬀectiveness of social-

service provision by the government in undercutting support for such groups, it also

implies that the latter are likely to resist ﬁercely any such eﬀort by the state. In fact,

terrorism may not be the original or even primary purpose for the existence of these

groups and may be employed precisely to ward oﬀ such threats to the groups’ exis-

tence. Ronfeldt (2005) and McCallister (2005) point to the existence of very similar

incentive structures in traditional tribal societies that seem to be fueling terrorism

and insurgency by al-Qaeda and their aﬃliates. (For additional relevant insights, see

also Diego Gambetta’s excellent analysis of the Sicilian Maﬁa’s protection business

[Gambetta, 1993].)

ere

is an argument that government’s social policies, as they involve transfer

of resources, may play into the hands of terrorists by increasing their capacity to

organize terror. A recent pooled time-series analysis provides evidence that, on bal-

ance, social-welfare policies reduce international and domestic terrorism (Burgoon,

2006). Although the study does not directly address the link between these policies

and public support, it does ﬁnd that welfare policies are associated with less poverty,

income inequality, economic insecurity, and religious extremism—all thought to be

the correlates of public support. However, it seems logically necessary to us that, to

eﬀectively undermine support for the terrorist organization, social-services provi-

sion by governments must compete with that by the terrorists—that is, the terrorists

should not be allowed to take credit for those services.

Such was the case in Uruguay when the military toppled the liberal democratic

government, crushed the Tuparamos, and remained in power. Russia’s brutal war

in Chechnya is, arguably, another example of the success of repression strategy by

an increasingly strong and autocratic state. is comparative advantage of strong

autocracies over democratic polities seems to explain why oppositional terrorism

rarely takes root in strong authoritarian societies.

e end of the Cold War is a case in point. e failure of the Socialist bloc not

only led to curtailment of external aid to terrorist groups worldwide from the Soviet

296 Social Science for Counterterrorism: Putting the Pieces Together

Union and its satellites, but (perhaps more important) also undercut the attractive-

ness of the driving ideology of many terrorist movements. Similarly, Ross and Gurr

(1989) argue that the change in the general political climate that occurred in United

States in 1970s, as manifested in the shift in public interest from public purposes

and social change to pursuit of private interests, made it increasingly diﬃcult for

militants in the 1970s and 1980s to establish constituencies in support of radical

change.

Some religious terrorist organizations can be usefully grouped with ethnic and

nationalist groups, as religion is employed as a marker of identity in contraposition

to a rival identity; others look more like ideologically motivated groups. Religious

groups are often similar to, and sometimes overlap, some ethnic and nationalist

groups in that they ﬁght the state dominated by a group representing a diﬀerent reli-

gion or ethnicity or a foreign power. Such groups may demand greater autonomy or

independence; they may also vie, as some ethnic groups do, for control of the state or

a greater representation, especially when the dissident group represents a repressed

majority. As distinct from these groups, other religious groups have clear ideological

aims of transforming the established social order and are ﬁghting to take over the

state from their more-secular (or apostate) coreligionists. e distinction is often

blurred in practice, however, as many dissident movements have both elements,

as is the case of many terrorist groups in the Arab Middle East. It also seems to be

the case that the large size of the religious terrorist group’s following often signals

the presence of an identity-based component also present in ethnic and nationalist

groups. On the other hand, some authors seem to favor the explanation that strong

support exists for the religious terrorist groups because of the inherent staying power

of sacred and spiritual motivations when they argue that the latter accounts for the

relative longevity of religious groups (see Cronin, 2006, p. 13; Rapoport, 1984).

See footnote 9 for the relevant details.

DeNardo (1985) has demonstrated how government concessions can split “prag-

matists” and “purists” in revolutionary movements, although he did not speciﬁcally

address terrorism.

See the earlier discussion on the eﬀects of organizational disunity on terrorist

decisionmaking.

