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Summary xlix
uncomfortable. Intellectually, scholars are uncomfortable highlighting
religion because they see it as a mere subset of ideology (or, at least, as
heavily overlapping with ideology). ey know well the many instances
throughout history in which terrorism has been driven by motivations
having nothing to do with religion. A second reason is that the short-
hand of referring to religionis troublesome because religions can be
powerful agents of either the positive or the negative. Other reasons
come into play as well. Social-science terrorism literature tends not to draw
on the religious-studies literature, especially the relevant Islamic litera-
ture. is is a straightforward shortcoming but a rather dramatic one.
is said, the issue of religion arises in numerous places through-
out our monograph, albeit in a muted way. Noricks notes that religion
can contribute to a “facilitative norm for the use of violence,especially
when people see external threats with sacred meaning. Helmus notes
that religion contributes to individual-level radicalization, perception
of rewards, and a passion for change. Paul notes that religion can be
used as a tool of validation for terrorist organizations garnering public
support (and as an important part of developing a common identity).
However, Berrebi observes that religion correlates poorly with terror-
ist violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. at, arguably, demon-
strates how context matters and can be more subtle than is sometimes
appreciated.
Some of the conclusions that we draw are as follows:
Militant religion sometimes matters a great deal and sometimes •
not at all.
Level of analysis matters (for example, leaders may be more •
affected by religious extremism than the foot soldier).
e effects of religion may be originalor subsequent, as when •
not-particularly religious young males join a terrorist organiza-
tion and then—as part of bonding and indoctrination—adopt
the religious trappings of the overall story.
Because the role of religion differs so much, both policy and on-•
the-ground activities, such as counterradicalization and deradi-
calization activities, should be locally tailored rather than dictated
by generalizations.
l Social Science for Counterterrorism: Putting the Pieces Together
Conclusions
Some overarching principles proved valuable in establishing our
approach and making sense of results:
Many factors contribute to terrorism phenomena and it is coun-•
terproductive to argue about the” key factor: An interdisciplinary
system approach should instead inform thinking from the outset.
Existing social science identifies many relevant factors, but a mul-•
tiresolution analytic approach is needed to make that information
coherent.
e answer to “Which factor matters most?” is, in most cases “It •
depends.Centrality of context is a rst principle and establish-
ing context should be the first order of business in organizing
thought. e issues of the Taliban in Pakistan are simply not very
comparable to those of the Irish Republican Army or to those of
Hizballah and Hamas in Palestine, or even to the current activi-
ties in Baghdad.
A combination of logical thinking and empiricism that draws on •
the social-science base allows us to go well beyond the dismis-
sive “It depends,characterizing the circumstances in which one
or a combination of particular factors is likely to dominate. is
amounts to systematizing what experts already do inside their
minds. Distinguishing such cases can go far toward explaining
or resolving apparent contradictions or heated disputes in social
science.
In social science, it is seldom possible to make strong predictions: •
Many key facts are not known and random factorsintrude. A
better aspiration is to improve the odds” of correct diagnosis and
prescription and to lay the groundwork for rapid adaptations in
response to more information, including that from experience at
the time. He who bets the farmon the predictions of a model
purporting to be based on social science is likely to lose that
farm—if not the first time, then the second or third.
Summary li
Overall, a good deal of structure and coherence can be found
in the existing base of social science for terrorism and counterterror-
ism. Gaps exist in our understanding of the “It depends” contexts that
might provide better guidance to policymakers. And many of these “It
dependscontexts, such as al-Qaedas decisionmaking and the prioriti-
zation of Afghanistan or Iraq, have significant implications in the near-
to mid-term. Several nettlesome issues, such as the relative importance
of supply versus demand, need further research and analysis. Even
beyond the call for more and better data (and reanalysis exploiting
improved distinctions among cases), much remains to be done in going
beyond the “factor tree” descriptions and developing tighter and more
analytic subject-area by subject-area (module-by-module) characteriza-
tions. Doing so will require a combination of theory-informed and
data-driven research, as well as the systematic collection and dissemi-
nation of empirical data to researchers.
liii
Acknowledgments
is monograph benefited from comments and reviews by Bruce Hoff-
man (Georgetown University and RAND consultant), Eli Berman
(University of California, San Diego), Martha Crenshaw (Stanford
University), Douglas McAdam (Stanford University), John Horgan
(University of Pennsylvania), Brian Jenkins (RAND consultant),
Steve Simon (Council on Foreign Relations), Mark Stout (Institute for
Defense Analyses), and Ben Wise (RAND). We also beneted from
seminar discussions with many of our RAND colleagues at the outset
of work as we developed our plan of approach. eir comments were
greatly appreciated, butas always—the authors are solely responsible
for the final manuscript.
1
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
Paul K. Davis and Kim Cragin
Background
The Challenge Posed
U.S. defense planning has been changing dramatically in an effort to
adapt to new threats and realities. e Department of Defense (DoD)
has changed its strategic emphasis (Rumsfeld, 2006; Gates, 2009) and,
as part of that, has put a priority on improving the usefulness and qual-
ity of its analysis of the overlapping subjects of irregular warfare, coun-
terterrorism, and counterinsurgency. Doing so is challenging because
the phenomena at issue are so different from those relevant to analyzing
weapon systems or military forces in major combat. Analysis requires
addressing issues in multiple dimensions.
