Mechanisms of Political Radicalization by McCauley & Moskalenko (2008) - Article

A mechanism is a means in which something is accomplished. Political radicalization means that one is increasingly prepared to commit to intergroup conflict. It also means beliefs, behaviours and feelings are changed in a direction that justifies intergroup violence more. The question that rises, is how does this happen? How can people be moved toward violence? The question can be applied to state preparation for conflict and non-state preparation for conflict. When a state prepares to go to war, the state and citizens of a state are radicalized. A state and its citizens are also radicalized in response to terrorism (like after 9/11). However, more work focuses on radicalization of non-state groups that pose a threat to one’s state. The writers of this article will focus on the increase in extremity of non-state challenges to the authority of a state and they will also focus on how the actions of a state can contribute to the radicalization of non-state groups.

The Pyramid Model

Most meanings of radicalization focus on the distinction between feelings, beliefs and behaviours. The radicalization of behaviour is of the greatest concern, because it means that money, time, risks and violence are increased in support of a political group. People have different beliefs about the causes of current situations, but most fall in the realm of superiority (we are the chosen ones), distrust (no help from other groups), injustice (our group has been treated unfairly) and/or vulnerability (our group is in danger). People who are more behaviourally committed, also share more beliefs that a movement uses for its mission, they also have stronger feelings about the conflict than people who are less behaviourally committed. The feelings that someone has, are part of group identification. People care about what happens to their group and our capacity to care for such large gatherings of people are needed for national group conflict. There are only a few terrorists in relation to people who share their beliefs and feelings, and because of this, terrorists can be seen as the apex (top) of a pyramid. The people who sympathize with the goals that terrorists say they are fighting for, are at the base of the pyramid. From the bottom to the top of the pyramid, higher levels are filled with a lower number of people, but with a higher level of radicalization of beliefs, feelings and behaviours. The question that arises is, how do people from the base move to the apex?

Economists often state that people should be reluctant to commit much time, money and risk-taking to advance the cause of a particular large group. The benefits that arise when the group advances will be for all group members, but the costs are only for the activists. Rationally speaking, according to economists, it’s best to not do anything and to let other people pay the costs, while you can benefit from the advances. Some scientists state that people can be mobilized for social action through coercion. An example of this is the punishment for free-riding. Coercion may come from different things. One of these things is the government, another is individual morality and it can also come from face-to-face sanctions. In small groups, each member knows what another member does and because of this, people are more willing to commit behaviourally. Radicalization can be made possible by putting individuals into smaller groups. The smaller groups can be linked into larger organizations (like Al Qaeda used to be), but it’s not always the case (Al Qaeda groups are not connected to a large organisation anymore).

The radicalization of individuals, groups and masses

Radicalization can occur at the individual, group and mass level. Individuals can get radicalized by grievances (about different things) and as members of face-to-face groups. Groups and the mass can be radicalized in conflict with other groups and states. Together these three levels have twelve mechanisms, which will be discussed in the following section.

Individual level- personal victimization

This path is often associated with suicide terrorists. A quite popular example of the Chechen Black Widows that want to avenge the deaths of their husbands and therefore blow themselves up at metro stations in Russia. There have been some accounts throughout history, that show that personal grievances have been strong motives for terrorism. However, it is difficult to find data on how many terrorists have a personal history of victimization that explains their sacrifice. However, there are also people who have experienced personal grievances, but who were only willing to move to terrorism when they saw their group being victimized. According to many psychologists, personal grievance can only account for group sacrifice when the personal grievance is interpreted as a part of group grievance.

Individual level- political grievance

People can be moved to radical individual action in response the a certain political occurrence. An example of this is Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber. Ted lived in a wilderness cabin and he detested the technological progress the West was making, but once in a while he came out of hiding to send letter bombs to people representing technological progress. This process of sending letter bombs lasted over eighteen years. It is really rare of people to act alone against the politics. The acting individual often relates to a larger movement. The Unabomber, for example, related to the larger movement of survivalists. Also, in this category, the probability of some degree of psychopathology is higher than in other categories. It’s highly unlikely that groups of radicals want to deal with someone who has a psychopathological problem. It seems that only individualist radicals (at least some of them), respond to demons in their head.

Individual level- the slippery slope of joining a radical group

It is usually the case that a person’s progress into a terrorist group is a gradual one. The person first needs to complete some small tests, before he/she is received the trust to do more important missions. The person is also first given many non-violent tasks and later on, when there is more trust, this person will be asked to use a gun or bomb. Of course, there are some instances where a person moves from kindness to extreme violence in one step, but they are pretty uncommon. Psychology has often studied the self-persuasion in individuals. People try to justify their actions after they have done something stupid. That’s because they want to avoid inconsistency between their bad habits and positive self-images. A popular example of the power of self-radicalization is Milgram’s famous shock-experiment. Self-persuasion can justify one’s behaviour and this justification, increases extreme behaviours.

Individual level- the power of love and joining a radical group

Usually, people are recruited to a terrorist group via someone they know who is already in the terrorist group. That’s quite logical, because a terrorist doesn’t want to try and recruit someone who might go to the authorities and tell about the plans of the group. So, most recruiting is done from the groups of friends, family and lovers. Love determines who will join the terrorist group. This love can be of a romantic kind, but also of a comradely kind. Devotion to friends can lead a small group of friends to join the terrorist group together, which is called block recruitment. When someone joins a radical group, his/her love for friends and companions in the group will also increase, because their common goals increase group cohesion. Devotion to comrades is also a barrier for leaving a group.

