This article offers the first systematic analysis of cross-generational and cross-organizational aspects of jihadist foreign fighter (JFF) mobilization. How are individuals fighting in Syria different from foreign fighters who fought in the previous jihadist wars? What factors distinguish the Islamic State (IS) fighters from individuals joining other jihadist groups in Syria? The article builds an original sample of 477 JFFs from Turkey spanning three decades and employs the Random Forest technique, a method with several distinct advantages over regression analysis in the study of small N conflict data. The results have substantial and practical implications and show that fighters in Syria and IS fighters have different demographic characteristics and life experiences than fighters in pre-Syria wars and non-IS fighters in Syria, respectively. They inform more empirically grounded theory building about the recruitment motives and methods of JFFs.

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Scholars often find that highlands and rural areas foster insurgencies. However, others have argued that cities can also be centers of insurgent activity and that nonterritorial insurgencies are different from territorial guerilla wars. We expect that in a nonterritorial insurgency, the high quality of local knowledge makes populated rural areas inhospitable to nonterritorial insurgent activity. Using data from a random sample of about 750 Médaille de la Résistance Française recipients, we find that departments with more residents in cities and large towns had more medal recipients than rural departments. Analyses of repression patterns (finding that insurgent arrests are less likely in cities than rural areas) and the historical record provide further evidence for the information mechanism.