Theories of Terrorism

Contemporary Perspectives

Murat Haner, Melissa M. Sloan, Murat Haner, Melissa M. Sloan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000454437
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Terrorismo

Theories of Terrorism explains and advances the major theories of terrorism that address issues of becoming a terrorist, being a terrorist, and leaving terrorism, in a clear and accessible format.

Readers will gain an understanding of the most promising explanations of terrorism that have been developed to date and how they can be used to explore core substantive issues related to the topic. The content is delivered with a scholarly depth, though still accessible by students at different levels. The book offers explanations from prominent scholars for the three phases of radicalization, covering emerging topics such as women's involvement in terrorism, fear of terrorism, the code of the terrorist, and suicide terrorism. This is the first book in the Advances in Criminological Theory series to address the issue of terrorism and emphasizes the use of theory to direct research development in the future.

The style and content coverage of the book make it appropriate as a supplemental text in undergraduate courses on terrorism and political violence. The inclusion of current empirical literature and guidance for future research efforts gives the text appeal for graduate students and academics in the disciplines of criminology/criminal justice, political science, sociology, and interdisciplinary terrorism studies. The emphasis on theory and the radicalization process throughout the text will also make the book useful as a reference for general graduate-level theory courses within these areas.

Part I

Becoming a Terrorist

DOI: 10.4324/9781003026303-1

1

The Psychological Processes of Terrorism

Orla Lynch and Carmel Joyce

DOI: 10.4324/9781003026303-2

Psychology as a discipline is comprised of an eclectic body of work ranging from psychoanalytic psychology to cognitive psychology, from social psychology to psychometrics (Hergenhahn & Henley, 2014). To evaluate how psychology contributes to our knowledge on terrorism and political violence, we have to consider both research that speaks to the issue of terrorism alongside bespoke psychological research on terrorism—in other words, the psychology of terrorism and a psychology of terrorism. In the case of the former, given that terrorism is composed of a range of observable behavior impacted by interpersonal and intra/intergroup factors, then one could say that all psychological research is relevant for how we think about terrorism and political violence; however, not all research on terrorism is psychological.

The aim of this chapter is to examine the questions we, as psychologists, are asking about psychology and psychological processes when undertaking research on terrorism and political violence (Taylor, 2014). As such, in seeking to understand the state of the research area we are asking if psychological research is challenging or replicating the politicized and securitized assumptions inherent in the field (Stampnitzky, 2013). To this end, we will critically assess the role and strengths of psychological research in how we think about and carry out research on terrorism. In addition, we examine how psychology as a discipline can contribute to understanding and addressing, in an evidence-based and ethical manner, the big social issues of our time. Never has this been so relevant, given the revelations that emerged around the role of psychologists in the CIA enhanced interrogations (Marks, 2018) program in the USA and the statutory obligation of psychologists in the UK with regard to Prevent reporting (Lynch, 2021) on extremism. This chapter begins by reflecting on the state of play of psychological research in the field of terrorism and political violence, and continues with a review of the most recent psychological research in the field.

A Psychological Problem?

It may seem self-evident to say that the discipline of psychology should have a lot to say about terrorism. Terrorism is after all an observable act; an act often inspired by extreme cognitions and one that serves a communicative purpose (Schmid & Jongman, 1988). In addition, the impact of terrorism has tangible psychological consequences for victims and survivors (Argomaniz & Lynch, 2016). However, psychology is not the dominant framework used to understand terrorism, nor is it comprehensively used by researchers. This can be qualified by pointing to the very significant increase in the application of psychological theory to the case of terrorism, and the rapid increase and improvement in the quality of material produced in this area over the past 15 years (Horgan, 2017). However, we still have some way to go to achieve the potential that is possible in applying psychology to terrorism (Lynch and Joyce, 2018).

Despite the improvements in the field, much of the psychological research on terrorism could be described as tokenism; a reflection on the relevance of psychology after the fact, or the retrospective framing of findings in psychological terms (Bouhana & Wikström, 2011; Lynch & Joyce, 2018). These issues emerge due to a general failure to identify what elements of terrorism are psychological problems (and what are not!); a failure to start at a psychologically focused and informed research question; and a failure to define, not the term “terrorism,” but what the problem appears to be (Lynch and Joyce, 2018).

However, the current state of psychological research on terrorism is not merely an artifact of psychological science, but also due to the controversial ethical and political issues inherent in the study of terrorism and political violence (Schuurman, 2018). Indeed, there are several challenges to the study of terrorism and political violence that are experienced across a range of disciplines, including (but not limited to) the definitional issues that exist around terrorism (Schmid & Jongman,1988); any relationship to radicalization (Neumann, 2013); the reactionary nature of the field (Bouhana, 2019); the somewhat arbitrary delineation between state and substate terrorism (Wilkinson, 2011); a preoccupation with delineating ideological motives; the reciprocity between terrorism and counterterrorism (Soule, 1989) and the promise of what has become known as CVE/PVE—countering/preventing violent extremism (Williams, 2020).

