RAND Corporation. Social Science for Counterterrorism
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Social-Science Foundations for Strategic Communications 345
Apart from developing a measurable definition of relationship,
social-science research has examined both the causes and effects of
good relationships. On the effects side, it should not be surprising that
a great deal of empirical research finds that strong relationships are
useful—in boosting an organization’s reputation, its perceived per-
formance, and its ability to prevent defections to competitors (Bronn,
2007; Grunig and Hung, 2002; Hagan, 2007; Ledingham and Brun-
ing, 1998; Yang and Grunig, 2005). e remainder of this section will
detail lessons on the “causes” side; that is, what an organization can
and should do to build and maintain relationships with different stra-
tegic groups in the first place.
Relationships with the General Public. In the public relations lit-
erature, the last two decades have seen an increased emphasis on “put-
ting relationships back into public relations” (Ledingham and Brun-
ing, 2001; Williams, 1996). Research has found, unsurprisingly, that
the strength of an organization’s relationship with the public grows
with the amount of time in the relationship (Ledingham, Bruning
and Wilson, 1999). For very popular or very unpopular organizations,
public perceptions of the relationship also depend critically on the
handful of behaviors by the organization’s leaders that the public can
recall (Grunig and Hung, 2002).
One major arm of research in public-organization relationships
has been to study the effect of inviting the public to participate in an
organization’s decisionmaking. ere are clear dangers for aloof orga-
nizations; if individuals never have direct public experience with an
organization, they are left to evaluate it solely by what they have heard
or read from others, and they may shun an organization despite having
only a superficial knowledge about it (Grunig and Hung, 2002). Of
course, this is a very real danger in the hypersaturated, politically
charged media environment of the Middle East.
Depending on the study, public involvement and participation
have been found to help aspects of relationships (Yang and Grunig,
2005) or to have an insignificant effect (Rawlins, 2007). is discrep-
ancy might be explained by the importance of whether public involve-
ment is truly meaningful. Psychological research has identified a frus-
tration effect, whereby giving people a voice—but not allowing that
346 Social Science for Counterterrorism: Putting the Pieces Together
voice to change circumstances people view as unfair—will make them
more dissatisfied than giving them no voice at all (Folger, 1977). Sim-
ilarly, the public’s perceived fairness of a decisionmaking process in
which they are involved has some influence on the degree to which
they will accept the outcome of that process (McComas et al., 2007).
If the public perceives that a real dialogue has taken place—in which
the organization shares their goals, listens to them, and empathizes
with them—empirical research suggests that they are more likely to
believe they have benefited from the relationship, which in turn makes
members of the public more likely to support the organization (Brun-
ing, Dials and Shirka, 2008).
Two other recent studies evaluated the efforts an organization
might take boost the element of trust in public relationships. e
first (Rawlins, 2007) divided “transparency” with the public into four
elements—accountability, sharing of information, lack of secrecy, and
stakeholder participation—and measured their effects on relational
trust. Accountability had the strongest effect on trust, followed by
the sharing of information; the other two factors had only weak or
insignificant effects. e second study, a university experiment (Baksh-
Mohammed, Choi, and Callison, 2007), evaluated an organization’s
involvement in acts of goodwill (charity) on perceived credibility.
Although the charitable action had a positive effect on credibility, this
effect disappeared during crisis situations—in other words, when cred-
ibility would presumably be needed the most.
In sum, the literature recommends that communication relation-
ships with the public be initiated early, focus on communicating a few
key positive behaviors, have meaningful public involvement and dia-
logue, and exhibit both accountability and information sharing.
Relationships with Strategic Partners and Key Stakeholders.
Partners and stakeholders in CT/COIN strategic communications—
e.g., community leaders, local security forces, or nongovernmental
organizations—can critically affect long-term communications suc-
cess. Good local partners can provide cultural feedback on the appro-
priateness of particular messages and secure access to media channels
and other resources. With good relationships, community leaders will
also express their disapproval privately to community liaisons rather
Social-Science Foundations for Strategic Communications 347
than publicly to political leaders or the media (Ledingham and Brun-
ing, 2001).
ere exists a broad area of social-science research on partner-
ships in general (that is, not necessarily for communications), explor-
ing why organizations enter into partnerships or alliances, why they
leave, and what makes the partnership effective (Gulati, 1998). A
recent study tying together theory and empirical data on partnerships
in social-service delivery (Graddy and Chen, 2006) evaluated how pro-
gram success is affected by the specific reason for choosing a particular
partner. Direct and indirect program goals were helped when partners
were chosen on the basis of their ability to help meet resource needs,
to help bolster the organization’s reputation among key audiences, or
their shared philosophical vision; goals were negatively affected when
partners were chosen simply to lay the foundation for a future relation-
ship, to continue a previous collaboration, or because no other partner
could be found. Given that CT or COIN partnerships contain real
risks (particularly when partnering with unstable or otherwise compro-
mised temporary allies), such findings may be useful when weighing
the costs and benefits of a particular alliance.