Group level- like-minded groups

Many experiments have shown that a group of strangers that has been brought together and asked to discuss a topic, ended up agreeing more on the issue and became extremer in their views on the issue. The group members didn’t just go along to fit in with the group, it turned out that the discussion really produced internalized shifts toward a more extreme opinion, but only among people with similar values. There are two explanations of this shift:

• Relevant arguments theory: a couple of arguments just favour one side of the issue more than the other side. The person hears new arguments during the discussion and these arguments will mostly be in the same direction as the person was initially leaning toward.

• Social comparison theory: people feel pressured toward agreement. People who are more extreme than the average group member before the discussion are more admired. These people are seen as more devoted and they have more influence on the group than people who are less extreme. The less extreme people will change the most during the discussion and the average opinion will become more extreme.

Both theories have found support and they could even be seen as complementary theories.

Group level- isolation and threat

Radicalisation can also come into existence after cohesion that develops in small groups. For example, soldiers in combat are often cut off from everyone, except their fellow students in their squad. Terrorist cells can also be seen like this, because they can only trust each other. Both soldiers and terrorists can only trust each other and depend on each other in fighting against their enemies. The extreme interdependence that arises will also produce extreme group cohesion. These high levels of cohesion will go together with strong pressures to agree with group members. People can be attracted in many ways to a group. One way is the value of material group goals (rewards of group membership, like status and security). The other is the value of the social reality created by the group (what is good or evil?). Group members know they have stick together to reach group goals and this can result in compliance. Social reality values become strong when the group members are cut off from other groups.

Group level- competition for the same base of support

Sometimes groups compete for the same base of sympathizers. They can achieve a higher status by supporting the cause with more radical actions. It’s not uncommon that more than one group claims credit for a terrorist attack. However, when a group becomes too radical, it can lose the base of support. Throughout history it seems that terrorism increases when people are supporting terrorism and it decreases when the support for terrorism declines. However, it’s often the case that more radical actions bring more status and thus more support to the group that competes with another group that has a common cause. Threat from ingroup competitors can be seen as threat from the outgroup enemy. It produces high cohesion, which results in high conformity. The ingroup enemy is often dealt with with violence.

Group level- competition with state power

Sometimes, groups with week support rally and are treated with violence by the police (in orders of the state). People will feel sympathy for the victims of the police repression and the group’s sympathizers will move toward action. Most people that have taken a first radical action with the group (holding a sit-in) give up the action after repression. For these people, the costs are too high. A small part of the people will not give up and they will increase their commitment and become extremer in their actions against the state. The police will retaliate with action, and more members will leave the group. Eventually, the people that stay in the group are the most radicalized people out of the initial group. This group can go underground as a terrorist cell. This whole process of radicalization is called radicalization by condensation. The strength of the ties between the individuals in a group, especially the individuals who have suffered from state reactions, are important for this radicalization by condensation. People increase their commitment to pay back what the state did to their comrades.

Group level- within-group competition

Group members can get into conflict about the competition for status in the group. According to some examples from the past, intra-group conflict can lead to the split of the group or to fissioning (splitting into more groups). Intra-group competition can lead to killing or torture.

Mass level- Jujitsu politics

As mentioned before, in face-to-face groups outgroup threat leads to an increase in group cohesion, respect for leaders, sanctions for deviators and stronger group norms. In larger groups, cohesion enhances patriotism, nationalism and ingroup identification. The mass often gets radicalized after an external attack and this can also be used as a strategy. Terrorists may want to get the sympathy vote from people who they have not yet mobilized to action. This strategy is called jujitsu politics.

Mass level- hate

It’s often the case that groups that are in conflict become more extreme in their views of each other. When this has become so extreme, the enemy isn’t seen as human anymore. The enemy is referred to as an animal or object, and this is called dehumanization. When someone often shows a high level of hostility toward another group, he is said to hate this group. There are different ideas and theories about hate. Some scientists think that hate is an emotion, which consists of the emotions anger, fear and contempt. Others think that hate is an extreme form of negative identification. This means that some people belief that their enemy is bad in essence. This also means that hate is not an emotion, but the occasion of experiencing different emotions. These emotions depend on what happens to the hated group. When bad things happen to the enemy, you will experience positive emotions and when positive things happen to the enemy, you will experience negative ones. When you see the enemy as having a bad essence, you will want to attack all of them and not spare the women, children and elderly, because nothing can be changed about their essence.

Mass level- martyrdom

All radical groups try to keep the memory of their martyrs salient, but they can do it in different ways. Some celebrate a whole day or a couple of days for the martyr, some keep portraits of the martyrs and others honour the parents of the martyrs. The political impact of martyrdom is quite significant, but there has not been that much empirical study on this topic.

Opposition politics

The writers of this text think that beside their twelve mechanisms, there could be more mechanisms. They also think that their mechanisms can be used beyond political radicalization and terrorism (e.g. cult recruiting and thought reform). They also suggest that there isn’t probably one single underlying theory that unites all twelve mechanisms. The writers think that there are multiple pathways that lead a person and groups to terrorism. Their view is consistent with past studies, which show that there are three pathways to extreme-right political activism: continuity (consistent political interest and involvement in the same cause), conversion (a sudden break with the past in joining extreme movements) and compliance (persuasion by family and friends). Of the twelve mechanisms mentioned, the individual radicalization of the slippery slope is autonomous and the group radicalization in like-minded groups is also autonomous. The other ten are more reactive. Researchers should look more into this reactive character, because most try to understand radicalization by only focusing on the non-state actors who are radicalized. Research shouldn’t just focus on terrorists, but also on the situation terrorists are in. The actions of the state often play a role in the radicalization of people, groups and masses and they do this by their reactions to individual or group actions. Where there is intergroup competition and conflict and in which both groups are radicalized, more radicalization can arise. Researchers need to understand that relationship, in order to prevent terrorism.