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Radicalization

Radicalization is the process by which an individual or group comes to adopt increasingly extreme political, social, and/or religious ideals and aspirations that reject or undermine the status quo. It can be both violent and nonviolent, though most academic literature focuses on radicalization into violent extremism (RVE). There are multiple pathways that constitute the process of radicalization, which can be independent but are usually mutually reinforcing.

Radicalization that occurs across multiple reinforcing pathways greatly increases a group’s resilience and lethality. Furthermore, by compromising their ability to blend in with non-radical society and participate in a modern, globalized economy, full spectrum radicalization serves as a kind of sociological trap that gives individuals other no place to go in order to satisfy their material and spiritual needs .

Western Counterterrorism and Law Enforcement Agencies' Definitions of Radicalization

United States

According to the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), The grievances that fuel radicalization are diverse and vary across locations and groups. Radicalization frequently is driven by personal concerns at the local level in addition to frustration with international events.

United Kingdom

The UK Home Office, MI5’s parent agency, defines radicalization as “The Process by which people come to support terrorism and violent extremism and, in some cases, then join terrorist groups.12”

The MI5 report closes by saying that no single measure will reduce radicalization in the UK and that the only way to combat it is by targeting the at risk vulnerable groups and trying to assimilate them into society. This may include helping young people find jobs, better integrating immigrant populations into the local culture, and effectively reintegrating ex-prisoners into society.

Canada

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police defines radicalization as “the process by which individuals — usually young people — are introduced to an overtly ideological message and belief system that encourages movement from moderate, mainstream beliefs towards extreme views. While radical thinking is by no means problematic in itself, it becomes a threat to national security when Canadian citizens or residents espouse or engage in violence or direct action as a means of promoting political, ideological or religious extremism. Sometimes referred to as “homegrown terrorism,” this process of radicalization is more correctly referred to as domestic radicalization leading to terrorist violence.”

Holland

The Dutch AIVD defines radicalization as “Growing readiness to pursue and/or support - if necessary by undemocratic means - far reaching changes in society that conflict with, or pose a threat to, the democratic order.14”

Denmark

The Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) defines radicalization as “A process by which a person to an increasing extent accepts the use of undemocratic or violent means, including terrorism, in an attempt to reach a specific political/ideological objective.15”

The Radicalization Process

Despite being composed of multifarious pathways that lead to different outcomes and sometimes diametrically opposed ideological purposes, radicalization can be traced to a common set of pathways that translate real or perceived grievances into increasingly extreme ideas and readiness to participate in political action beyond the status quo. To quote Shira Fishman, a researcher at the Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and the Responses to Terrorism, "Radicalization is a dynamic process that varies for each individual, but shares some underlying commonalities that can be explored."" Though there are many end products of the process of radicalization, to include all manner of extremist groups both violent and nonviolent, a common series of dynamics have been consistently demonstrated in the course of academic inquiry.

Radicalization and Mutual Aid

Eli Berman's 2009 book Radical, Religious, and Violent: the New Economics of Terrorism applies a rational choice model to the process of radicalization, demonstrating that the presence of [mutual aid]] networks increase the resilience of radical groups. When those groups decide to use violence, they also enjoy a heightened level of lethality and are protected from defection and other forms of intervention by states and outside groups.

Berman suggests that common dress and social constraints among radicals is a component of the radicalization process

The “defection constraint” is similar to the threshold price-point in that it denotes what rewards would justify the defection of any one individual within the context of an organization. All organizations insofar as they include the possibility of free riders by extension experience defection constraints. Berman uses the example of a Taliban protection racket for convoys of consumer goods moving through Afghanistan: checkpoints are set up at several points along a trade route, and each checkpoint’s team is given a small percentage of the convoy’s total value if it arrives safely at its destination. The incentive for any one checkpoint’s team deciding to simply hijack a convoy as it passes through, sell the goods off, and escape, increases as the value of the convoy increases. While in non-radicalized and criminal organizations this is a calculus between greed and fear, Berman argues that religious radicalization greatly increases the defection constraints of radical terrorist organizations by requiring outsized demonstrations of commitment to the cause prior to recruiting operatives.

