Quantifying and Qualifying Charisma: A Theoretical Framework for Measuring the Presence of Charismatic Authority in Terrorist Groups

In the past four decades, there has been increased multidisciplinary scholarly interest in the study of charismatic authority. However, there has yet to be any systematic examination of charismatic authority in the context of terrorism, despite widespread acknowledgment of the importance of charismatic leaders in the recruitment, radicalization, and operation of terrorist groups. This article seeks to contribute to future empirical research by presenting a theoretical framework for measuring the presence of charismatic authority in terrorist groups that is based on Max Weber's seminal work on legitimate domination (herrschaft) and on theoretical insights drawn from the study of charismatic authority in new religious movements. The framework is then applied to an illustrative case study of the relationship between charismatic authority and the radicalization process within the far-right terrorist group “the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord.” The article concludes with a discussion of findings and suggestions for future research.     

Violent Radicalization in Europe: What We Know and What We Do Not Know

When, why, and how do people living in a democracy become radicalized to the point of being willing to use or directly support the use of terrorist violence against fellow citizens? This question has been at the center of academic and public debate over the past years as terrorist attacks and foiled plots inspired by militant Islamism have grabbed European and American headlines. This article identifies and discusses empirical studies of radicalization and points to the strengths as well as the weaknesses characterizing these studies. The aim is to take stock of the current state of research within this field and to answer the question: From an empirical point of view, what is known and what is not known about radicalization connected to militant Islamism in Europe?     

Toward a Behavioral Model of “Homegrown” Radicalization Trajectories

This research note presents a dynamic risk assessment model of homegrown terrorists. The model was tested in a study of convicted “homegrown” American terrorism offenders inspired by Al Qaeda's ideology. The New York Police Department model developed by Silber and Bhatt was chosen as the basis for creating a typology of overt and detectable indicators of individual behaviors widely thought to be associated with extremism. Twenty-four specific cues associated with each stage of radicalization were used to code and estimate the sequencing of behaviors and the duration of the average radicalization trajectory. Sixty-eight cases have been analyzed thus far. A decision was made to publish the initial results when it became apparent that the model was an effective tool for the evaluation of terrorist offenders.     

Charismatic political authority and populist economics in post-revolutionary Iran

This paper undertakes a political analysis of economic policy in Iran in the post-1979 period, and examines a specific kind of populist economics within the legacy of the rentier state as a result of the emergence of charismatic political authority. It discusses the implications of charismatic authority which led to the implementation of populist economics, and which coincided with economic and political instability during the reign of Ayatollah Khumaini and afterwards when his successor was involved in a crisis of routinisation of charismatic legitimacy. In doing so, the economic effects of such policies are examined in terms of the (re)distribution of income and the establishment of para-governmental organisations, the overvaluation of the national currency, and the budget deficit and its inflationary pressure.     

Challenges for Effective Counterterrorism Communication: Practitioner Insights and Policy Implications for Preventing Radicalization,Disrupting Attack Planning,and Mitigating Terrorist Attacks

Growing concerns about small-scale, low sophistication terrorist attacks, and the difficulties they present for security services, make public coproduction of security increasingly necessary. Communication to ensure that the public(s) is aware of the role they can play will be central to this. This article, based on interviews with thirty expert practitioners, explores challenges associated with communication designed to prevent radicalization, interdict attack planning and mitigate the impacts of a terrorist attack in the United Kingdom and Denmark. The interplay between these challenges and the contemporary terrorist context are analyzed, highlighting that new, or adapted, communications and approaches may be necessary.     

What Role Have Former ETA Terrorists Played in Counterterrorism and Counterradicalization Initiatives in Spain?

This article responds to the following research question: what role have former Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) members played in counterterrorism and counterradicalization initiatives vis-à-vis the terror group in Spain? Our analysis of the role played by former ETA members so far demonstrates that only a minority of former ETA terrorists have disengaged from the terrorist organization and at the same time voiced some criticism of their past violent activities. Such a step, although a positive one, is part of a process that in most of the cases analyzed has to be deemed as incomplete due to deficits, some of them very significant, which considerably limit their effectiveness in countering terrorism and radicalization.     

The E-Marketing Strategy of Hamas

Operations to counterterrorism in the southern Philippines have resulted in the arrest and incarceration of a significant number of key militants. As a result, the Philippine government has expressed concern that these inmates may radicalize others and continue to operate while incarcerated. As a preventive measure, the government has considered a number of “soft” counterstrategies, including the development of a de-radicalization program. To study the feasibility of running such a program in the Philippine corrective system, this article examines two interrelated areas of enquiry concerning how terrorist inmates are housed and whether prison gangs foster or discourage radicalization in the Philippine prison system. Initial findings suggest that the integration of terrorist inmates with prison gangs may temporarily encourage disengagement and set the foundations for de-radicalization. However, without a specifically designed intervention strategy, the terrorist inmates may revert to militancy once they have returned to their original social settings.     

