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An Empirical Examination of the Radicalization Process of Homegrown Terrorists

Yesterday, the institute I direct -- FDD's Center for Terrorism Research (CTR) -- unveiled our major empirical study of the radicalization process for homegrown terrorists. Homegrown Terrorists in the U.S. and U.K.: An Empirical Study of the Radicalization Process, which I co-authored with CTR research analyst Laura Grossman, examines behavioral manifestations of the radicalization process in 117 homegrown "jihadist" terrorists from the United States and United Kingdom. Our launch event, part of FDD's Leading Thinkers series, was a roundtable discussion of the study that featured CT Blog Editor Douglas Farah as a respondent, and included fellow CT Blog Contributing Experts Farhana Ali, Madeleine Gruen, Michael Jacobson, and my colleague at FDD Walid Phares in the roundtable. Here is an excerpt from the introduction to the study, generously contributed by Brian Michael Jenkins, senior advisor to the president of the RAND Corporation:

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Laura Grossman have produced an important study that adds to our knowledge of terrorist radicalization. It draws on empirical data drawn from an examination of 117 “jihadist” terrorists in the United States and the United Kingdom to trace the initial arc of their trajectory into terrorism. It concludes that religious beliefs play a role in radicalization, a finding which itself is not surprising but is likely to be controversial.

Terrorists do not fall from the sky. They emerge from a set of strongly held beliefs. They are radicalized. Then they become terrorists. The analysis offered by Gartenstein-Ross and Grossman does not enter the definitional swamp of whether the beliefs that propelled these individuals into terrorism should be regarded as an extreme—and many would add, perverted—form of religious faith, or as a political ideology that justifies violence with selected tenets of religious faith. The observation that religious belief plays a role in the initial radicalization process should not be interpreted as an indictment of faith. It does not suggest that a particular religion is more terrorist-prone than another. This is not a discussion about how one views God. It is an analysis of the attributes of radicalization....

Gartenstein-Ross and Grossman identify six indicators of jihadist radicalization. The first three of these have to do with how rigidly (or legalistically) one may interpret one’s religion, who he comes to trust or not trust, and how he views the relationship between the West and Islam. (FDD's Center for Terrorism Research, 28 Apr 09)