It appears that negotiations are more likely to undermine the cohesiveness of the

terrorist movement and result in splits when the constituencies with strong prefer-

ences support the terrorists’ cause (see Cronin, 2006, p. 26).

e literature on strategic interaction between terrorists and the government

oﬀers interesting insights into the mechanisms responsible for sustaining violence

following the government’s peace initiatives. For one, terrorist extremists have

plenty to gain from continued violence. Terrorist attacks often increase support for

radical measures in the government’s support base and provoke government retali-

ation, which in turn radicalizes the terrorists’ support base and increases support

How Does Terrorism End? 297

for extremist factions at the expense of the moderates (see footnote 9 for details).

Violence oﬀers extremist factions a real opportunity to thwart moderates’ accep-

tance of concessions that they consider insuﬃcient. Kydd and Walter (2002) suggest

that terror attacks by extremist factions can sabotage the peace process when they

manage to undermine government’s trust of the moderates’ willingness and ability

to abide by the terms of agreement in situations when the consequence of abor-

tive settlement for the government is resumption of hostilities on more disadvanta-

geous terms (as in the case of Israel handing a portion of West Bank back to the

Palestinians). (On “spoiling” as one of the principal strategic logics behind terrorist

campaigns, see also Kydd and Walter, 2006.) Moderate factions themselves might

have incentives that can contribute to continued violence. For instance, while the

negotiations are still under way, moderates have an incentive to appear more radical

to secure better terms of settlement; however, this behavior often has an unintended

consequence of radicalizing supporters to the point where they are no longer willing

to endorse moderate positions. After a peace agreement has been reached, moderates

may have a stake in the continued existence of the extremist faction to secure the

government’s commitment to the terms of settlement (Bueno de Mesquita, 2005).

e government might itself have incentives to aid extremist challengers to moder-

ate groups when the extremists are still the weaker side; they might choose to do so

(as in the case of Israel’s support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad) as a way to put pres-

sure on the moderates to accept concessions while the latter are still in charge and

at the same time minimizing the level of concessions made (see Bueno de Mesquita,

2005, p. 164).

Not

only can terrorism attacks continue following the government’s peace initia-

tives, but the level of violence can increase as well. e “increased militancy” argu-

ment suggests that, with extremists’ having a continued stake in violence, moder-

ates’ acceptance of the government’s conciliatory oﬀer frees the movement from the

restraining inﬂuence of the moderates (see Bueno de Mesquita, 2005).

e

literature on termination of civil wars and conﬂict resolution also discusses how

the problems with agreeing on and ensuring commitment to the terms of settle-

ment can complicate achievement of an enduring peaceful outcome (see Kaufmann,

1996; Mitchell and Nicholson, 1983; Walter, 1997, 2002).

Nonrationalist explanations of continued violence following government con-

cessions have also been advanced in the literature. For instance, Shabad and Llera

Ramo (1995) argue that the increase in terror after the granting of Basque auton-

omy was due to the “culture of violence” that prevented the bask terrorist group

Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) from abandoning violent tactics. Other similar

explanations—such as desire for revenge or religious zeal—are extrapolations from

nonrationalist explanations advanced in the literature on individual motivations for

terrorism. ese nonrationalist incentives for terrorism are discussed in detail in

Berrebi (2009). We note here only that the whole literature on the general causes of

terrorist behavior is relevant to this discussion insofar as those causes point to endur-

ing sources of the decision to engage in terrorism. “Irrational” incentives, for one,

298 Social Science for Counterterrorism: Putting the Pieces Together

exemplify rigidities in terrorist motivation that cannot be aﬀected by government

concessions.

Some authors working from organizational perspectives have suggested that ter-

rorism might develop its own momentum and become self-sustaining regardless of

changing conditions and results (see Crenshaw, 1985, p. 473, 1995, 2001, p. 21).

is would indicate that the way terrorism “goes up” is diﬀerent from the way it

“goes down,” implying somewhat diﬀerent processes and factors.