An Ethnographic Study on the Indonesian Immigrant Community and its Islamic Radicalization in South Korea

Contrary to popular belief, South Korea is not immune from the growth of Islamic radicalism. Although no serious terrorist attack has yet occurred within the country, some worrisome incidents have been reported. Recently, an Indonesian man was arrested on the grounds that he publicly supported the Al Nusra Front, a known Al Qaeda–affiliated terrorist organization, and even attempted to depart for Syria to join the organization. The current study is a response to such an incident. It investigates whether such an incident is an isolated exception or a harbinger of the Islamic radicalization process within South Korea, particularly within the Muslim immigrant community. The current study focuses primarily on the Indonesian immigrant community within South Korea but also investigates other Muslim communities when needed, as Muslim immigrant communities are often intermingled and share similar features. The study found some worrisome developments of Islamic radicalization within the Indonesian immigrant community in particular and the Muslim immigrant community in general. Using the enculturation stress model, the current study explains that such Islamic radicalization is a pathway of the collective response to cultural adaptation stress that most Indonesian and other Muslim immigrants face within South Korea. To conduct the study, ethnographic qualitative interviews were used. Indonesian immigrants, their Korean spouses, civilian activists, civilian aid workers, government officials, police officers, immigrant agency officials, and security officials were contacted and interviewed. Each interview lasted between approximately one and four hours. The limitations of the study are also discussed.     

Interviews With Canadian Radicals

Based on in-depth interviews with seven Canadian radicals in 2011, this article provides a detailed and nuanced insight into these men's personal journeys into, and in some cases, exit from, the world of radical Islam. Reflecting on their motivation, emotions, and decision-making processes, these men's stories demonstrate that the radicalization experience is anything but straightforward in the sense of there being a single and unambiguous motivation that spurs individuals on. Rather, they reveal that they were drawn to, and remained involved with, the world of extremism for a variety of reasons, not all of which necessarily related to the existence of grievances, real or imagined. Moreover, the relative importance of these drivers appeared to be in a state of flux, depending on an individual's needs or circumstances at any given time. Indeed, the highly idiosyncratic and temporally specific nature of the radicalization process, as demonstrated by these men's accounts, does not bode well for government and law enforcement efforts to anticipate specific cases of radicalization.     

The Current State of Japanese Research on the History of Chinese Women (1900-1949)

Abstract

Based on recently available new evidence, this study revisits the Gao Gang affair in the early 1950s, with an emphasis on Mao's role in manipulating elite politics as a way of strengthening his charismatic leadership. The CCP elite politics in the early 1950s were in essence "court politics" centered on and manipulated by Mao. Afraid of being sidelined by Beijing's "managerial elite" in economic reconstruction, Mao promoted Gao and other regional leaders, while stripping powers from Liu, Zhou, and their associates. By the end of 1953, Mao started to suspect Gao's loyalty and Gao's promotion backfired. Mao quickly abandoned Gao and isolated him, Gao's downfall was as quick and sudden as his rise. Mao's chief concern was none other than the enhancement and strengthening of the belief in his infallibility, which was the foundation of his charismatic authority.     

Examining the Role of Religion in Radicalization to Violent Islamist Extremism

In this article, the authors apply the four-phase radicalization model proposed by Silber and Bhatt ¹ 1. M. Silber and A. Bhatt, Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat (New York: New York City Police Department, 2007). Available at http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/public_information/NYPD_Report-Radicalization_in_the_West.pdf (accessed 19 December 2011). to a case study of Australia's first convicted terrorist, Jack Roche, based on communication with Roche after his incarceration and on a qualitative analysis of his trial. In doing so, they examine the validity of the four-phase model to a case of “home grown” terrorism and dissect the role of religion in the radicalization process. To conclude, the authors find that religion plays a far lesser role in radicalization toward violent extremism than the policy response contends and this has implications for counterterrorism programs that aim to address the drivers of violent extremism.     

Transformative Radicalization: Applying Learning Theory to Islamist Radicalization

While a consensus has emerged concerning the role radicalization plays in persuading Westerners to participate in terrorism, little research investigates the cognitive processes inherent to radicalization processes. Transformative learning theory, developed from the sciences in education and rehabilitation, offers an interdisciplinary lens with which to study the processes of personal change associated with radicalization. Transformative radicalization explains how triggering factors lead to critical reflection of meaning perspectives and personal belief systems that guide and alter behavior. Using an autobiographical account of the radicalization process, this study offers a plausibility probe of an inherently interdisciplinary and novel theoretical framework.     

Draining the Swamp: Democracy Promotion,State Failure,and Terrorism in 19 Middle Eastern Countries

This study empirically evaluates the question of whether or not the promotion of democracy in the Middle East will reduce terrorism, both in terms of terrorist attacks sustained by Middle Eastern countries and in terms of attacks perpetrated by terrorist groups based in Middle Eastern countries. Using a series of pooled, time-series negative binomial statistical regression models on 19 countries from 1972 to 2003 the analysis demonstrates that the more politically liberal Middle Eastern states—measured both in terms of democratic processes and in terms of civil liberties protections—are actually more prone to terrorist activity than are Middle Eastern dictatorships. The study demonstrates, furthermore, that an even more significant predictor of Middle Eastern terrorist attacks is the intensity of state failures, or episodes of severe political instability that limit central government projection of domestic authority, suffered by states in the region. States that are unable to respond to fundamental challenges to political stability posed by internal political strife, ethnic conflict or the phenomenon of “stateless areas,” geographic or political spaces within states that eschew central government authority, are significantly more likely to host or sustain attacks from terrorist groups. The findings have implications for current United States antiterrorism policy toward the Middle East and provide a statistical/empirical foundation to previous studies on the relationship between terrorism and state failure.     

