Alan Krueger: What Makes a Terrorist?

Alan Krueger on the motivation to become a terrorist:

What makes a terrorist?, Alan B. Krueger, Vox EU: My former classmate Tyler Cowan, in his review of my new book, What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism, said, “My only complaint is that the book does not deliver on its title; it tells me what doesn’t make a terrorist, but I still don’t know what does make a terrorist.” He also wrote that the book was “full of first-rate empirical work” and that it “punctuates many myths about terrorism.” Since I strongly agree with the second part of his comments, I’ll use this space to respond to the first part.

The first thing I could say in my defense is that my publisher suggested the title. I originally planned to call the book, Enlisting Social Science in the War on Terrorism, a rallying call for using and generating evidence in the war on terrorism. But I preferred the pithier title the publisher proposed – as did he. So this is not much of a defense.

The second and more relevant point is that it is easier to take issues off the table than to identify a small set of factors that motivate ordinary citizens to become terrorists. As Cowan said, my book establishes that “poverty does not breed terrorism, once you look at the data.” Furthermore, I show that terrorists are more likely to be drawn from the ranks of the well-educated than they are from the uneducated and illiterate masses. And I find little evidence that terrorism is more prevalent among Muslim nations or nations with low GDP per capita and high infant mortality.

The third point is that these “null” findings say a lot about terrorism itself and the making of terrorists. I have argued (see page 51 of my book, for example) that terrorists are primarily “motivated by geopolitical grievances.” They become fanatics willing to sacrifice innocent civilians (and sometimes themselves) because they fervently wish to pursue a grievance, either real or perceived, and because they view terrorism as their best or only means to pursue that grievance. Another theme of my book is that terrorists are more likely to come from societies that suppress civil liberties and political rights, such as freedom of expression and the right to assemble. This theme is supported by my analysis of data on the country of origin and the country that terrorists target. One interpretation of the cross-country empirical results is that people who grow up in a society with little tradition of peaceful means of protest are more likely to turn to terrorism when they seek to pursue a geopolitical agenda.

In related work, Laurence Iannaccone has argued that there are many diverse reasons why people have grievances. Some are nationalistic, some are territorial, some are religious, some are environmental, and so on. This is probably why poverty, education and the other “usual suspects” do such a poor job predicting participation in terrorism. There is not one standard grievance or one standard profile of a terrorist. Extremists who are willing to sacrifice themselves for some cause probably exist in every large population. For this reason, the supply of terrorists is fairly elastic. Remove one perceived source of grievance, and there are still many others willing to pursue their grievances with violent means. The finite “resource” is the number of terrorist organisations capable of channeling extremists to carry out heinous acts of terrorism. I argue that the best strategy in this type of an environment is to target terrorist organisations, not the supply of would-be terrorists, by degrading their capabilities and by engaging them on their grievances where appropriate.

Terrorism is not just a random, unpredictable act carried out by psychologically disturbed people. The psychologist Arial Merari studied Palestinian terrorists involved in failed attacks and concluded that they were unlikely to be psychologically abnormal. The timing of terrorist attacks suggests that they are often chosen to have maximal impact, both on politics and on the news cycle. This suggests that the terrorist organisations are, in some sense, rationally deploying extremists to pursue their agenda.

What makes a terrorist, then, is someone with a fanatical commitment to pursuing a grievance combined with the perception that there are few alternatives available other than terrorism for pursuing that grievance – and a terrorist organisation or cell willing to deploy a would-be terrorist. This explanation is further developed in my book. Poverty and lack of education – the explanations commonly cited by politicians including George Bush, Al Gore and Tony Blair – play very little, if any, role. In fact, education may have the opposite effect than many people expect because more highly educated people are more likely to become involved politically and are more likely to strongly hold opinions. Increasing educational attainment does many wonderful things for a country and its people, but I do not think the evidence suggests it brings about complete consensus in society. If we are to address terrorism in part though, I argue we should focus more on the content of education, not just educational attainment.