Mutual aid is the voluntary and reciprocal exchange of goods within an organization. Examples in various religious antecedents include Judaic Tzedakah, Islamic Zakat, and various Christian institutions of charity, as described in the Acts of the Apostles. Berman argues that religious organizations experience economic risks by extending mutual aid to all alleged believers - theological assent is cheap, action can be costly. By imposing a series of outwardly visible social rules, such as restrictions (or prescriptions) on dress, diet, language, and social interactions, groups impose a cost on entering a mutual aid partnership, diminishing the occurrence of free riding.

These restrictions have a dual effect in radical groups. Not only do they ensure that an individual is committed to the cause, but they also diminish individual’s access to consumption opportunities and social interaction that might persuade them to distance themselves from the cause. As individuals become more involved with radical activities, their social circles become more constrained, which diminishes contact with non-radicalized persons and further entrenches radicalized thinking. For example, when a young man spend several years in a Yeshiva in order to establish himself within a Haredi community, he foregoes future earnings that would be accessible should he choose a secular education. To quote Berman “As consumption opportunities are limited, work for pay becomes less appealing, freeing up even more time for community activities.6” This sunk cost figures into any future calculation, and raises the defection constraint in a way that non-radicalized group dynamics cannot. Going back to the Taliban convoy example, not only have the two footsoldiers in question have been vetted by demonstrating commitment to the cause, they also have had their exterior options limited such that it would be difficult to blend into a new environment for lack of skills and cultural understanding. As such, the threshold price point to defect, as represented by the value of the convoy, increases to include the price of losing their existing support network and non-quantifiable factors such as friends, family, safety, and other goods over the course of their lives.

Individual Pathways

While the overall arch of radicalization usually involves multiple, reinforcing processes, scholars have identified a series of individual pathways to radicalization. Clark McCauley and Sofia Mosalenko’s 2009 book Friction: How Radicalization Happens to Them and Us identifies the following sociological and psychodynamic pathways:

Individual-Level Factors

Radicalization Due to Personal Grievance: This pathway emphasizes revenge for real or perceived harm inflicted upon oneself by an outside party. This initial offense triggers other psychodynamic mechanisms, such as thinking in more stark in-group and out-group terms, lowered inhibitions to violence, and lessened incentives to avoid violence. Chechen “Shahidika” also known as Black Widows, women who have lost husbands, children, or other close family members in conflict Russian forces are a good example. The tie between radicalization through personal grievance and suicide bombing

Anwar al-Awlaki's message emphasized a percieved "war on Islam" and inspired several attacks based on group grievance.

Radicalization due to group grievance: “Group grievance” radicalization dynamics are similar to those that are primed by personal grievances; the difference is that the subject perceives harm inflicted on a group that she belongs to or has sympathy for. This pathway accounts for the larger portion of political and ethnic radical violence, in which action is taken on behalf of the group at large rather than as an act of personal revenge.

Palestinians, Black Panthers/Weather Underground

Slippery Slope: The “Slippery Slope” represents gradual radicalization through activities that incrementally narrow the individual’s social circle, narrow their mindset, and in some cases desensitize them to violence. This has also been called the “True Believer” syndrome, as a product of which one becomes increasingly serious about their political, social, and religious beliefs as a product of “taking the next step”. One can begin by participating in nonviolent activities such as mutual aid, wherein the best way to raise one’s in-group social status is to demonstrate seriousness about the cause and increase the level of commitment in terms of beliefs and activities.

As an individual commits act after act, sunk costs are developed.

Love: Romantic and familial entanglement is often an overlooked factor in radicalization. Several violent extremist organizations, especially at their origin, owe their structure to a tight-knit group of friends who often share religious, economic, social, and sexual bonds. While this example is evident in more extreme cases, such as those of Charles Manson's "Family" and other radical cults, it also applies radicalization in secular and orthodox religious environments. Love can serve as a connection between influential figures, connecting their networks of followers through a combination of attraction and loyalty. This particular force was especially notable in New Left radical groups, such as the American Weather Underground and the German Red Army Faction. The connections between Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, or between Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader served as the organizational and intellectual nucleus of these groups.

