NEU Political Radicalization & Relational Social Aggression Responses These will each be ~3 pages, single-spaced, 12-pt font. The general format for these

NEU Political Radicalization & Relational Social Aggression Responses These will each be ~3 pages, single-spaced, 12-pt font. The general format for these position papers should be:(a) ~2 pages reviewing the core material of the readings (two assigned readings + one reading of your choice related to the topic).(b) ~1 page introducing some novel study that includes your empirical question(s), hypotheses, ways you might test the hypotheses, & possible implications that relate back to the bigger topic you reviewed. Terrorism and Political Violence, 20:415–433, 2008
Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0954-6553 print=1556-1836 online
DOI: 10.1080/09546550802073367
Mechanisms of Political Radicalization: Pathways
Toward Terrorism
CLARK McCAULEY AND SOPHIA MOSKALENKO
Psychology Department, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr,
Pennsylvania, USA
This article conceptualizes political radicalization as a dimension of increasing
extremity of beliefs, feelings, and behaviors in support of intergroup conflict and violence. Across individuals, groups, and mass publics, twelve mechanisms of radicalization are distinguished. For ten of these mechanisms, radicalization occurs in a
context of group identification and reaction to perceived threat to the ingroup.
The variety and strength of reactive mechanisms point to the need to understand
radicalization—including the extremes of terrorism—as emerging more from the
dynamics of intergroup conflict than from the vicissitudes of individual psychology.
Keywords pyramid model, radicalization, terrorism
In this article we describe mechanisms of radicalization relevant to understanding the
origins of terrorism. We must immediately acknowledge that the idea of mechanism
is somewhat different in different domains of social science, sometimes with conflicting definitions used within a single discipline.1,2 Here we use mechanism in the general sense traditionally employed in Psychology: ‘‘the means or manner in which
something is accomplished. Thus, the mechanism of vision includes the physical
stimulus and the physiological and neural processes involved.’’3
Clark McCauley is Professor of Psychology and a director of the Solomon Asch Center
for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Bryn Mawr College, and a co-director of the National
Consortium for Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (NC-START). Sophia
Moskalenko received her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania
in 2004. She is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Homeland Security and a research
fellow at the National Consortium for Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism
(NC-START).
This research was supported by the United States Department of Homeland Security
through the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism
(START), grant number N00140510629. However, any opinions, findings, and conclusions
or recommendations in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect
views of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The authors are grateful to Gary LaFree
and Tony Marsella for comments and suggestions in response to draft versions of this paper,
and thank three anonymous reviewers for numerous helpful suggestions.
Address correspondence to Clark McCauley, Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, Bryn Mawr College, 101 N. Merion Ave., Bryn Mawr, PA 19010. E-mail:
cmccauley@brynmawr.edu
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C. McCauley and S. Moskalenko
Functionally, political radicalization is increased preparation for and commitment to intergroup conflict. Descriptively, radicalization means change in beliefs,
feelings, and behaviors in directions that increasingly justify intergroup violence
and demand sacrifice in defense of the ingroup. How does this happen? How do
individuals, groups, and mass publics move toward conflict and violence?
This question applies as well to state preparation for conflict as to non-state preparation for conflict. A state and its citizens are radicalized in the run-up to interstate
conflicts and war, and, as evident in the U.S. after the attacks of September 11, 2001,
in state response to terrorism as well. But common discourse about radicalization
focuses on non-state groups that represent a challenge or threat to the state. Similarly,
terrorism as a means of political control is predominantly government work,4 but
common discourse associates terrorism with the actions of non-state groups. In this
paper, we focus on the common usage in which radicalization refers to increasing
extremity of non-state challenges to state authority. We aim to show, however,
how state action can contribute to radicalization of non-state groups.
Radicalization in the Pyramid Model
Individual and Mass Radicalization
There are many possible meanings of radicalization, but most of the relevant distinctions can be represented with the usual social psychological distinctions among
belief, feeling, and behavior. Of course it is radicalization of behavior that is of
greatest practical concern. In a political context this means increasing time, money,
risk-taking, and violence in support of a political cause. As every political cause is
associated with a particular group that cares about this cause, we may equally
say that behavioral radicalization means increasing time, money, risk-taking, and
violence in support of a political group.
