Perspective on the Terrorist Threat.

AuthorHenderson, David R.
PositionBook review

What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism

By Alan B. Krueger

195 pp.; Princeton University Press, 2018

In 2007, Princeton University economist Alan Krueger published a short book, What Makes a Terrorist, based on three lectures he gave in Britain debunking many of the myths about terrorism. Now he has published a 10th anniversary edition with a new prologue and updated material. What distinguishes his work from many others on the subject is his empirical approach: he looks carefully at the data.

The three chapters of the book are titled, "Who Becomes a Terrorist? Characteristics of Individual Participants in Terrorism," "Where Does Terror Emerge? Economic and Political Conditions and Terrorism," and "What Does Terrorism Accomplish? Economic, Psychological, and Political Consequences of Terrorism." In each chapter, he draws on data to answer those questions, and what he finds is striking:

* International public opinion surveys find that support for terrorism is higher among those who are more highly educated and have higher family income. One striking statistic comes from a survey of 1,318 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip: 86.7% of merchants and professionals, versus "only" 73.9% of the unemployed, supported armed attacks against Israeli targets.

* Terrorists "are more likely to be well educated and less likely to come from impoverished backgrounds" than the populations from which they come.

* International terrorists--Krueger never defines the term but, in context, he means (and he confirmed this by email) those who engage in terrorism against foreign targets, whether in their own or in other countries--tend to come from countries whose governments suppress civil liberties and political freedom.

* There is no connection between a country's income per capita or illiteracy rate, on the one hand, and the number of international terrorists from that country, on the other.

* Terrorists' preferred targets tend to be wealthy countries whose governments respect civil liberties and political freedom rather than poor countries with repressive governments.

* Distance matters; that is, international terrorists and foreign insurgents tend to come from countries that are geographically close to the countries they target.

* For their acts to have the desired effects, terrorists who use conventional methods of terrorism "need the media to propagate fear."

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