Risk and Status: Within a radical group, high-risk behavior, if successful, offers a pathway to status insofar as it becomes re-construed as bravery and commitment to the cause. As such, violence or other radical activity provides a pathway to success, social acceptance, and physical rewards that might otherwise be out of reach.

“Disproportionate involvement in risk taking and status seeking is particularly true of those young men who come from disadvantaged family backgrounds, have lower IQ levels, are of lower socioeconomic status, and who therefore have less oppourtunity to succeed in society along a traditional career path. These young men are more likely to be involved in gang activity, violent crime, and other high-risk behavior.7”

Berman on ETA.

Unfreezing: Loss of social connection can open an individual to new ideas and a new identity that may include political radicalization.8 Isolated from friends, family, or other basic needs, individuals may begin to associate with unlike parties, to include political, religious, or cultural radicals.

Islamism in Europe, Prison Radicalization, radical religious cults

Group-Level Factors

Insofar as a group is a dynamic system, with a common goal or set of values, it is possible that the group’s mindset as a whole can affect individuals such that those individuals become more radical.

Group Polarization: Discussion, interaction, and experience within a radical group can result in an aggregate increase in commitment to the cause, and in some cases can contribute to the formation of divergent conceptions of the group’s purpose and preferred tactics.

Within a radical group, internal dynamics can contribute to the formation of different factions as a result of internal disillusionment (or, conversely, ambitions) with the group’s activities as a whole, especially when it comes to a choice between violent terrorism and nonviolent activism. The Weather Underground’s split with Students for a Democratic Society is one of many examples. The dynamics of group polarization imply that members of this larger group must either commit to one faction and demonstrate their loyalty through further radicalization, or leave the group entire.

Group Isolation: Isolation reinforces the influence of radical thinking by allowing serious and or persuasive members of the group to disproportionately define the body’s agenda. When an individual only has access to one in-group social environment, that group gains a totalizing influence over the individual - disapproval would be tantamount to social death, personal isolation, and often a lack of access to the basic services that mutual aid communities fulfill.

Islamic groups in the West are especially vulnerable to this dynamic, since

Group Competition: Groups can become radicalized vis-a-vis other groups as they compete for legitimacy and prestige with the general populace. This pathway emphasizes increased radicalization in an effort to outdo other groups, whether that increase is in violence, time spent in religious ritual, economic and physical hardship endured, or all four.

Religious movements and the terrorist elements that form in their name display this characteristic. While in some cases there may be doctrinal or ethnic differences that motivate this kind of competition, its greatest outward sign is an increased demand by the group for commitment to radical actions.

Suicide bombing as a display of commitment, religious

Mass Radicalization

Jujitsu Politics

Also called “the logic of political violence9”, Jiujitsu politics is a form of assymetrical political warfare in which radical groups act to provoke governments to crack down on the populace at large and produce domestic blowback that legitimates further violent action. 10

This tactic is a pillar of Maoist insurgency

Hatred: In protracted conflicts the enemy is increasingly seen as less human11, such that their common humanity does not readily trigger natural inhibitions against violence.

The Weathermen and Red Army Faction often characterized police officers and government officials as “pigs” worthy of death and subhuman treatment.

Martyrdom: Martyrdom implies that the person in question died for a cause or is willing to die for a cause. The symbolic impact of martyrdom changes across cultures, but within the field of radicalization the act or pursuit of martyrdom denotes the absolute value of a radical’s way of life. Witnessing radical

Contributing Factors

The literature on radicalization outlines several common forces that contribute to radicalization, but do not in and of themselves constitute the process of becoming more radical.

Marginalization

Social-political exclusion has been known to contribute to radicalization, but it is insufficient

Prison Radicalization

"Prislam"

Alienation:

Radicalization into nonviolent ideologies

Mennonites

Myths

Poverty: The association between radicalization and poverty is a myth. Many terrorists come from middle-class backgrounds and have university-level educations, particularly in the technical sciences and engineering. There is no statistical association between poverty and militant radicalization.

See Also

• Political Radicalism
• Extremism
• Moderation theory
• Terrorism
• National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism
• Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007