Many people implicitly view terrorism in the same way that economists model crime. People with a low opportunity cost and few legitimate opportunities are predicted to become involved in property crime. This model works well in practice. I argue in my book, however, that a better analogy for terrorism than crime is voting. People who care about issues tend to vote, even though they tend to have a higher opportunity cost of their time than nonvoters. Terrorists and the organisations that dispatch them seek to make a political statement. What makes a terrorist will thus depend on the political grievances that terrorists and their organisations are pursuing and the alternatives for pursing those grievances. This view of terrorism is proposed in my book.

Comments

[RW]

Terrorist organisations are rationally deploying extremists to pursue their agenda and I wouldn't add "in some sense" either but if we set non-pathological or at least non-psychopathic explanations for terrorists-as-individuals aside for a moment, I would be willing to bet that a far stronger correlation could be found between sexual repression and/or sexually repressed societies and terrorism than between other forms of repression (including free speech, etc) and terrorism.

At the risk of appearing overly facile or enamoured of pop-psychology, many 19th Century versions of Islam including Wahhabism (Salafism) make Victorian propriety and hypocrisy look pallid: Humans can adapt to or evade many aspects of society but they can not evade the impact of sexuality particularly when young; not only does it have incredible energy directly attached to it, at least among us randy ape-folk, but it magnifies difference and identity WRT inclusion and exclusion vis-a-vis tribe.

[kashof]

I will admit ahead of time to not having read your book. But I would like to respond to a few things here.

First, the underlying behavior of terrorists really isn't that unusual. It is extreme by degree but not by inclination. I don't know if this link will work http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_TDQVNNP, but it is an Economist article from 2002 entitled "Deviations from the Mean." It talks about research by Ernst Fehr and Simon Gachter and their then forthcoming paper in Human Nature.
"Dr Fehr and his colleagues argue for a behavioural propensity they call “strong reciprocity”. This name is intended to distinguish it from reciprocal altruism. According to Dr Fehr, a person is a strong reciprocator if he is willing to sacrifice resources to be kind to those who are being kind, and to punish those who are being unkind. Significantly, strong reciprocators will behave this way even if doing so provides no prospect of material rewards in the future."
Sounds like terroristic behavior to me, of course their study participants were merely given financial resources to demonstrate their opinions.

Second, because of the barbarous actions of modern terrorists, their motives are often demeaned. As you say "because they fervently wish to pursue a grievance, either real or perceived." This is patronizing and, frankly since you assert that terrorists tend not to be crazy, illogical since why would a smart, well educated individual pursue a perceived slight at such great expense.

Let's look at it another way. There is a common theme to all terrorists. They are well educated, smart individuals whose hopes and dreams are dashed and talent squandered by a society focused on rewarding a specific group of individuals regardless of merit. And because they are smart and educated they recognize that is doesn't have to be that way.
- Osama bin Laden. Nobody gets this guy, and I don't know why, it's not that hard. His family is super wealthy, as wealthy as some in the royal family. But he has to kiss the royal family's rears. I am sure he came across quite a few moronic princes who he had to kowtow too despite their incompetence. That would piss any of us off, and we would all dream of their comeuppance. Osama goes to Afghanistan. Makes quite a bit of money for himself and comes to command something of a personal army and following. Osama figures to himself, I've got the money and the battle hardened military to take down the monarchy and show them that I am more than their equal. But then what happens. Saddam screws up his plans by invading Kuwait. Now the puny, ill equiped Saudi military is backstopped by US forces. What's Osama's first demand, yup, get the infidels out of Saudi Arabia (read: so my army can take down the Saudi military). First, Osama starts with the basic playbook from Lebanon. A couple of bombs at US Middle East installations should get us out. But that doesn't work, so OBL continues to ratchet up the violence scale. In addition, since the US isn't scared by a few bombs, OBL decides to take on the mantle of Islam's savior hoping to turn the entire ME against the US to dislodge our forces.
- American Founding Fathers. I know, blashphemous. Let's go to the quotes, "Give me Liberty or Give me Death" and "Live Free or Die." I don't think those were intended to be passive deaths. Let's not forget the means for massive killing through bombs didn't really exist in those days. We can't for sure say that our founding fathers or at least a few of them might not have used "terrorist" tactics against soldiers and civilian loyalists. What we can say for sure, is that the colonist, especially the wealthy ones, weren't really thrilled with taking orders from landed British gentry who had less land, wealth, and brains than at least a few of America's leading lights.
- Palestinians. How many talented Palestinians have seen their lives ruined by brutal sanctions, arbitrary bulldozing of homes, etc. They no doubt look around the world and see that their lives should and can be better.
Of course, there are many other terrorist groups, but the point is that only the educated truly have the means to see what is being denied them.
You then write "Laurence Iannaccone has argued that there are many diverse reasons why people have grievances. Some are nationalistic, some are territorial, some are religious, some are environmental, and so on." No. There is one reason, see above, but many rationalizations and proposed solutions. Clearly Americans were lucky. We had a group of men who had the right solution to our problems. The Saudis, Palestinians, Columbians, Afghanis, and many others have groups proposing the wrong solutions based on bad rationalizations. Is that unique. No, despite all evidence to the contrary John Edwards is proposing protectionist measures to "make American better off." No society is unique in having would be leaders propose bad solutions.