Strategic partnerships have also been evaluated in empirical mar-
keting literature. One key obstacle to the success of marketing alli-
ances, as identified in research, has been asymmetries in the balance of
resources and power in the relationship (Bucklin and Sengupta, 1993).
Of course, this is an unavoidable element of most partnerships involv-
ing the United States, but stresses caused by this asymmetry can be
anticipated and monitored. Research has also explored cross-cultural
marketing partnerships (Aulakh, Kotabe, and Sahay, 1996), finding a
positive empirical link between partnership performance and (1) expec-
tations that the relationship will continue, (2) willingness to be flexible
in the relationship, and (3) the use of informal (as opposed to rigid and
output-focused) monitoring by the dominant partner.
Relationships with the Media. Although crisis-based interactions
with the media are a “short-term” issue, developing relationships with
media practitioners is a long-term affair. Close media relationships,
developed over time, can help minimize the media fallout from crises
and help earn media trust. Social science provides many specific rec-
348 Social Science for Counterterrorism: Putting the Pieces Together
ommendations for how best to build and maintain this relationship. A
recent review of the relationship between the Australian military and
the press (Hibbert and Simmons, 2006) attributed some of the Austra-
lian media’s dissatisfaction with the relationship to lack of troop access
(for example, through embedding). A review of research on media rela-
tionships (Desiere and Sha, 2005) added that organizations should
develop a media strategy that is proactive (not waiting for the phone
to ring), continuous (not waiting for a crisis to break), open, accu-
rate, based on meaningful personal relationships (knowing the media’s
needs and providing useful information to assist them quickly), and
that emphasizes preparedness before speaking with the media.
Another recent study on this topic from the health field (Cho
and Cameron, 2007) looked at the organization-media relationship in
terms of five “powers” that public affairs officials believe they have over
the media: power to serve as a source of expertise (“expert power”),
power to provide additional information to reporters they like (“infor-
mation reward power”), and power to withhold information, advertis-
ing, or influence in response to undesirable press behavior. Communi-
cations officers who were personally close to reporters had significantly
greater expert power and information reward power. is suggests that
if officials are not willing to take the time to develop personal relation-
ships with the press, they are less likely to be recognized as experts or
to have collaborative information exchanges with the press.
Delegitimization
Another long-term goal in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency
is to fundamentally delegitimize terrorist or insurgent groups, ideolo-
gies, and behaviors. e difference between this goal and that of “mid-
range” communications (discussed above) is primarily one of scope and
degree; in the long term, strategic communications aims to not merely
change one or two specific attitudes or behaviors but to prompt a wide-
spread, public dialogue over whether terrorism or violent insurgency is
normatively acceptable.
Moral Delegitimization. e most obvious strategy for reducing
the legitimacy of terrorism or insurgency is to cast it as immoral. In
many countries, this effort would require, first of all, the removal or
Social-Science Foundations for Strategic Communications 349
reduction of institutionalized and often religion-based incitements to
violence in the media, in political discourse, and in educational materi-
als. Within the realm of strategic communications, however, methods
have included painting terrorism as inconsistent with the teachings of
Islam (as done through projects such as the “terrorism has no religion”
campaign in the Middle East and the “Islam is peace” campaign in
the United Kingdom); equating terrorism with such global scourges
as slavery and genocide; and promoting the voices of nonviolent moral
and religious authorities.
Recent meta-analyses on the decades-old “hellfire and delin-
quency” line of social-science research has confirmed that religiosity
and moral condemnation are generally associated with lower levels
of criminal behavior (Baier and Wright, 2001; Burkett and Ward,
1993; Higgins and Albrecht, 1976; Johnson et al., 2000), particularly
in actively religious communities (Stark, 1996) and for offenses not
already condemned by all segments of secular society (Burkett and
White, 1974). at is, moral deterrence should be especially useful in
contexts where secular society provides a mixed message on whether
terrorism or insurgency is wrong.
