Thread by @JamesKhalil1

To what extent does poverty contribute to terrorism / violent extremism?

A thread
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Shortly after 9/11, George W. Bush asserted ‘we fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror.’ Similar claims about a link between poverty (or socioeconomic marginalization more generally) and political violence have been made by various other politicians.

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Such arguments also feature regularly in policy lit, e.g. with WB claiming 'The best way to prevent societies from descending into crisis, including but not limited to conflict, is to ensure that they are resilient through investment in inclusive and sustainable development.'

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Meanwhile, various prominent academics strongly disagree, arguing that the link between poverty and this violence has been discredited. I won't mention their names as a purpose of this thread is to show how superficial the debate remains.

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The reality is somewhere between these opposing stances. The first step to a better understanding is to 'unpack' this discussion and ask two separate questions ...

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Q1: Does socioeconomic marginalization contribute to sympathy for terrorism / violent extremism?

Q2: Does socioeconomic marginalization contribute to direct involvement in terrorism / violent extremism?

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While they are clearly interrelated it is important to treat sympathy for violence as distinct from actual involvement as there is a huge disconnect. Most who sympathize with violence remain on the sidelines. Many who get involved are not actually sympathetic to its aims.

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Focusing on Q1, much survey evidence suggest socioeconomic marginalization poorly explains sympathy for violence. Indeed, certain studies even suggest that it is often associated with less support for violence, rather than more.

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See, for instance:

scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/…

To be clear, it is plausible that specific individuals in these samples sympathize with violence in part cos of socioeconomic marginalization. Such evidence also does not discount that there may be a causal link between marginalization and sympathy for this violence elsewhere

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Regarding Q2, there is also lots evidence against a link. For instance, Claude Berrebi argues ‘both higher education and standard of living appear to be positively associated with membership in terror organizations such as Hamas or PIJ and with becoming a suicide bomber.’

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Similarly, focusing on a sample of ‘global Salafi mujahedin’, Marc Sageman observes that about three-quarters were ‘solidly upper or middle class’, with the main exceptions being the ‘Maghreb Arabs in France and half of the Western converts to Islam.'

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But, there are various issue with such findings. The 1st is that certain groups recruit only more competent candidates in terms of education and applicable skills, and thus at least some of these findings may reflect only the demand side, rather than also the supply side.

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As expressed by Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, ‘one cannot reach conclusions about the composition of the pool of those who are willing to become terrorists by studying only those who actually do become terrorists.’

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The 2nd relates to the various quant studies that find no correlation between country-level indicators of underdevelopment and high levels of violence. This is a nuanced point that does not lend itself well to Twitter, but in a nutshell ...

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... disaggregated data may (and at least sometimes does) reveal that within specific countries marginalized individuals are more likely to become involved in this violence, irrespective of whether more economically developed countries experience less violence on average.

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But, most importantly, plenty of studies also show that socioeconomic marginalization is a partial driver of involvement in violence, particularly where the groups in question offered a salary or other material incentives as a livelihood option.

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E.g. tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

To make sense of such findings we need to consider the notion of equifinality. This concept basically states that many different factors, and combinations of factors, drive involvement in this violence. These differ between individuals, and more generally between contexts.

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In sum, poverty is very often irrelevant to involvement in this violence. But, that is not always the case, and the combination of poverty and a salary very often provides a 'casual recipe' for involvement in violence.

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The obvious conclusion is that we need to conduct rigorous field research to determine its relevance in each specific context. Unfortunately, a lot of PCVE programming is premised on no more than assumptions, or bad research.

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PS. Check out my pinned Tweet which focuses on my interviews with over a hundred Al-Shabaab members. Many got involved partly cos the salary helped them overcome few other livelihood opportunities.

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