If at a given point in time we compare those who are more and less behaviorally
committed, we are likely to find differences in both beliefs and feelings. Social movement activists are likely to share more than non-activists the beliefs or ‘‘frames’’ that
the movement uses to summarize and convey its mission.5 Anti-poverty activists, for
instance, tend to see different causes of poverty than non-activists.6 Radicalization of
many kinds may be associated with a syndrome of beliefs about the current situation
and its history:7 We are a special or chosen group (superiority) who have been
unfairly treated and betrayed (injustice), no one else cares about us or will help us
(distrust), and the situation is dire—our group and our cause are in danger of extinction (vulnerability).
Similarly those who do more are likely to have different and stronger feelings
about the conflict than those who do less.8,9 Activists are likely to feel more sadness
and humiliation with group failures, more joy and pride with group success, more
anger and fear at the perfidy or violence of the enemies of their cause.
These feelings are the expression of group identification: caring about what happens to the group, especially in relations with other groups.10 Group identification
can even lead to feelings of guilt about wrongdoing perpetrated by others, if the
others are members of the group identified with.11 The human capacity to care about
large and impersonal collectivities as if they were an extended family is the foundation of mass politics, and the pre-requisite for national, ethnic, and religious group
conflict.12,13
Mechanisms of Radicalization
417
Because terrorists are few in relation to all those who share their beliefs and
feelings, the terrorists may be thought of as the apex of a pyramid.14 The base of
the pyramid is composed of all who sympathize with the goals the terrorists say
they are fighting for. In Northern Ireland, for instance, the base of the pyramid of
support for the IRA was all those who agreed ‘‘Brits out.’’ In the U.S., the base
of the pyramid of support for anti-government action is the forty percent of
Americans who agree that ‘‘The federal government has become so large and
powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary
citizens.’’15
From base to apex, higher levels of the pyramid are associated with decreased
numbers but increased radicalization of beliefs, feelings, and behaviors. Thus one
way of thinking about radicalization is that it is the gradient that distinguishes
terrorists from their base of sympathizers. How do individuals move from the base
to the extremes of terrorist violence at the apex?
Radicalization in Groups
Economists and political scientists using a rational-choice framework are fond of
pointing out that individuals should be reluctant to commit real resources of time,
money, and risk-taking to advance the cause of a large group. The benefits of
advancing the group are available to all group members, whereas the costs are
borne by the activists. Thus the rational choice for an individual who cares about
a group cause is to do nothing, let other individuals pay the costs, and benefit from
any advance for the group as a free-rider.16
The classic answer to the problem of mobilizing individuals for social action is
some kind of coercion, that is, punishment for free-riding. Coercion may come from
law or government regulation (if free-riders can be accurately identified), from individual morality (internal norms), or from informal face-to-face sanctions (small
group norms). Particularly in a small group, personal morality and group norms
can be difficult to separate, because individual morality is usually anchored in some
kind of group consensus. And in a small face-to-face group where each member and
each member’s behavior is known to others, social rewards for participation and
social punishments for free-riding can make behavioral commitment rational after
all. When groups can be linked through common members or common leaders into
a larger multi-group organization, social action becomes possible on a larger scale.
Thus radicalization and terrorism are made possible by bringing individuals into
small groups. Sometimes these groups are linked into a larger organization, but not
always. The small group is necessary for action, but the organization is not. The original Al Qaeda was an organization of groups or cells, but today the groups are
mostly on their own and disconnected from any larger organization. The Madrid
bombers were apparently more a self-organizing small group than a cell embedded
in Al Qaeda.
Radicalization of Individuals, Groups, and Masses
As indicated in the preceding discussion, radicalization can occur at different levels.