Finally, your proposed solution is not really going to work. Socializing people to accept their place in life is unlikely to succeed...of course, I would first offer that it is morally/ethically wrong. I think your research would be better focused by controlling for society groupings. I am confident that you would find that terrorists come from educated/wealthy, disenfranchised ethnic/cultural/religious groups who confront meritless barriers to their personal advancement. And I think America's resources would be best left in the pockets of Americans and not given to oppressors: it should be noted that no Xighur terrorists or Kurdish terrorists have attacked Americans, likely because we don't support the people oppressing them like the Chinese, Iranians, and even the Turks.

I'll add one final quote from the Economist article,"This evidence and the findings of public-goods experiments led the anthropologists to conclude that acceptance and rejection were strongly linked to feelings of fairness and reciprocity in addition to material benefits. People reward those who act in a co-operative manner and punish those who do not—even if such behaviour costs them something personally."

[BJ Feng]

"Another theme of my book is that terrorists are more likely to come from societies that suppress civil liberties and political rights, such as freedom of expression and the right to assemble. This theme is supported by my analysis of data on the country of origin and the country that terrorists target. One interpretation of the cross-country empirical results is that people who grow up in a society with little tradition of peaceful means of protest are more likely to turn to terrorism when they seek to pursue a geopolitical agenda."

It would seem to me then, that trying to expand civil liberties including democratic rule, is a legitimate and productive strategy in the war against terror. George Bush had the right strategy in mind, he was just incapable of executing it, but that does not invalidate the strategy. In football, if you see the defense stacked against the run, the proper counter is to pass the ball. If you have an incompetent quarterback, passing could fail miserably, but passing the ball remains the proper strategy.

We have to separate execution from strategy. Clearly the war has not been executed properly, but we have to ask ourselves if the strategy is correct. According to this study, it is.

[gordon]

Thanks, Kashof. I was puzzled by Krueger's reference to "the content of education" until you translated it as "Socializing people to accept their place in life". Now I understand.

[calmo]

Another book I need to read on a topic that needs tons of attention. Hard to argue with this view:What makes a terrorist, then, is someone with a fanatical commitment to pursuing a grievance combined with the perception that there are few alternatives available other than terrorism for pursuing that grievance – and a terrorist organisation or cell willing to deploy a would-be terrorist. This explanation is further developed in my book. Poverty and lack of education – the explanations commonly cited by politicians including George Bush, Al Gore and Tony Blair – play very little, if any, role.

[reason]

BJF...
Clearly the war has not been executed properly, but we have to ask ourselves if the strategy is correct. According to this study, it is.