See also the statistical study by Robison, Crenshaw, and Jenkins (2006) for an

attempt at empirical evaluation of the argument.

e value of this research is that it suggests that terrorist organizations may have

a limited lifetime. However, the problem with this type of work is that diﬀerent

historians may, and do, disagree on both the identiﬁcation of individual waves and

the reasons for their origins and decline. Sedgwick (2007) demonstrates how a dif-

ferent conceptualization of terrorism can lead to a very diﬀerent characterization of

the waves. More important, although these works are articulate about the causes for

the outbreak of a wave, they are less so for its decline and for a good reason. Spe-

ciﬁcally, for a succession of waves to exist, no other reason for the decline of each

preceding wave is logically required than the arrival of the next wave, as individual

terrorist groups that formed the part of the old wave are being caught up in the new

one or fading away into irrelevance. Additionally, the hypotheses about “waves” are

concerned with explaining a wave, not individual cases of terrorism within a wave:

A decline of the wave is by no means thought to imply a decline of every case of ter-

rorism that forms a part of the wave.

299

CHAPTER EIGHT

Disengagement and Deradicalization:

Processes and Programs

Darcy M.E. Noricks

Introduction

e question of why individuals move away from terrorism has been

much less studied than how terrorism arises or even how it ends. is

paper reviews the available literature, much of which is quite recent.

A key theme, reﬂected in the paper’s title, is the need to address both

disengagement and deradicalization because they turn out to be quite

diﬀerent. I ﬁrst discuss what is known about these processes and then

describe programs that have been or are being used to encourage dis-

engagement or deradicalization.

Processes

Despite a number of deradicalization programs targeting individuals

arrested on terrorism charges, which have been implemented in such

countries as Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Yemen, Egypt, and the United

Kingdom in recent years,

the issues of deradicalization and disen-

gagement from a terrorist group are two topics about which we know

relatively little. ese processes are some of the most undertheorized

concepts in the terrorism literature, but not because they are unimport-

ant. A closer look suggests that the lack of theory is particularly prob-

lematic, since deradicalization is not merely the radicalization process

in reverse. Although there are some similarities, disengagement from

terrorism appears to be “as complex a process as that which helps us

300 Social Science for Counterterrorism: Putting the Pieces Together

understand initial involvement in the ﬁrst place” (Horgan, 2007a, p.

117). It may be that the weak theory in this area is a result of the par-

ticularly idiosyncratic nature of deradicalization and disengagement

processes. But as Horgan (2007b) emphasizes, it is in the disengagement

phase that practical counterterrorism initiatives might best be applied.

Deradicalization can be either ideological or behavioral. Omar

Ashour (2008a) deﬁnes the concept as a process that leads an indi-

vidual (or group) to change his attitudes about violence—speciﬁcally

about the appropriateness of violence against civilians. Ideological

deradicalization results from a change in beliefs, whereas behavioral

deradicalization emphasizes changes in actions. Horgan (2008) also

emphasizes the need for clarity in distinguishing deradicalization (atti-

tudinal modiﬁcation) from disengagement (behavioral modiﬁcation).

He underscores the fact that, from a counterterrorism perspective, dis-

engagement is more important than deradicalization, since the former

can occur without the latter. Ashour (2008a) also postulates a third

category, organizational deradicalization, which is a group-level phe-

nomenon that, if successful, would move the entire group away from

terrorism—ideally this would occur without the group spinning oﬀ

violent splinter groups. Examples of organizational deradicalization

include former terrorist groups (for example, the Palestine Liberation

Organization or South Africa’s African National Congress) and militia

groups (for example, Amal in Lebanon).

Although the vacuum may be partly ﬁlled with the forthcoming

publication of Horgan’s book, Walking Away from Terrorism, the ter-

rorism literature is currently lacking any detailed debate over theories

of deradicalization, although there is a small literature on how and

why terrorism ends—both at the group level and as a larger phenom-

enon.