Individuals are radicalized by personal grievances and by identity-group grievances
as conveyed by mass media, rumor, or the testimony of others. Individuals are also
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C. McCauley and S. Moskalenko
Table 1. Pathways to violence: Mechanisms of political radicalization at individual,
group, and mass-public levels
Level of radicalization
Individual
Group
Mass
Mechanism
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Personal victimization
Political grievance
Joining a radical group—the slippery slope
Joining a radical group—the power of love
Extremity shift in like-minded groups
Extreme cohesion under isolation and threat
Competition for the same base of support
Competition with state power—condensation
Within-group competition—fissioning
Jujitsu politics
Hate
Martyrdom
radicalized as members of small face-to-face groups. Political groups and mass
publics are radicalized in conflict with states and with other political groups. Each
of these levels requires separate attention. Table 1 identifies the twelve mechanisms
at three levels that we will now describe.
1. Individual Radicalization by Personal Victimization
This is a path much cited in explanations of suicide terrorists. Chechen Black
Widows are described as seeking revenge against Russians for their own experience
of rape or for the deaths of their menfolk.17 Tamil Tigers of the suicide brigades
called ‘‘Black Tigers’’ are often described as survivors of Sinhalese atrocities.
Accounts of Palestinian suicide terrorists often cite revenge for IDF attacks on
neighbors or loved ones as a motive for self-sacrifice.
The importance of personal grievance as a motive for terrorism goes back at least
as far as Russian terrorists of the late 1800s. Thus Andrei Zhelyabov, a leader of terrorist organization People’s Will and a mastermind of a number of political assassinations, including the coordinated bombs that killed Czar Alexander II, sought out
terrorist activity in a pledge to revenge the many wrongs by the monarchist regime
he experienced firsthand.18 The rape of his favorite aunt by their landmaster, ignored
by local police; his dismissal from university without right to reapply for participating
in an innocent protest against arbitrary grading practices; and finally, a four-month
jail sentence for sending a friendly note to an imprisoned friend—these grievances
shaped and hardened Zhelyabov’s resolve to use violence against the ruling elite.
Data are hard to come by on how many terrorists, or how many suicide terrorists, have a personal history of victimization that might explain their sacrifice. Of
course there may be individuals with such a history who nevertheless would not have
moved to violence without seeing their victimization joined to the victimization of
their ethnic or national group. That is, the percentage with a history of personal
victimization is an upper bound of the power of a personal-revenge explanation,
rather than a reliable estimate of this power. A social psychological view would be
Mechanisms of Radicalization
419
that personal grievance is unlikely to account for group sacrifice unless the personal
is framed and interpreted as representative of group grievance.
2. Individual Radicalization by Political Grievance
Sometimes an individual is moved to individual radical action and violence in
response to political trends or events. Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, is one
example. Over eighteen years, Kaczynski emerged occasionally from his wilderness
cabin to send letter bombs to people representing the technological progress he
feared and detested.
Another example is Buford Furrow, who turned himself in to police in August
1999 after wounding five at a Jewish Community Center and later killing a Filipino
postman. He seems to have been a devotee of white supremacist groups but acted
alone in planning and carrying out these attacks.
Similarly, John Allen Muhammad, with his protégé Lee Boyd Malvo, killed ten
people in the Washington area in 47 days of sniper attacks in September and October
2002. Muhammad, a convert to Islam and black separatism, was attempting to
extort ten million dollars with which to found a pure black community in Canada.19
Muhammad has not been forthcoming about his motivation, but it appears he identified with what he perceived to be the victimization of black people in the U.S.
Cases of individual radicalization to political violence, that is, cases in which the
individual acts alone rather than as part of a group, are relatively rare. In such cases,
the individual is likely to have some association with a larger intellectual movement—as Kaczynski related to a larger movement of survivalists, as Furrow associated
with white supremacists, and as Muhammad participated for a period in the Nation
of Islam.
More than in any other category of radicalization, there is a probability of some
degree of psychopathology. Psychiatric testimony at his trial indicted that Kaczynski
suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. The prosecution did not seek the death penalty for Furrow because he had a history of inpatient hospital treatment for mental
disorder. Groups of radicals, especially those who get as far as terrorism, are unlikely
to recruit or tolerate the unreliability that goes with psychopathology. Individualist
radicals can be responding, at least in part, to their private demons.