However, the studies above take place in contexts where religion
uniformly comes down on the side of condemning violent acts. Many
if not most populations vulnerable to terrorism and insurgency are
exposed to religious and moral arguments both for and against vio-
lent action. Although it does appear that positive moral messages can
be effective in a noncompetitive communications environment, more
research is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of moral or religious
antiviolence arguments when they compete with moral arguments in
favor of terrorism or insurgency.
Social Delegitimization. Existing social-science theory and
research has more to offer on the strategy of delegitimizing behaviors
by casting them as socially unacceptable. Going beyond the use of peer
spokespersons (discussed above), social-science theory provides a strong
rationale for focusing on the long-term social attractiveness of terror-
ism and insurgency. For instance, the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen
and Fishbein, 1980) views behavioral choices as the product of two
beliefs: whether engaging in the behavior will lead to good or bad out-
350 Social Science for Counterterrorism: Putting the Pieces Together
comes, and whether people important to the individual will approve or
disapprove of the behavior.
In a very similar fashion, reference group theory (Deutsch and
Gerard, 1955) holds that behavior is guided in part by conformity with
a reference group consisting of those important to the individual. is
conformity can manifest itself in two ways: normative, or conforming
to the values of others (for example, that suicide terrorism is wrong);
and informational, or conforming to the group’s factual beliefs. Differ-
ent long-term communication strategies might (1) directly communi-
cate with or develop relationships with reference group members, (2)
strengthen an individual’s positive reference groups, (3) provide indi-
viduals with the knowledge or self-efficacy to seek out new positive
reference groups, or (4) weaken the forces of conformity in an indi-
vidual’s negative reference groups. In general, individuals have been
shown to be less vulnerable to conformity with their reference groups
as the group gets smaller, less cohesive, and less unanimous in opinion
(Fisher and Misovich, 1990).
Moving from theory to on-the-ground reality, it does seem clear
that social context has a potentially important role in battling terrorism
and insurgency. Recently, a military spokesman said of foreign fighters
in Iraq that:
Most of these young men wanted to make an impression, but
paradoxically they did not tell their families they were going off
to Iraq to fight for Al Qaeda out of fear of disapproval (Zavis,
2008).
Social science has studied efforts to harness these social forces
in a variety of contexts. Empirical research has confirmed that both
the real and perceived levels of social acceptance of many problem
behaviors—from homicide and domestic violence to alcohol abuse
and underage smoking—influence whether or not an individual will
initiate the behavior (Archer, 2006; Eisenberg and Forster, 2003;
McAlister, 2006), and that efforts by family members or the media
to communicate social disapproval can be effective in preventing the
behavior (omson et al., 2005; Yanovitzky and Stryker, 2001). One
Social-Science Foundations for Strategic Communications 351
element that might be avoided in these efforts is normative ambiguity
(for example, that terrorism is sometimes acceptable, just not here or
now), which can reduce the effectiveness of a behavior change program
(Yanovitzky and Stryker, 2001).
A promising strategy in conducting social delegitimization for
some of the aforementioned problems has been social norms market-
ing (Perkins, 2002), which directly addresses the perceived acceptance
of a negative behavior by explaining to the audience that the nega-
tive behavior is in fact not as popular or common as might have been
assumed. Such a strategy may be useful in the contexts of terrorism
and insurgency, where some individuals may support or tolerate terror-
ist activity in the mistaken belief that it is widely supported by others
in their community.
In its more aggressive form, long-term influence over social norms
can involve shifting the public image of terrorism to that of a doomed,
pathetic, and deeply shameful act, deserving of scorn and ridicule. A
well-known uses of this approach in communications during the global
war on terrorism was the 2006 release of outtakes from a video message
of Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, showing him unable to fire a machine gun.
is approach is quite distinct from moral or political arguments that
paint terrorism as evil or highlight the pain terrorists have inflicted on
others; certain individuals may be attracted to images of evil power
and destruction, and talk of terrorist “masterminds” and the like may
only romanticize the tactic and further encourage these individuals
to seek out violence. In making this argument, social scientists (Pech,
2003) have highlighted the importance of language, counseling com-
municators discussing terrorism to avoid such words such “assassin”
and “revenge” in favor of such labels as “insecure” and “weak.”