What makes you think that the tactic of aggressive war is appropriate to the strategy of spreading democracy? Have you a precedent? (Defensive wars don't count).

[reason]

To address Kashof,
I'm not sure that your thesis is that different from Mr Kruegers, apart from its attempt to psychoanalyse the leaders (but as I see it not the even more important followers). But does it explain ETA or the IRA?

[mark ii]

BJF says...

'Clearly the war has not been executed properly, but we have to ask ourselves if the strategy is correct. According to this study, it is.'

By this logic Bush should have invaded Saudi Arabia, or possibly Israel. This is where the terrorist threat to the US originates.

This is not to claim that Iraq was not a repressive regime, but so is China, Russia, Zimbabwe, Sudan. All of these have, or potentially have, terrorist problems none of which effect the US.

Bring on the 'they were going to bomb us with balsa wood model aeroplanes/nuke us with nonexistent yellow cake from Nigeria/made from aluminium tubes not fit for the job/in facilities reported by the IAEA to be defunct' chorus.

[Farrar Richardson]

OK, Democratisation is the ultimate solution to terrorism. BUT, problem is progress toward democracy tends to DEstailize in the short term. Also, progress toward democracy is slow for those who have not had much experience with it. Finally, democratic government will certainly take time to eliminate injustices, e.g. special interests, external interference. Look at the USA - we still haven't managed it.

Take Iran, for example. It can be argued that the Islamic Republic is "more democratic" than the regime of the Shah, but this new Iran is also destabilizing the region - at least from the viewpoint of us "western imperialists". Also Algeria - a few years ago, the govt decided to cancel a first attempt at democratic elections, because the Islamic party was winning. The result was years of renewed dictatorship and terrorism.

Bush should have realized that democracy would be destabilising in the shart term.. He probably did. The two problems with his crusade for democracy -
1. there was no substance to it. It was simply an ex post facto rationalisation for the Iraq invasion.
2. he confuses democracy and capitalism, the first goal of "shock and awe" reconstruction in Iraq was the destruction of the existing economic system and installation of unbridled free enterprise.

To my mind the essential constructive role the USA can play is simply to get out of the way, to quit interfering in other countries, withdraw all forces from the Middle East, lead by example, work collectively to remove international injustices (eg Palestine) and let democratisation take its own course, developing in ways suited to the country or region.

[Chris]

"Terrorism" is not a unity phenomenon. It is simply a method used in battling for a certain goal. For all purposes the US is concerned exclusively with Islamic terrorism. That is dedicated to de-colonizing the Muslim world, to simply getting the WEST out of Muslim lands and its operators to stop intervening in the affairs of Muslim nations. The US has never paid much attention or reacted to Irish terrorism or Basque terrorism or other manifestations of "terrorism." Muslim terrorism is directed at the US, to the extent that it can do so, because of our support of Israel, seen as a neo-colonial construct that has seized Muslim territory. And bin Laden attacked the US for putting its army into Arabia at the behest of its US protected puppet government. A U of Chicago professor whose name I now forget did an exhaustive study of suicide bombings and found that all without exception were motivated by trying to get an invader out of land that was considered not his. It is a canard, I think, to say democracy is the solution. The solution in the case of the US is for us to get out of territory that does not belong to us and where we have no right to be. In short for the US to stop its imperialistic and neo-colonial ways that it appears to have copied from the British and the French empires rather soon after working to dismantle them.

[real person from the real world]

The Internet which was to bring people together into one global village, has done nothing more than to facilitate the bringing together of like-minded hate groups which once might have died out, due to the in-ability to group. Yet, legal assembly was one of America's "rights." Certainly most of the terrorists masterminds at least, are well educated. But the madrassas of Pakistan turn out young fodder for suicide attacks. In an era of where science has done amazing things like decode the human genome, and where evolution is proved, religious fundamentalism has become a driving force. The "melting pot" we used to be proud of, is now discouraged as we urge people to celebrate their tribal roots. Meanwhile, fractionalism is used to cut costs: contractors everywhere you look. Privitization, individualism, and you are on your own responsibility are the buzz words of the day while we reorganize ourselves into class stratas based on income. This world is a mess.