Conference proceedings from a RAND-sponsored conference

in 2005 represent some of the ﬁrst eﬀorts to explicitly address the issue

of deradicalization in the context of contemporary Islamist radical-

ization and recruitment (Benard, 2005). Discussion has occurred in

a number of other ﬁelds, however, about the factors that might lead

an individual to turn away from violence, leave a particular group, or

halt participation in a particular activity or movement. Renee Gar-

ﬁnkel interviewed individuals who were former activists, terrorists,

Disengagement and Deradicalization: Processes and Programs 301

and political and military leaders about their experiences in turning

away from violent strategies and organizations and toward ones that

espoused a nonviolent or cooperative perspective. Tore Bjorgo’s work

on disengagement from extremist groups that embrace racist ideolo-

gies provides a discussion of relevant “push” and “pull” factors. Scott

Decker and Barrik Van Winkle illuminate some of the reasons that

gang members leave gangs, and Galanter provides details about both

voluntary and forced departure from religious cults and sects. John

Horgan (2005, 2006, 2007a, 2007b, 2008, and forthcoming), Tore

Bjorgo (2006), Bjorgo and Horgan (2009), and Omar Ashour (2007,

2008a, 2008b, and forthcoming) are three authors who have dealt with

deradicalization in the most theoretical fashion.

Renee Garﬁnkel’s (2007) review of seven deradicalization cases—

Muslim, Jewish, and Christian—leads her to conclude that deradical-

ization can be as much of a spiritual experience, similar to a religious

conversion, as the initial radicalization may have been.

In contrast to

the radicalization experience, however, the deradicalized individuals in

her small study did not adopt their new ideology as a function of their

participation in a supportive peer group. e decision to deradicalize

was most often an individual decision, which subsequently isolated that

person from his or her existing social group (p. 11). Relationships with

role models were cited as important in making the move away from

radical beliefs, however. One commonality with radicalization path-

ways was the experience of trauma preceding the decision or process of

deradicalization. Trauma acted as a precipitating event for the transfor-

mation of personal beliefs.

In many cases, trauma coincided with the

unexpected experience of compassion from those previously identiﬁed

as enemies or “other.” Individuals who turned away from radical ide-

ologies ﬁrst experienced a perceived failure of their existing values and

beliefs (p. 12), which was similar to their experience of radicalization.

Even then, recognition of the shared humanity of the “enemy” was

a diﬃcult step that had to be repeated over and over throughout the

lengthy move from violence to nonviolence (p. 14).

Writing about defection from right-wing groups, Tore Bjorgo

(2006) distinguishes between push and pull factors that aﬀect an activ-

ist’s decision to leave the group. Push factors are negative circumstances

302 Social Science for Counterterrorism: Putting the Pieces Together

or social forces that make it unattractive to continue membership in

a particular organization. ese factors might include criminal pros-

ecution, parental or social disapproval, or counterviolence from oppo-

sitional groups. Alternatively, as the movement evolves, “the terrorist

may ﬁnd that some of his or her most deeply held political ideals—the

ones that led them to become involved in the movement in the ﬁrst

place—are being compromised as a result of some new stiﬂing organi-

zational ‘climate’ within the group or through the role of certain indi-

viduals within it” (Horgan, 2005, p. 147). Additionally, one may dis-

cover that the original ideological impetus for radicalization no longer

resonates with the individual.

Pull factors are opportunities or social forces that attract an indi-

vidual to a more promising alternative. ese might include “longing

for the freedoms of a normal life,” new employment or educational

prospects that could be undermined if an individual’s group mem-

bership were known, or the desire to establish a family and take on

parental and spousal roles—one of the strongest motives for leaving a

militant group (Bjorgo, 2006, pp. 11–12). Bjorgo emphasizes that the

eﬀect of push factors can be diﬃcult to determine in advance. Nega-

tive sanctions may lead more recent members to leave the group, but

those same sanctions could also increase members’ solidarity within

the group as the group bands together to meet the outside threat. e

latter is particularly a risk when negative sanctions are not matched

with positive incentives.