1
Most of the dimensions deal
with social-science phenomena, rather than, say, the physics of precision
weapons or global navigation. ey involve people, whether individu-
als, groups, organizations, interactions, or processes.
is distinct feature of the new analytic challenge led DoD to ask
RAND for a critical survey of what is known from social science that
should be reflected in analysis and supporting models of social-science
phenomena in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. Further, DoD
specifically wanted the study to focus on the academic and otherwise
scholarly literature and to address issues relevant to national counter-
terrorism strategy.
2 Social Science for Counterterrorism: Putting the Pieces Together
Approach
Challenge and Objectives
e challenge we faced was considerable, for reasons worth recounting
here. First, the relevant social-science literature is highly fragmented in
at least four ways: by academic discipline, by the divide between theory
and empiricism, by methodological approach, and by level of analy-
sis.
2
Second, much of the research is reported in what might be called
model-hostile terms. at is, the research may provide interesting and
important facts but not help someone who seeks to reason about ter-
rorism and counterterrorism in cause-effect terms, or to extrapolate the
insights from research in one area in establishing strategy for another.
To illustrate the challenge, consider that we were initially asked
to address questions such as (1) What are the relationships between
political reform and terrorism? (2) What are the relationships between
economic opportunity and terrorism? (3) What social and cultural fac-
tors are important in terrorist recruiting? (4) What psychological fac-
tors and influences affect terrorism? and (5) What are the relationships
between Muslim public opinion and al-Qaeda activities? ese are
all excellent questions and might have formed the basis for structur-
ing our research. However, it was foreseeable that the answer to each
such question would be It depends.Such a conclusion would not be
very useful but would be inevitable because the questions themselves
are discipline-bound, which is a problem because in almost all cases
multiple factors are at play.
3
We needed to be able to put the pieces
together” and go beyond “It depends.
e approach we settled on, then, would have a number of objec-
tives: (1) providing a system perspective allowing discussion of either
parts or the whole; (2) capturing the insights of scholars working at dif-
ferent levels of analysis, from different disciplinary and methodologi-
cal perspectives, and with different mixes of theory and empiricism;
and (3) being able to communicate our results to people from diverse
backgrounds.
Introduction 3
Organizing Questions
As a practical matter, it was important to choose the questions on which
to focus. We found that we could accomplish our goals reasonably by
organizing around the questions in Table 1.1. Some of the questions (1,
2, 3, 5, and 6) relate to the life-cycle stages of a terrorist organization:
its genesis, growth, and decline. Some relate to the individual level of
analysis (2 and 6) and some to the group level (3 and 5). Question 4
asks about the decisionmaking and behavior of terrorist organizations.
All of the questions have implications for counterterrorism, but Ques-
tion 7 addresses a particularly cross-cutting counterterrorism issue on
which social science has something to say. More questions could always
be added (and we will note some along the way), but—taken together—
addressing these questions would cover a great deal of ground.
Scope and Character of Inquiry
Definitions
Each of the organizing questions in Table 1.1 presupposes an under-
standing of what constitutes terrorism, but a myriad of definitions exist
and the scope of our inquiry would depend on the definition that we
Table 1.1
Organizing Questions
When and why does terrorism arise (that is, what are the “root causes”)?
Why and how do some individuals become terrorists and others not?
How do terrorist organizations generate and sustain support?
What determines terrorist organizations’ decisions and behaviors? What
are the roles of, for example, ideology, religion, and rational choice?
How and why does terrorism decline?
Why do individuals disengage or deradicalize?
How can “strategic communications” be more or less effective?
4 Social Science for Counterterrorism: Putting the Pieces Together
adopted. To maximize the range of literatures we would tap, we used
the most fundamental definition of terrorism:
Terrorism is the use or threatened use of violence for the purpose of
inducing terror.
Under this definition, terrorism is a tactic or strategy—one that can
be employed by a state as well as by substate, nonstate, or individual
actors. Research on such terrorism occurs in numerous literatures on
political violence—literatures dealing with, for example, insurgency,
rebellion, civil wars, and urban gangs. We wanted to be able to draw
on all of them.
Although casting our research net broadly, our ultimate interest
was the kind of terrorism most troubling to the United States today—
that of subnational or nonstate actors. e usual characteristics of that-
type of terrorism include (Hoffman, 1998) (1) the existence of a terror-
ist organization with a chain of command or cell structure, (2) threats
or acts of violence against noncombatants, (3) intended repercussions
beyond immediate targets, and (4) pursuit of political goals. is subset
of terrorism activity is what governments and readers ordinarily have
in mind when referring to terrorism. It excludes state-supported terror-
ism, which is addressed by the laws of war, international condemnation
of repression, and other activities outside what is usually considered to
be counterterrorism.
Disciplinary Scope
e organizing questions in Table 1.1 are such that we would take an
aggressively interdisciplinary approach, rather than, for example, view-
ing the issues through alternative disciplinary lenses and then juxtapos-
ing the results.
4
In doing so, we would draw on the traditional social-
science disciplines and their subfields, but also on such cross-cutting
fields as terrorism studies, criminology, organization theory, and policy
analysis (Table 1.2).