[calmo]

The Internet which was to bring people together into one global village, has done nothing more than to facilitate the bringing together of like-minded hate groups which once might have died out, due to the in-ability to group.I wonder which hate group 'real person' belongs to. And whether it is dying out or spreading like the plague. Can I sign up or resign...to test this view?
You need to regroup (you fledgling members of hate groups) and feel my pain in being hated...and the joy of hating, high blood pressure and foaming at the mouth.
You do.
Or would you say that privacy might be more of an issue or complicity (Google in China)?

[Farrar Richardson]

Chris -

I agree entirely, noting, however, that many Muslims are so radicalized against the West and particularly the USA, that even an abrupt withdrawal from imperialism would not immediately end the risk of terrorist attacks.

I am not saying that the 9/11 attacks and similar attacks were justified, only that the reasons are understandable, and that pursuit of the policies that may have provoked these attacks are not in the best interests of the USA.

[Brock]

Odd that Krueger would misspell the name of his former classmate twice in his article.

[oops]

i saw the following book at the airport and hope to get around to reading it and krueger's:

Rage of the Random Actor: Disarming Catastrophic Acts And Restoring Lives- by Dan Korem

can't help but wonder whether there isn't also a lot to be gleaned through psycology.

for those posts that think it is somehow simple to just get out of the middle east keep the regional security arangements in mind.

the u.s. is basically a security guarantor for many regimes there. these regimes keep their armies smaller than they would normally need to be to repel would be invaders (you need an army at least half that of the army invading you by conventional wisdom). they keep their armies small because it also provides internal security for the regime (coups are hard to pull off because because the guarantor can come in and easily defeat them in order to restore the regime).

simply bringing all troops home and ending the current security regime in the region would destabilize it as well as appease the extremists. a better approach is is to tie increased rights and opportunity to our continued security guarantees.

[romath]

It sounds like Alan Kreuger's findings are pretty much an elaboration in his terms of what Lenin wrote about the subject close to 100 years ago.

[BJ Feng]

Oops, your analysis is a very good one.

Let me add that those who "understand" Muslim extremist groups should focus their critical eye and ask if these perceptions are valid or not. Why is it reasonable for these extremists to want us out of their lands, but I were to want Muslims out of America, that would be seen as unreasonable, no? And yes, we have a military and political interest in the Middle East, but these regimes are not propped up by America. That is they are perfectly capable of standing on their own, and if we were to leave, they might have to use harsher tactics to suppress their own people, but that's never stopped them before.

We've given billions in aid to Egypt, but that country does not need our money to effectively control the Muslim Brotherhood. If we were to completely cut off all contact with Egypt, they would still be able to control and imprison Muslim Brotherhood members. We are not a party to that kind of behavior. Just because we do business in countries and give some small amount of aid does not mean we support all of their tactics. We give aid to plenty of African countries that have horrible human rights records. To say that this aid is to spread American Imperialism is ridiculous.

Regardless, the fact remains that the world would be a better place under the American system. If we really were an imperialist nation, don't you think we would have been more successful at shaping the Middle East to our style of government and capitalism? As the world's only superpower, it is impossible for us to disengage from entire regions as plenty of UN and world policy must be approved by us before it can be implemented. It is just not possible for us to disengage and then wipe our hands clean. We will be blamed for ignoring a region--we will be blamed regardless. To link our involvement in the world with imperialism is foolish. We have to be involved due to our standing in the world. Just because we are involved does not mean we are imperialistic.

[kthomas]

BJ, seriously....

look at this quote: "Why is it reasonable for these extremists to want us out of their lands, but I were to want Muslims out of America, that would be seen as unreasonable, no?".....what?

