1. Jonathan R. White
www.cengage.com/cj/white
Chapter 2:
Not Senseless Violence: The
Social Underpinnings of
Terrorism
Rosemary Arway
Hodges University

2. Terrorism as a Social Process:
Two Frameworks
 Approaches to the study of social
explanations of group behavior tend to focus
on:
o Meaning of activity
o Structure of actions
 Social scientists:
o Use to examine terrorism from meaning and
structural frameworks
o Meaning framework:
▪ The way we interpret the world motivates the action we
take.
o Structural framework:
▪ A group’s structure and purpose cause it to act and groups
are created for specific functions.

3. Meaning framework:
 Meaning Framework:
o Subjective interpretations that people give to events,
physical objects or actions of others as well as
themselves.
o Meanings are developed by individuals and groups.
 Huntington:
o Future conflicts will take place between world’s major
civilizations .
o World is divided into 3 economic groupings and conflicts
will be based on the distribution of wealth.
o Social action is based on social meaning. Terrorist
organizations are the result of subjective meanings that
need to be aggressively confronted if the alternative
meaning should be introduced.

4. Meaning Framework
 Juergensmeyer:
o The clash between modern values and traditional
culture as one of the reasons for terrorism.
 Lewis:
o Trouble between Islam and Western modernity can be
attributed to the reasons for terrorism.
 Nance:
o Terrorists take action based on an ideological desire for
social change.
o Terrorism results from the meanings applied to the
modern world by terrorists.
o Counterterrorism involves specific steps to prevent
violence and deconstruct terrorist groups.

5. Structural Framework
 Attempts to understand terrorist behavior by
looking at the way terrorists organizations
function is called a structural framework.
 Black:
o Terrorist organization take an action because they
belong to a structure that operates for a special
purpose.
o The structure and movement of groups can explain
terrorism.
o Terrorism develops when an inferior group moves
against a superior group, inducing mass casualties.

6. Structural Framework
 Latora and Marchiori:
o Terrorist organizations:
▪ Are structured in the same manner as communication and
transportation systems.
▪ Are composed of networks moving in patterns.
o Criminal, terrorist, or revolutionary groups organize
themselves in a network of smaller logistical
structures.
▪ Any point where information, weapons, or personnel are
gathered is called a node.
▪ The node being the critical target for counterterrorist
operations.
▪ If the node is destroyed, the network is disrupted.

7. Terrorism as a Religious Process
 Ellingsen reports two primary reasons for
continued influence of religion:
o Religion has always been an important factor in
the history of humanity.
o Modernization tends to breakdown
communities, families, and social orientation –
people seek a deeper meaning to their lives.
 The impact of religion on terrorism,
according to Ellingsen, is more important
than political and economic factors.

8. Terrorism as a Religious Process
 Stern:
o People around the world are returning to their religious
roots as a means to escape the complexity of modern
life.
 When mythological truths compete, violence often results.
 Stories change the nature of terrorist organizations and aid in
producing a number of different group organizations and
styles.
 Individuals join a group because they believe they are joining
a holy cause, they are usually motivated by the organization’s
sacred story.
 To maintain the power formally given by the sacred story,
leaders develop internal enforcement mechanisms – rewards
system.
o Religion may also produce the “lone wolf avenger.”
▪ A person striking out with an ideology but no group.

9. Terrorism as a Religious Process
 Juergensmeyer:
o Violence is a call to purify the world from the
nonbeliever and the incorrect interpretations in a holy
war.
o Believers are participating in a struggle (a cosmic
struggle) to change history.
o The holy terrorist is victorious either by killing the
enemy or by dying in the struggle.

10. Terrorism as a Religious Process
 Berman:
o Economic factors influence religious terrorism.
o Religious terrorism is deadlier than any other
form of terrorism.
o Statistic: there are 20 active religious terrorist
organizations – 18 based on Islam.
o Rather than attempting to counter a religious
ideology, counterterrorism must be aimed at
studying the internal ability of the group to
operate effectively.

11. Clash of Civilization
 Huntington:
o Cultural conflicts among world’s dominant civilizations
constitute a clash of civilization.
▪ Regions in which more than one civilization exist threaten
international peace, and the USA should avoid intervening
in such areas.
 Esposito:
o Culture is defined by more than religion and there is no
monolithic Islamic civilization.
 Pipes:
o The major conflicts will occur within Islam religion.
 Chomsky:
o The world is too complicated to be explained by one big
idea.

12. Terrorism as Practical Criminology
 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
created localized terrorism task forces
around the country.
o Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF)
▪ Allows the FBI to coordinate law enforcement
resources in the face of domestic terrorism and
to expand investigations.
o The FBI also provides investigative
resources when Americans are victimized
by terrorism in other countries.

13. Terrorists v Criminals
Bodrero:
 Terrorists  Criminals
o Find strength in a o Usually uncommitted,
cause and the crime is a method for
ideology behind the obtaining goods
cause o Opportunistic
o Focused o Undedicated to a
o Dedicated to a cause
particular cause o Undisciplined,
o Disciplined, trained, untrained, self-
targets have symbolic centered
value

14. Group Reinforcement and Moral Justification
 Terrorists must feel they are justified in
their behavior.
o Terrorists must look outside normative social
channels to gain approval.
o Terrorist group becomes primary source of social
reality.
o Terrorist group provides social recognition and
reinforcement.
o Terrorist group reshapes identities and provides a
ticket to social acceptance.
o Terrorist group must be isolated from mainstream
society.

