Terrorist Recruitment and Radicalization in Saudi Arabia

Hegghammer, Thomas

doi:10.1111/j.1475-4967.2006.00269.x

Cited by 140 publications

(52 citation statements)

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“…For instance, individuals may join terrorist groups because of a need to gain or retain affiliations or social ties (Hegghammer, 2006), or a need for identity and belonging (Borum, 2011). They may also join in order to readdress perceived injustices or grievances that are either personal to…”

Section: Towards a Rational Choice Perspective On Violent Extremismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Male Youth Perceptions of 6 them or directed at a more general level (Borum, 2011;Hegghammer, 2006); to fight for a specific cause (Hegghammer, 2006); or for some political or religious motive (Hegghammer, 2006). Individuals may remain engaged in a group due to increased taking on of the group's beliefs and values, and for group solidarity (McCauley & Moskalenko, 2008).…”

Section: Towards a Rational Choice Perspective On Violent Extremismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Male Youth Perceptions of Violent Extremism: towards a Test of Rational Choice Theory

Dhami¹,

Murray

2016

Span. J. Psychol.

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University, for her assistance in acting as an external coder, blind to the aims of the study. Male Youth Perceptions of 2 AbstractUnderstanding how people perceive the pros and cons of risky behaviors such as terrorism or violent extremism represents a first step in developing research testing rational choice theory aiming to explain and predict peoples' intentions to engage in, or support, these behaviors.Accordingly, the present study provides a qualitative, exploratory analysis of a sample of 57 male youths' perceptions of the benefits and drawbacks of: (a) accessing a violent extremist website, (b) joining a violent extremist group, and (c) leaving such a group. Youth perceived significantly more drawbacks than benefits of joining a violent extremist group (p = . In the present paper we suggest that understanding how people perceive the pros and cons of violent extremism represents a first step in developing theoretically-guided research that aims to explain and predict peoples' intentions and decisions to support and (dis)engage in violent extremism. The research reported in the present paper takes this first step by providing a qualitative, exploratory analysis of male youth's perceptions of the benefits and drawbacks of specific behaviors associated with violent extremism. Before describing our approach, we briefly outline the theoretical perspective that our exploratory work can contribute to, and review relevant past research. We also discuss the methodological challenges that we (and other researchers) have faced. "virtually none of them has been tested in a systematic way." This is partly because they are not always amenable to testing due to a lack of precision or specification. In addition, not all theories have clear implications for counter-terrorism policy. The present study was not designed to test a specific theory. Rather, it was designed to provide exploratory data that might lead to future tests of a rational choice approach to violent extremism.Rational choice theories employed in psychological and criminological research draw in an approximate manner on the expected utility model in Economics (e.g., Gruber, 2001); extending its focus on subjective expected utility. According to this theory, a rational decision-maker (in this case a violent extremist) would decide whether or not to engage in violent extremism by assessing the subjective importance of the possible benefits and drawbacks of engaging in the behavior, in addition to assessing the subjective probabilities of these possible outcomes. The expected utility of the behavior would be determined by the probability-weighted difference between the benefits and drawbacks. The more that the weighted difference favors the benefits, the more likely the decision-maker is to engage in the relevant behavior.2 Thus, rational choice theory can help researchers to understand the cognitive process by which an individual makes the above risk assessments and then acts on them. In fact, researchers can test more or less 'rational' models (e.g., Dhami...

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Section: Towards a Rational Choice Perspective On Violent Extremismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Towards a Rational Choice Perspective On Violent Extremismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Male Youth Perceptions of Violent Extremism: towards a Test of Rational Choice Theory

Dhami¹,

Murray

2016

Span. J. Psychol.

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“…While terrorist groups actively seek recruits, individuals themselves try to voluntarily join the groups. The first type is top-down recruitment and the second type is bottom-up recruitment (Hegghammer 2006). Hegghammer(2006) examines how terrorists in Saudi Arabia were recruited to Afghanistan.…”

Section: Recruitmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The first type is top-down recruitment and the second type is bottom-up recruitment (Hegghammer 2006). Hegghammer(2006) examines how terrorists in Saudi Arabia were recruited to Afghanistan. He refers to "top-down" as an enlistment of potential terrorists by an appointed recruiter and "bottom-up" as joining terrorist groups by recruits themselves based on self-radicalization.…”

Section: Recruitmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Organizational Behavior of Terrorist Groups

Jung

Lee

2015

jpag

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Terror attacks have been typically performed by group members, which implies that perpetrators were not independent actors, but acted violently as being part of a larger group. In addition, the execution of terrorist attacks is not only facilitated by macro-level factors but also as the tools to increase payoffs, survival, and maintenance at the group level. As links between disgruntled individuals and society, organizational behavior elements are something that needs to be examined. In this paper, several organizational behavior theories to compare were applied and contrast between terrorist groups and normal organizations under the categories of mobilizations, decision-making, and leadership.

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Modern Sports as a Deviant Practice? How Not to Play Sports According to the Islamic Online Fatâwâ

Testa

2019

Crime, Deviance and Popular Culture

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Terrorist Recruitment and Radicalization in Saudi Arabia

Cited by 140 publications

References 4 publications

Male Youth Perceptions of Violent Extremism: towards a Test of Rational Choice Theory

Male Youth Perceptions of Violent Extremism: towards a Test of Rational Choice Theory

Organizational Behavior of Terrorist Groups

Modern Sports as a Deviant Practice? How Not to Play Sports According to the Islamic Online Fatâwâ

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