An interesting example of the difficulty of separating personal and group
grievance is Matt Hale, who in 1998 was the leader of a white supremacist group.
Hale graduated from law school, passed the bar exam, was hired by a law firm,
but lost his job when the Illinois Bar denied his law license on the basis of racism.
In 2005, Hale was sentenced to prison for soliciting the murder of federal judge Joan
Lefkow. The personal and political are so closely intertwined in this case that it is
impossible to say what Hale would have done had he been granted his law license.
3. Individual Radicalization in Joining a Radical Group—The Slippery Slope
As just noted, it is rare that an individual moves from sympathizer to activist by suddenly undertaking some major risk or sacrifice. Typically an individual’s progress
into a terrorist group is slow and gradual, with many smaller tests before being
trusted in more important missions, and with many non-violent tasks before being
asked to use gun or bomb (for Red Army Faction and Basque ETA recruits, see note
20, p. 237; for IRA recruits see note 21).
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C. McCauley and S. Moskalenko
Of course there are occasional examples of an individual moving from sympathy
to extreme violence in a single giant step. Wafa Idriss, the first female Palestinian
suicide bomber, seems to have carried out her mission within two weeks of deciding
to become a suicide bomber. Although it is beyond the scope of the present paper to
examine this question systematically, we believe that examples of giant-step transition to violence are notable precisely because they are relatively uncommon.
A vivid example of gradual radicalization comes from Della Porta,22 who quotes an
Italian militant as follows: ‘‘A choice [made] in cold blood, such as ‘now I will become a
terrorist,’ [did] not exist. It was a step-by-step evolution, which passed through a kind of
human relation that I had with Guido, and with the people I worked with.’’
The power of step-by-step self-persuasion through one’s own behavior is well
studied in social psychology. Hundreds of experiments have shown a strong tendency for self-justification after an individual does something stupid or sleazy.
An individual who is sucked into saying a dull experiment is fun, or into writing
an essay in favor of a cause the individual disagrees with, is likely to find reasons
to justify the behavior: the experiment wasn’t half bad, keeping Communists from
speaking on campus is a good idea. Dissonance theory23 understands this tendency
as an effort to reduce the inconsistency between positive self-image and bad behavior. In other words, it is easier to find reasons for what we do than to do what we
find reason for.
Perhaps the most striking example of the power of self-radicalization is found in
one of the experimental variations introduced by Milgram24 in his famous studies of
obedience. In the basic paradigm, normal individuals who draw the role of teacher in
a psychology experiment will give high levels of shock to a protesting ‘‘victim’’ (actually an accomplice of the experimenter) who drew the role of learner. Complete obedience requires the teacher to raise the shock administered for mistakes from 15 to
450 volts in 15-volt increments. About 60% of teachers are completely obedient.
Less well known is the variation in which it is not the experimenter who comes
up with the idea of raising the shock level with each mistake. In this variation, a ‘‘coteacher’’ (another accomplice of the experimenter) asks and grades the questions,
while the naı̈ve teacher gives the shocks. The experimenter, summoned away for a
‘‘phone call,’’ is no longer in the room when the ‘‘co-teacher’’ comes up with the idea
of raising the shock level with each mistake. Despite the absence of the experimenter
and his authority, 20% of teachers progress to administering 450 volts.
The dissonance explanation of the 20% who go all the way is that each shock
becomes a reason to give the next shock. The closely graded shock levels represent
a kind of slippery slope in which refusing to give the next shock requires recognizing
that there was something wrong with giving the last shock. If 300 volts was ok, how
can 315 volts be wrong? But if 315 volts is wrong, how can 300 volts be right?
In Milgram’s studies, the dependent variable is radicalization in behavior, not in
thoughts or feelings. The latter were not measured, and there is no way of knowing
whether increasing shock levels were associated with changes in perception of and
attitude toward the victim.
In another famous study, Zimbardo25 was able to demonstrate radicalization in
behavior of one group of participants (playing roles of prison guards) toward
another group (playing the role of prisoners). Psychologically stable male student
volunteers we…
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