One of the most common reasons for staying in the group is that

the activist has nowhere to go, because of the nature of the relation-

ships he or she destroyed or abandoned when joining the group in the

ﬁrst place. e defector “risks ending up in a social vacuum,” isolated,

alone, and lonely (Bjorgo, 2006, p. 14)—a likely outcome that Garﬁn-

kel’s evidence supports. Pull factors represent the shifting of a militant’s

priorities. But these factors are often challenged by high barriers to

exit, including concerns about the sunk costs of time and eﬀort already

invested in the group, fear about reprisals from the group, and lack of

protection against former enemies. Moreover, even if the activist no

longer believes in the group’s ideology or political goals, leaving the

group is akin to leaving a family, a community, and an identity. Table

Disengagement and Deradicalization: Processes and Programs 303

8.1 lists a number of factors that fall under the categories of push and

pull factors.

A search for identity and the reward of “belonging” have been

identiﬁed as major inﬂuences that motivate radical behavior and con-

tinuing participation in radical groups (Victoroﬀ, 2005). e eﬀect of

these factors on deradicalization has been explored in such historical

case studies as the Red Brigades (Jamieson, 1990a), the Baader-Mein-

hof Group (Post, 1987), and the Irish Republican Army (O’Callaghan,

1998). ese studies reﬂect the internal pressures to stay competing

with the external pressures to go—focusing speciﬁcally on psychologi-

cal pressures and the “spiraling of commitment” that often keeps mem-

bers within the group (Taylor, 1988, p. 168). Writing about deradi-

calization in Southeast Asia, Zachary Abuza (forthcoming) notes that

Table 8.1

Sample Push and Pull Factors

Class of Factor Examples

Push factors Criminal prosecution

Parental or social disapproval

Counterviolence from oppositional groups

Loss of faith in ideology or politics of group

Discomfort with group’s violent activities

Disillusionment with group’s leadership

Loss of conﬁdence, status or position in group

Ejection from the group

Exhaustion from tension and uncertainty as a member of a

targeted group

Increased activity in a “competing role,” for example, political

activity that displaces the violent role

Pull factors Desire for a normal life

Desire to establish a family and take on parental and spousal roles

Other changing priorities

New employment or educational opportunities that could be

undermined if group membership were known

New role model or social group

New, more compelling ideology or belief structure

304 Social Science for Counterterrorism: Putting the Pieces Together

the success of such an eﬀort “is driven in large part by societal atti-

tudes: will former terrorists be welcomed back into society, or will they

be treated as outcasts?”

Decker and Van Winkle’s (1996, pp. 262–264) assessment of par-

ticipation in, and attrition from, street gangs picks up on issues also

identiﬁed by Horgan, Garﬁnkel, and Bjorgo. Decker and Van Winkle

describe the diﬃculty in deﬁning the act of “leaving the gang.” In some

cases, leaving means refraining from participation in illegal activities

but maintaining friendships with current gang members—particularly

when these friendships predate gang membership. However, they note

that even after leaving the gang, prior antagonisms may continue to be

played out in resident neighborhoods, drawing the “ex-” gang member

back into the group.

e most common reason for leaving a gang is the personal or indi-

rect experience of violence by the gang member. is is also a common

reason for leaving a right-wing group, according to Bjorgo. Decker and

Van Winkle specify that it is the period immediately following a violent

confrontation between gangs that is most ripe for intervention—but that

this intervention must take place before the gang can reframe the vio-

lent confrontation as something that increases solidarity (p. 270). is

experience may be the same as the “trauma” experienced by Garﬁn-

kel’s interviewees. Gang scholars do not agree over the role of positive

inducements to encourage defection from gangs. Klein’s (1971) assess-

ment of gang intervention programs led him to conclude that social-

service programs that targeted gangs as a unit increased the solidarity

of the group, which eventually led to increased violence rather than

gang attrition (see also Short and Strodtbeck, 1965). But more recent

studies suggest that positive inducements are useful if targeted at mem-

bers on the fringe of the group and the most recent members to join the

group. If this conclusion is correct, it could have signiﬁcant implica-

tions for intervention eﬀorts in counterterrorism.

e importance of solidarity and the speciﬁc organizational com-

position of the group suggested by Klein is picked up in Abuza’s (forth-

coming) discussion of Jemaah Islamiyyah (JI). Abuza notes that this

is a highly interconnected group with friendship and kinship ties rein-

forced through strategic marriages. He suggests that “the high level of