Social Exclusion and Political Violence: Multilevel Analysis of the Justification of Terrorism

Trans-disciplinary Dialogue on New Zealand’s Counter Terrorism Approach: A Call to Action for Researchers.

“…If we consider first the causes of terrorism and violent extremism, it is useful to focus on factors which occur in three main levels of social life: the individual level; the group level; and the social and international level. At the individual level, there are some relatively strong indications from the academic research that the following factors are all important in understanding the causes of involvement in violent extremism: individual lack of connection or social isolation; a lack of purpose or meaning; groups relationships among friends and relatives, often referred to as the 'bunch of guys' theory; the impact of radical contexts or milieus (including online contexts or milieus) where individuals can find purpose, meaning and motivation towards violent extremism; the role of moral injury 17 which ruptures an individual's previous moral codes against violence, and which may involve exposure to repressive state violence or social violence such as racism, shaming, humiliation and so on; material and social deprivation and exclusion, 18 as well as blocked pathways to political expression and participation; ideologies, misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories; online spaces and communities which can play a contributing role 19 in the matrix of factors which move an individual towards offline violence.…”

Support for Domestic Islamist Terrorism in Bangladesh: Insights from a Novel Survey

“…The body of scholarly literature examining support for violent groups has traditionally focused on ethnic conflicts (Horowitz 1985); state repression (Scott 1976); grievances (Gurr 1970; Crenshaw 1981; Ross 1993; Hafez 2003; Treistman 2021); the discredited Clash of Civilization thesis (Huntington 1993; 1996); and myriad studies of individual-level explanatory factors and motivations such as, inter alia, piety or other aspects of personal religiosity; preferred level of religious influence on political systems; beliefs about and tastes for democracy; political or social beliefs; participation in communal religious practices, among other germane personal attributes (e.g., Tessler and Nachtwey 1998; Tessler and Robbins 2007; Clingingsmith et al 2009; Ginges et al 2009; Shafiq and Sinno 2010; Chiozza 2011; Blair et al 2013a; 2013b; Ciftci et al 2017; Fair et al 2018a; Arikan and Bloom 2019). Here we review this considerable literature, informed by specialized knowledge of Bangladesh, to identify five testable hypotheses.…”

Horizontal inequalities, political violence, and nonviolent conflict mobilization: A review of the literature

“…The identified studies focus on a variety of political violence outcomes, including civil conflict (Bodea et al., 2017; Cingranelli et al., 2019; Das, 2019; Hillesund, 2019b; Lessmann & Steinkraus, 2019; Tollefsen, 2020), non‐state conflict (Alcorta et al., 2018, 2020; Hillesund, 2019b; Rudolfsen, 2017) coups (Bodea et al., 2017; Houle & Bodea, 2017), other forms of social unrest, such as ethnic and other riots (Abbs, 2021; Bodea et al., 2017; Cingranelli et al., 2019; Mcdoom et al., 2019) and domestic terrorism (Cingranelli et al., 2019; Fleming et al., 2022; Hansen et al., 2020; Treistman, forthcoming), or a combination of these (Cao, Duan, Liu, Piazza, et al., 2018; Cao, Duan, Liu, & Wei, 2018; Hodler et al., 2020). Two studies focus on individuals’ propensity to support the use of violence: Nanes (2021), on support for the use of anti‐state violence in Iraq, and Treistman (forthcoming), on individual's support for terrorism. All the identified studies focus on HI between ethnic groups, often broadly defined to cover religious and racial as well as linguistically demarcated groups.…”

“…Ten studies focus on political HIs, most notably on political discrimination and exclusion of ethnic groups from state power. Moreover, a handful of the studies include both economic and political HIs (Alcorta et al., 2020; Cingranelli et al., 2019; Hillesund, 2019b; Rudolfsen, 2017; Tollefsen, 2020; Treistman, forthcoming). Notably, Hillesund (2019b) shows that economic inequalities are more likely to cause communal conflict than political exclusion, and that the relationship between economic inequality and communal conflict is driven by politically included groups.…”