However, in general, the body of public relations research would
seem to offer two caveats to this strategy: (1) that it be undertaken
only in a consistent manner (for example, avoiding the muddled mes-
sage that terrorists are both pathetic and existentially dangerous) and
(2) that it be undertaken only in tandem with efforts to offer a viable
and satisfactory alternative to terrorism and violence. British analysts
in the early Cold War used the rule of thumb that negative messag-
ing failed unless accompanied by at least as much material promot-
352 Social Science for Counterterrorism: Putting the Pieces Together
ing positive alternatives (Shaw, 1999). us, social delegitimization
of terrorism may fail without efforts to promote nonviolence and tol-
erance in its place. Recent experimental research on teaching toler-
ance (Lillis and Hayes, 2007) found that acceptance and commitment
therapy—in which participants explore their own prejudicial thoughts
and emotional responses, accept them as a consequence of learning
from others, and learn to control them—increased positive behavioral
intentions toward other racial and ethnic groups significantly more
than did lecture-based approaches. However, as suggested above, this
issue goes beyond strategic communications and requires politically
difficult choices about fundamental educational reform.
Conclusion
A review of the contributions of social science to strategic communica-
tions provides many useful lessons. Chief among them, as seen else-
where in this paper, is that context matters—a message that effectively
changes attitudes in one setting or population subgroup may have no
effect, or even a counterproductive effect, in a different culture or for
a different demographic. e cross-cultural mistakes in terrorism and
insurgency communications discussed in this paper have primarily
been anecdotal but still serve as valuable warnings. It is common, but
dangerous, to assume that all audiences want the same things, or get
their information the same way, or need to be approached using sim-
plistic language or ideas.
As a result, a second important—but often overlooked—lesson is
that message construction is best left to those with expert knowledge
of a particular audience and its subgroups. is knowledge is not only
important at the front end of a communications campaign—when seg-
menting, researching, and testing messages among audiences—but as
the campaign continues, to nurture local relationships and adapt the
campaign to changing circumstances. Unexpected changes in such
factors as ideological polarization or community anxiety can poison a
campaign, and therefore centralized, intuitively constructed messages
Social-Science Foundations for Strategic Communications 353
will often be inferior to messages based on continuous local monitoring
and rapid adaptation
Despite these gaps and uncertainties, domestic strategic commu-
nications research has identified dozens of extremely useful questions
to answer, such as when and how social disapproval of violence can effec-
tively reduce it. Specific findings may not hold up in other cultures—
for example, perceptual deterrence and religious condemnation of vio-
lence are likely to operate quite differently in many Middle Eastern
cultures—but the existing research provides a useful framework for
exploring these questions abroad.
In addition, many of the communications best practices identi-
fied in the literature should be applicable to, or at the very least adapt-
able to, the problems of terrorism or insurgency. Below, I summarize a
few of the best practices discussed in this paper.
Short-Term Strategic Communications
Plan for communications crises by creating crisis plans, crisis •
teams, and training sessions and by monitoring the media. Plans
should be updated regularly and should be imaginative, anticipat-
ing many different crisis types.
Respond to fact-based crises truthfully, compassionately, and •
quickly. Concession is a generally robust response; there may be a
trade-off between responses that build credibility and those that
minimize interest in the crisis.
Respond to rumor-based crises by not only debunking the partic-•
ular rumor and those who spread it but also by providing general
information and reducing public anxiety on the rumor-relevant
topic.
Mid-Range Strategic Communications
Plan for a communications campaign by defining a theory of •
what the campaign will accomplish, segmenting and researching
the audience, researching the program and media environment,
354 Social Science for Counterterrorism: Putting the Pieces Together
receiving feedback on the campaign, and keeping the community
involved as the campaign proceeds.
Message comprehensibility and authenticity are key common-•
sense factors that are sometimes overlooked.
CT/COIN efforts may benefit by exploring promising commu-•
nications approaches from other policy areas, such as behavioral
inoculation.
Long-Term Strategic Communications
Build relationships with the public, key partners, and the media •
by engaging in proactive early outreach, meaningful involvement,
accountability, flexibility, informality (if possible), and substan-
tive information-sharing.
Delegitimize terrorist violence by revealing it to be inconsistent •
with moral or religious teachings, socially unacceptable, or unat-
tractive. Further research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of
these approaches and others, such as social norms marketing, in
the CT context.
In sum, strategic communications benefits most from detailed
cultural expertise, empirically based adaptations, and a realistic assess-
ment of its strengths and limitations. Ultimately, actions speak louder
than words, and good communications can only partially mitigate the
effects of an unpopular policy or action. Indeed, it is paradoxically
when words are needed the most—during a crisis or when the credibil-
ity of a messenger is on the line—that the effectiveness of mere “spin”
drops even further. Yet if good communications cannot whitewash
CT or COIN policy crises, bad communications can certainly worsen
them; at the very least, therefore, there is clear utility in training com-
munications officers to avoid the mistakes of the past.