Driving Factors behind Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq

Pokalova, Elena

doi:10.1080/1057610x.2018.1427842

Cited by 27 publications

(31 citation statements)

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“…Considerable recent scholarship addresses the question of who joins violent extremist groups and what motivates people to join (e.g., refs. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Less attention has been paid to the systematic study of how former members of violent extremist groups reenter society (but see ref.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Trusted authorities can change minds and shift norms during conflict

Blair

Littman

Nugent

et al. 2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The reintegration of former members of violent extremist groups is a pressing policy challenge. Governments and policymakers often have to change minds among reticent populations and shift perceived community norms in order to pave the way for peaceful reintegration. How can they do so on a mass scale? Previous research shows that messages from trusted authorities can be effective in creating attitude change and shifting perceptions of social norms. In this study, we test whether messages from religious leaders—trusted authorities in many communities worldwide—can change minds and shift norms around an issue related to conflict resolution: the reintegration of former members of violent extremist groups. Our study takes place in Maiduguri, Nigeria, the birthplace of the violent extremist group Boko Haram. Participants were randomly assigned to listen to either a placebo radio message or to a treatment message from a religious leader emphasizing the importance of forgiveness, announcing the leader’s forgiveness of repentant fighters, and calling on followers to forgive. Participants were then asked about their attitudes, intended behaviors, and perceptions of social norms surrounding the reintegration of an ex–Boko Haram fighter. The religious leader message significantly increased support for reintegration and willingness to interact with the ex-fighter in social, political, and economic life (8 to 10 percentage points). It also shifted people’s beliefs that others in their community were more supportive of reintegration (6 to 10 percentage points). Our findings suggest that trusted authorities such as religious leaders can be effective messengers for promoting peace.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Trusted authorities can change minds and shift norms during conflict

Blair

Littman

Nugent

et al. 2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…This finding resonates with Krueger (2006) who shows that countries with limited civil liberties were likely to have more citizens joining the Iraqi insurgency. Other studies find no effect of democracy (Gouda & Marktanner, 2019 or political freedom (Pokalova, 2019) on IS recruitment.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 90%

Does democracy or personal freedom affect the flow and return of IS foreign fighters?

Gouda

Hanafy

2021

Eur J Crim Policy Res

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A considerable number of foreign fighters who joined the Islamic State (IS) came from developed countries enjoying high levels of democracy and personal freedom. Even after the demise of the Islamic State, the IS "returnees" remain a source of severe security risk globally. Many countries, especially those with a considerable number of IS fighters and returnees, face the challenge of striking the right balance between protecting national security against IS terrorism and preserving fundamental democratic institutions. This paper examines the effect of democracy and personal freedom on foreign fighters joining IS in Syria and Iraq. We also examine whether democracy and/or personal freedom affect the fraction of IS fighters returning home. Whereas the effect of democracy appears to be inconclusive, our cross-country regressions show that countries with a higher level of personal freedom (i) had a significantly larger fraction of their population joining IS, and (ii) receive a significantly larger percentage share of returning IS fighters. Our results are robust across different model specifications and account for possible collinearity concerns.

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“…Foreign fighters started to appear in this conflict from 2014 onwards, joining the aforementioned volunteer battalions, although neither side intentionally mobilised those on the far-right at this point (Rekawek 2020, p. 3). What we know about foreign fighters more generally is that their reasons for travelling to fight in conflicts abroad are as numerous as they are, although some have tried to draw attention to socio-economic issues or religiosity as causes or motivations, at least in relation to IS (Arielli 2012;Dawson and Amarasingam 2017;Malet 2013;Pokalova 2019). One commonality across different cases that has been highlighted is how conflicts attracting foreign fighters have been defensively framed in the belief that this will appeal to targeted transnational identities (Malet 2013).…”

Section: Why Fight In Ukraine and For Whom?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Radicalisation, Foreign Fighters and the Ukraine Conflict: A Playground for the Far-Right?

MacKenzie

Kaunert

2021

Social Sciences

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Ukraine has been viewed by some as having become a training ground, networking opportunity, and general hub for the far-right due to the conflict in the east of the country, which began in 2014. With this type of terrorism on the rise in the West and events like the storming of the US Capitol Building in January 2021 fresh in the memory, it should come as no surprise that any such possibilities will generate concern. To investigate the types and extent of the threats posed by participants in the Ukraine conflict, we scrutinise the activities of a few alumni that we know of to date, as well as highlighting neglected historical episodes of right-wing fighters. We make three arguments here based on occurrences so far. Firstly, we know little about far-right foreign fighters and more attention needs to be paid to historical instances of the phenomenon. Secondly, some limited but diverse threats have already arisen from the Ukraine conflict and others may emerge in the future, but it would be unwise to overplay and homogenise the problem. Finally, it is Ukraine itself that probably faces the greatest challenges from its domestic far-right, although, if left unchecked, it may affect others in providing a space for, and permitting the growth of, connections with like-minded individuals and groups based elsewhere. Despite our warning about exaggerating the problem, Western security services should be taking the far-right very seriously at present, such as in relation to potential infiltration of them by such elements.

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Driving Factors behind Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq

Cited by 27 publications

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Trusted authorities can change minds and shift norms during conflict

Trusted authorities can change minds and shift norms during conflict

Does democracy or personal freedom affect the flow and return of IS foreign fighters?

Radicalisation, Foreign Fighters and the Ukraine Conflict: A Playground for the Far-Right?

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