Who Wants to Be a Suicide Bomber? Evidence from Islamic State Recruits
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6274283 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Andrea Michelle Morris (University of Rochester) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 64 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 306-315 |
| Publication date | 2020-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Studies Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-8833 • E-ISSN: 1468-2478 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/isq/sqaa012 |
| OpenAlex | W3009539835 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 23 |
Suicide attackers are frequently educated and economically well-off. These findings are widely taken as evidence that highly competent individuals predominately volunteer to conduct suicide operations. I evaluate this theory using a novel dataset on the personnel records of members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The dataset contains information on the characteristics of individuals who volunteer for suicide attacks as opposed to normal combat missions. The results reject the self-selection hypothesis, as education and religious knowledge are negatively associated with volunteering for suicide attacks. Instead, the findings are consistent with an alternative explanation for why high-quality individuals commit suicide attacks: leaders of terrorist organizations carefully screen recruits and select high-quality individuals to commit these attacks. The results highlight the importance of leader demand rather than soldier supply of suicide bombers
Commit · Computer security · Criminology · Islam · Political science · Quality (philosophy · State (computer science · Terrorism · Computer Science · Economic Sanctions and International Relations · History · Law · Political Conflict and Governance · Psychology · Social Psychology · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
Transnational Terrorism and the Internet
Transnational Terrorist Recruitment
Transnational terrorism and the internet
Islam and Suicide Terrorism
Explaining Recruitment to Extremism
Past and Present Group Exclusion and Conflict
Introducing the new CPOST dataset on suicide attacks
Suicide bomber mobilization and kin and peer ties
Unemployment and Violent Extremism
Religion, terrorism and public goods
Engineers of Jihad
Evidence about the Link Between Education, Poverty and Terrorism among Palestinians
Explaining Suicide Terrorism
Terrorism, Wealth, and Delegation
Are Suicide Bombers Suicidal
Constructing Expertise
Extremism, suicide terror, and authoritarianism
Suicide-bombing as inter-generational investment
Why suicide-terrorists get educated, and what to do about it
Who Becomes a Terrorist
Economic Conditions and the Quality of Suicide Terrorism
How the Cases You Choose Affect the Answers You Get
Selection, Availability, and Opportunity
Martyrdom Contracts
The Quality of Terror
Education, Poverty and Terrorism
Human Capital and the Productivity of Suicide Bombers
The recruiter's dilemma
Design, Inference, and the Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism
Altruism and Fatalism
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,6 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2024 (4) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 8 |