You seem like an articulate fellow, but where social issues are concerned, you are as obtuse as I have ever seen.

here's another one: "We've given billions in aid to Egypt, but that country does not need our money to effectively control the Muslim Brotherhood." Oh really? I've got no problem with not sending money to Egypt. But without US aid, Egypt would fall. Make not mistake. There;s tremendous poverty and corruption in Egypt. The only thing that keeps the old General in power (BTW, his name is Hosni) is US $$$.

BJ....the world is not flat, nor does the sun rise in the West.

[oops]

BJ-

perhaps i should have said "the middle east" instead of "the region" and used the saudis as an example (kuwait works as well).

in the saudi regime power is divided up among the royal family. the part of the family that controls the military has quite the advantage over the others and were they to have a military large enough could oust the rest of the family and control all.

the king balances power internally by keeping that army too small to do so and thus a guarator is needed. the sunni saudis (and kuwaitis) do not have armies capable of withstanding a shia iran attack and they are historical enemies with common borders.

this arangement reportedly dates back to fdr. we guarantee security-they priced oil in dollars and bought left side steering wheel cars among other things- or so the story goes.

were we to withdraw from this role there is nothing to say that the royal families of saudi arabia and kuwait would then fend for themselves. it is quite likely that they would seek the same guarantee from someone else. they just prefer the u.s.

were we to leave there would likely be quite a bit more war in the region (google charlie rose kissenger scowcroft for a nice video discussion of this) because no one invades a country that we guarantee security for these days. the sovs never crossed into nato land in europe nor did they do so in japan (whom they've hated historically). the chinese didn't do japan either. ditto for taiwan.

i'd be careful of egypt as your example since they obtained a military perfectly capable of defending their borders (and pretty good airpower as i understand) at our behest when they made peace with israel.

if reports are true of bin laden going to the saudi king after saddam invaded kuwait and saying let me fight him with my afghans and jihadists, then i'm perfectly happy they relied on the presence of their historical guarantor instead.

you can say we get too agressive from time to time but i'm pretty convinced that by and large our exporting of security results in much less war worldwide. but as i said earlier we need to step up the push for more freedom for the locals. our guarantee shouldn't be taken as a license to oppress. that's why the hijakers came from saudi arabia.

[Meh]

What is it with Homo Oeconomicus and terrorism? Why is he so desperate to misunderstand the role of poverty in terrorism, so anxious to write it out of the picture?

I'm sure you can answer that for yourselves.

However, the Kreuger/Cowen point is just the usual attacking of a strawman. The vital contribution of poverty is to create a community where the money and/or ideals of the terrorist can find a ready reception, thus giving the terrorist a safe harbour to do his training/planning etc.

There are remarkably few exceptions to this, if one is prepared to study the data. But, it seem that kind of data is less interesting to Homo Oeconomicus...

[Denis Drew]

One caveat: if there were no poor or undereducated Muslim nations, then -- absent Israel's crazy settling in the Palestinian homeland -- there probably wouldn't be any substantial Islamic terrorism. IOW, it wouldn't hurt if they had nothing real to complain about. Osama may be willing to kill over infidel warriors based in the holy land but who would he get to go with him on that basis alone.

[BJ Feng]

"you can say we get too agressive from time to time but i'm pretty convinced that by and large our exporting of security results in much less war worldwide. but as i said earlier we need to step up the push for more freedom for the locals. our guarantee shouldn't be taken as a license to oppress. that's why the hijakers came from saudi arabia."

An incredibly sensible post Oops, and one that everyone on this board should read.

Denis Drew - don't be so sure. Radical Muslims have explicitly stated that the establishment of a worldwide Caliph is one of their major goals. They've stated that this goal is probably not attainable in their lifetime, but the struggle will go on until it is so, one step at a time. The first step is to create "space", both physical and social, where they can gather their forces, train new armies, and expand their doctrine. Radical Muslims will always be able to come up with new excuses that can fool the bleeding-heart leftist masses who hate America anyway, but the establishment of the Caliphate is one of their major goals, and that cannot happen without fighting us, regardless of what we do to appease them.