Radicalization of Homegrown Sunni Militants in the United States: Comparing Converts and Non-Converts

Are the mechanisms and processes that lead to radicalization different for Muslim converts and non-converts in the United States? While many scholars attempt to explain why people violently radicalize, the theories are diverse and most treat converts and non-converts the same. This study answers this question by categorizing the many radicalization theories into three levels of analysis so that cases of radicalization can be analyzed across and within disciplines. Out of 83 cases studies, individual-level factors are more prevalent among converts than non-converts. Group-level processes similarly affect both groups. Mass-level mechanisms are not significant factors in radicalization.     

Coercive Radicalization: Charismatic Authority and the Internal Strategies of ISIS and the Lord's Resistance Army

A framework for understanding Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)'s apocalyptic theology as an internal strategy to “coercively radicalize” its captive subjects is presented, by comparison to the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which shares key stages of captive indoctrination with ISIS. A violent experience of “entry,” religious rules learned in an “assimilation” process, and millenarian “grand narratives” framing violence as purification, are examined. These stages construct an image of group leaders as divinely endowed with spiritual knowledge and access (i.e., charismatic authority). This can create a sense of dependency on the leaders and their instructions, potentially motivating violent and altruistic behavior from initially unwilling subjects.     

Jamaican political processes: A system in search of a paradigm

This paper critically examines the explanations for the remarkable stability in the Jamaican socio‐political system provided by conflict pluralist, charismatic authority, dependency and patron‐client approaches. A variation of the patron‐client approach involving three interrelated levels (one external and two internal) is proposed as an alternative conceptual framework. The usefulness of the approach is demonstrated in an analysis of the defeat of the Manley government in the 1980 elections. Attention is drawn to the dynamic interrelationship between internal and external forces, and it is suggested that electoral behaviour during the 1980 elections was largely dictated by existing patron‐client relations.     

What Terrorist Leaders Want: A Content Analysis of Terrorist Propaganda Videos

In recent years, a growing body of empirical research suggests that indiscriminate violence against civilian targets tends to carry substantial political risks compared to more selective violence against military targets. To better understand why terrorist groups sometimes attack politically suboptimal targets, scholars are increasingly adopting a principal-agent framework where the leaders of terrorist groups are understood as principals and lower level members as agents. According to this framework, terrorist leaders are thought to behave as essentially rational political actors, whereas lower level members are believed to harbor stronger non-political incentives for harming civilians, often in defiance of leadership preferences. We test this proposition with an original content analysis of terrorist propaganda videos. Consistent with the principal–agent framework, our analysis demonstrates statistically that terrorist leaders tend to favor significantly less indiscriminate violence than their operatives actually commit, providing unprecedented insight into the incentive structure of terrorist leaders relative to the rank-and-file.     

Transitional Journeys Into and Out of Extremism. A Biographical Approach

This article describes an empirical study into processes of homegrown radicalization and de-radicalization of young people. Researchers in Denmark and the Netherlands set out to answer the question regarding what pathways in and out of extremism (mainly far-right or Islamist) look like “from the inside.” The analysis is informed by grounded theory, based on interviews (N = 34) with “formers” and their family members on their life courses. The study shows that radicalization often concurs with distinct social–emotional developmental challenges that young people face in the transition between youth and adulthood. A practical implication of the marked transitional sequences in these processes is that each type of radical journey may call for a different type of (re)action.     

The predictability of international terrorism: A time‐series analysis

Abstract

The study examines the predictability of international terrorism in terms of the existence of trends, seasonality, and periodicity of terrorist events. The data base used was the RAND Corporation's Chronology of International Terrorism. It contains the attributes of every case of international terrorism from 1968 to 1986 (n = 5,589). The authors applied Box‐Jenkins models for a time‐series analysis of the occurrence of terrorist events as well as their victimization rates. The analysis revealed that occurrence of terrorist events is far from being random: There is a clear trend and an almost constant periodicity of one month that can be best described by a first‐order moving average model. The fit of this model was tested both by statistical diagnostics and the accuracy of predictions based on this model compared to actual occurrence. However, the series of victimization rates did not reveal any predictability aside from the overall trend of an increasing level of victimization. The findings of the study are discussed by two approaches: the contagiousness of terrorism and the concept of media‐oriented terrorism. These two concepts, separately or combined, may explain some of the patterns revealed in the occurrence of terrorist events. However, they both highlight the part played by the mass media, either as a target for publicity‐seeking terrorists or as an influential factor in the process of contagion.