However, psychological researchers must be mindful of the unique issues that emerge in our discipline as we attempt to study terrorism, a field that is very much in its infancy. As an area of research that is, on the one hand, heavily attended to (Silke, 2007) yet relatively new to the processes of empirical investigation, the temptation in psychology is to take concepts like “terrorism,” “political violence,” “radicalization,” etc., at face value without deconstructing how these concepts are understood by those most affected by them, or those with the power to apply them (Jackson et al., 2009). Indeed, to date, much of the effort in psychology, has been related to the identification of a “typical terrorist”—a one-size-fits-all interpretation of the characteristics and behaviors of “terrorists” (Horgan, 2017). This, of course, demonstrates the very particular interpretation that psychological science has constructed of terrorism and the terrorist, namely that knowing about the individual actor has a significant role to play in how we understand terrorism. Thankfully, researchers in psychology are no longer preoccupied with this red herring. However, researchers must not lose sight of the fact that, as new labels and definitions emerge in terrorism, so too does the way in which these labels/terms are mobilized, both within and outside of the discipline. Psychology still has a lot to say in relation to terrorism and related phenomena, however the onus of responsibility is on researchers to reflect on the issues which plague this discipline and, rather than ignore these issues, they must be brought into relief during the scientific inquiry.

Recently, Stephen Reicher (2021) addressed the issue of how problems are framed from a psychological point of view and pointed to the separation of the study of behavior and the study of psychology, highlighting that they are two fundamentally different processes. He pointed out that any behavior we witness can not only be understood by understanding the motivation to act, but also the constraining (and facilitating) social and material forces. According to Reicher (2021), any effort on the part of researchers to attribute behavior purely to internal criteria, can only result in the psychologizing of behavior. This psychologizing is more a reflection of the internal states of the researcher (their values, perceptions, judgment, and their need to create an objective fact) rather than a reflection on the subject of investigation. Reicher (2021) also points out that not all phenomena can or should be subject to psychological explanations. Importantly, and highly relevant in the case of terrorism studies, he points out that the fundamental attribution error (the tendency to attribute causality to internal criteria, that is, characteristics of the person rather than characteristics of the situation) is as much an artifact of ideology as it is psychology (Reicher, 2021).

The fundamental attribution error is rife in terrorism research, it can manifest in the blatant way we speak about mental health and personality types. It can also be more insidious and be reflected in the assumption that people engage in terrorism because they can be placed on a “sub-clinical” scale and are somehow psychologically fragile or vulnerable (Corner & Gill, 2015). Taking this approach means that the nuance and complexity of the individual as a social and political being is lost. Importantly, it also harms efforts to ensure that psychology contributes in a meaningful way to research on terrorism (Gill & Corner, 2017).

Psychology as a Science

Psychology appears to progress by removing the obstacles it has placed in its path

Stern (Rozen, 2001, p. 2)

Psychology as a discipline has always suffered somewhat from an inferiority complex. In order to have a seat at the table and to be considered for publication by the major scientific journals, psychological research has mirrored the scientific methods of the hard sciences (Perez-Alverez, 2018). Psychology, in an effort to meet the requirements of a science (clearly defined terminology, quantifiability, controlled conditions, predictability, generalizability, transferability, and testability) adopted a dominant focus on lab-based methods (Stevens, 2017).

Indeed, psychologists have attempted for many years to replicate the processes of the hard or natural sciences and increasingly researchers are considering the relevance of the subject for such treatment (Rozen, 2001). However, this is as much about the limitations in how we think about the production of scientific knowledge as it is about the process of doing social science research. Solomon Asch, a famous psychologist known for his methodological innovation, emphasized that in order to come to know about the psychological phenomenon we are studying, we must describe it faithfully, look freely at it, and examine its foundations (Rozen, 2001). In effect, Asch was pointing out that psychological research is a unique undertaking and must account for the context, for free will, and for agency, and not succumb to the limits of prescribed scientific methods in matters of human behavior. This, of course, is not conducive to the production of definitive results in the traditional model of science. Rozen (2001) also points out that psychological knowledge must focus on the collation of large amounts of evidence drawn from a variety of different sources and a multiplicity of approaches—stating that description cannot be a narrow phenomenon. The implications of this for fields that focus on exceptional and extreme outliers of behavior is, of course, obvious—we may never have large amounts of data in the manner Rozen describes. This leaves us to (re)consider how we should think about the psychology of terrorism and the issue of specialization, evidence, and the universality of human behavior. This brings us back to the two key issues raised earlier—what we perceive the general problem to be with regard to terrorism, and what it is about terrorism that is a psychological problem. We will now deal with each in turn.

Problematizing Terrorism Research

In our efforts to research terrorism, the phenomenon is often simplified beyond recognition. It is depicted in binary terms—good versus evil, us versus them; groups are given clear identifiable boundaries and individuals are presumed to share mono-dimensional roles. The processes underpinning the choice to engage in terrorist violence, however, are some of the most complex social and psychological issues imaginable. In addition, terrorism most often means substate terrorism, further simplifying the phenomenon to exclude certain actors and motives. Terrorism, as we predominantly use the term in academia, is rooted in Western understandings of international relations and it is understood most readily in legal bounded terms (Bankoff, 2003). Of course, the complexity of terrorism has long been recognized in the heated academic arguments around definitions (Botticher, 2017; Kaczkowski et al., 2019; Schmid & Jongman, 1988) but only within existing narrow parameters. There have always been calls for a recognition of the harm that states are capable...