15. Group Reinforcement and Moral Justification
 Group reinforcement and isolation
o Wilkinson:
▪ Terrorist groups reinforce individual loyalty through
justification process.
▪ Constant reinforcement of antisocial behavior in
terrorist groups produces conforming behavior inside
the organization.
o Post:
▪ Terrorist’s group becomes the only source of social
reward because of its member’s isolation.
▪ Terrorists reinforce one another.
▪ The rejection of external authority results in the
acceptance of internal authority because behavior
must be reinforced somewhere.

16. Group Reinforcement and Moral Justification
 Borum:
o Researchers have come to the conclusion
that there is no standard rational for
justifying behavior.
o Three different phases of self-justification:
▪ Reasons for joining
▪ Reasons for remaining
▪ Reasons for leaving

17. Group Reinforcement and Moral Justification
 Victoroff:
o There is a multiplicity of factors (social and
psychological) used to justify violence.
o Terrorists operate and justify violence because
they emotionally attach themselves to an
ideology.
▪ They will not tolerate moral ambiguity, and have the
capacity to suppress instinctive and learned moral
limitations on behavior.
o There is a need to study the impact of
leadership on group behavior.
 Cooper:
o Terrorist would justify more destruction because
it is required for televised drama.

18. Group Reinforcement and Moral Justification
 Blomberg, Hess, and Weerapana:
o Economic factors play a role in justifying terrorist
violence.
▪ Terrorist groups are not happy with the economic status
quo.
▪ Terrorist see denial of economic opportunity as a
justification for their action.
 Stern:
o Several factors must be in place for group
cohesion:
▪ Group must identify an enemy.
▪ Group must have a story.
▪ Group needs its own language or symbolic words to
demonize the enemy.

19. Can the Terrorist Personality be Profiled?
 FBI Behavioral Science Unit has attempted to
develop profiles of terrorists based on
individual psychological characteristics.
 Rejecting Terrorist Profiles
o Laqueur: no one can develop a composite
picture of a terrorist:
▪ Terrorist behavior fluctuates with historical,
political, and social circumstances.
▪ Individual and group profiles are the result of
political and social conditions.
o Borum: there is no single terrorist
personality

20. Profiling Terrorist Behavior
 Ross:
o It may be possible to conceptualize
terrorism in a model combining social
structure with group psychology.
o There are five interconnected processes
involved in terrorism:
▪ Joining the group
▪ Forming the activity
▪ Remaining in the campaign
▪ Leading the organization
▪ Engaging in acts of terrorism

21. Profiling Terrorist Behavior
 Two factors are involved in the rise of terrorism
at any point in history:
o Social structure
o Structural conditions
 Ross identified five psychological factors
involved in the development of terrorism:
o Facilitating traits
o Frustration/narcissism-aggression
o Associated drives
o Learning opportunities
o Cost benefit calculations

22. Profiling Terrorist Behavior
 Marc Segeman:
o “Most people think that terrorism comes from poverty,
broken families, ignorance, immaturity, lack of family or
occupational responsibilities, weak minds susceptible to
brainwashing – the sociopath, the criminals, the religious
fanatic, or, in this country, some believe they’re just plain
evil.”
o Taking these perceived root causes in turn, three quarters
of his sample came from the upper or middle class.
▪ The vast majority – 90 percent – came from caring, intact families.
▪ Sixty-three percent had gone to college, as compared with the 5-6
percent that’s usual for the third world.
o These are the best and brightest of their societies in
many ways.

23. Profiling Terrorist Behavior
 Marc Segeman:
o Al Qaeda’s members are not the Palestinian fourteen-
year- olds we see on the news, but join the jihad at the
average age of 26.
o Three-quarters were professionals or semi-professionals.
o They are engineers, architects, and civil engineers, mostly
scientists. Very few humanities are represented.
o Quite surprisingly, very few had any background in
religion.
o “Bin Laden himself is a civil engineer, Zawahiri is a
physician, Mohammed Atta was, of course, an architect;
and a few members are military, such as Mohammed
Ibrahim Makawi, who is supposedly the head of the
military committee.” (Sageman, M. (November 1, 2004) Understanding
Terror Networks. Retrieved from
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20041101.middleeast.sageman.understandingterrornetworks)

24. Routes to Terrorism
and Paths to Radicalization
 Psychological and social factors
motivate people to join and remain in
terrorist groups.
 Segeman:
o Process of among man:
▪ Alienated man find one another
▪ Discover religion
▪ Terrorism enters the equation if the newfound
religious orientation turns toward violence

25. Groups in Prison and Radicalization
 Internal and external process:
o Internal: charismatic prison leader gathers an
entourage
o External: through visiting chaplains
o Patterns of conversion:
▪ Crisis
▪ Protection seekers
▪ Religious searcher
▪ Manipulation for personal gain
▪ Free world recruitment throughout outsiders

26. Radicalization
 Individual radicalization:
o When a relatively weak group feels that its
existence is threatened by superior group
▪ This may be enhanced when the superior group is seen to
be morally depraved
 Commonalities in radicalization:
o Literalist interpretations of religion
o Trust only to selected sources
o No toleration for deviation
o Acceptation of the idea of the clash of civilization
o Selective interpretation of government policy