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Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and

Political Aggression
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Interviewing the terrorists: reflections

on fieldwork and implications for
psychological research
a
John Horgan
a
International Center for the Study of Terrorism, and Department
of Psychology, Penn State University, University Park, PA, 16802,
United States

Available online: 18 Jul 2011

To cite this article: John Horgan (2011): Interviewing the terrorists: reflections on fieldwork and
implications for psychological research, Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression,
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 Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression
2011, iFirst Article, 1– 17

Interviewing the terrorists: reflections on fieldwork and

implications for psychological research
John Horgan∗

International Center for the Study of Terrorism, and Department of Psychology, Penn State
University, University Park, PA, 16802, United States
(Received 19 January 2011; final version received 2 June 2011)

In social science research on terrorism, there is a continued lack of individual-level,

data-driven evidence to test hypotheses, build reliable case studies, and support the
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emergence of new theories about the psychological process in the development of

the terrorist. To help redress this deficiency, this article calls for explicit discussion
of researchers’ reluctance either to interview terrorists or share their experiences of
having done so, as well as greater methodological transparency in their efforts. It
identifies and explores a series of challenges in interviewing participants in political
violence and argues for greater future engagement from social science researchers,
and psychologists in particular. If both behavioral and interdisciplinary research on
terrorism is to achieve its extraordinary potential, students and scholars of terrorism
must do more than simply ‘talk’ to terrorists. They must be open to comparing
experiences in an attempt to remove the novelty associated with research interviews
with terrorists, be more explicit about their methods, and thereby explore
interviewing as a scientifically viable method of collecting data in an area that for so
long has suffered the failure of not doing so.
Keywords: Terrorism; terrorist; interview; psychology; methodology; fieldwork

Introduction
Talking to terrorists guarantees controversy. Politically, it can be tantamount to appea-
sement. The moral panic surrounding former US President Carter before and after his
2008 visit to the Palestinian Hamas movement is understood, given the ad nauseam
claim: ‘we will not negotiate with terrorists’ (Staniland, 2008, p. 9). In truth, successful
counterterrorism involves precisely the opposite. As Staniland continues, the ‘smart
question is not whether to talk to terrorists, but, instead, which terrorists to talk to
and how to talk to them’ (ibid.).
Although rarely in public view, the reality is that talking to terrorists happens all the
time (Goldfarb, 2008). A major catalyst for the peace process in Northern Ireland was a
series of secret talks between Sinn Fein and representatives of the British government
that began in 1990. Cease-fires followed four years later, culminating in the Good
Friday Agreement of 1998 that has since brought stability to the region. Likewise,
despite years of vowing never to speak with the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO), the approach of Israeli officials eventually changed (Makovsky, 1996; Pruitt,
1997).
∗
Email: horganjohn@psu.edu

ISSN 1943-4472 print/ISSN 1943-4480 online

# 2011 Society for Terrorism Research
DOI: 10.1080/19434472.2011.594620
http://www.informaworld.com
 2 J. Horgan

Academics also talk with terrorists, primarily for the purposes of gathering data for
research projects. Examples abound because of the willingness of some to ‘do the unpa-
latable’ and interview those who have engaged in terrorism (e.g. Alonso, 2006; Baeyer-
Kaette,von Classens, Feger, & Neihardt, 1982; Berko, 2007; Bloom, 2005; Dolnik,
2011; Horgan, 2009a, b; Jager, Schmidtchen, & Sulllwold, 1981; Jamieson, 1990; Jür-
gensmeyer, 2000; Post, Sprinzak & Denny, 2003; Stern, 1999). In rare cases, some
even convey a ‘willingness to join [the terrorists] so as to gain insight into their lives
and organizational circumstances’ (Zulaika, 1996, p. 208). For others, not talking to ter-
rorists altogether is a badge of ‘scholarly credibility’ (Brannan, Esler, & Strindberg,
2001, p. 7) a popular assumption being that engagement by researchers feeds the credi-
bility of a population desperately seeking vindication through publicity. Those who
accept the value of such engagement, however, have made significant progress in brid-
ging what Hoffman (1992) described as ‘the chasm separating them from the actual
subjects of their inquiries’ (p. 28).
Hoffman’s concerns are symptomatic of a broader challenge. In a systematic review
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of thousands of peer-reviewed literature sources, Lum, Kennedy, and Sherley (2006)

reported that: ‘we . . . discovered that only 3–4% of them were based on studies that
employed some type of empirical analysis on terrorism data or information. Thus,
almost all the research on terrorism could be broadly described as thought pieces, theor-
etical discussions, or opinions’ (pp. 491–492). Eighteen years earlier, Schmid and
Jongman (1988) asserted similar sentiments. However, in their cornerstone Political
Terrorism study, Schmid and Jongman revealed the methodological distribution of
research efforts. They found that approximately 40% of researchers conducted inter-
views with government officials and that 24% of researchers conducted interviews
with actual terrorists.
Although in hindsight these figures seem high, a 2001 survey by Andrew Silke
proved illuminating. He initially echoed Schmid and Jongman vis-à-vis progress in
the field, but found that in those published articles identifying interviews as part of
their methodology, interviewing ‘represented a very minor feature of the overall
effort and contributed to no more than four per cent of the information contained in
the article’ (p. 7). Silke’s analysis suggested that in only 1% of reports were interviews
conducted in a ‘systematic and structured manner’ (p. 7). The main data focus of
researchers, he notes, ‘has come again via secondary data analysis’ (p. 7).
To understand why this is so, two key assertions can be made. Of the fieldwork
efforts that researchers report, serious interviews with terrorists are few and far
between, relative to other research methods. Second, those researchers that do
conduct interviews appear reluctant to share information on the process of that
enquiry (i.e. how to get access), the subsequent methodological issues underpinning
their enquiries (i.e. what kind of interviewing etc.) as well as the immediate outcomes
(see Noricks & Williams, 2009).
The focus of the present piece is on interviewing and its associated methodological
and analytic considerations. This is in contrast to ‘talking to’, ‘schmoozing’ with, or
other ad hoc and largely unstructured activity that sometimes reveals more about the
researcher than the subject under investigation. While many (certainly not all) accounts
of ‘talking to’ those who have been involved in terrorism represent a more accessible
and exciting account, these tend to be ‘at best journalistic portrayals, and at worst, an
unfettered ego trip’ (Horgan, 2009a, p. xix). Thus, the primary goal of the present effort
is to contrast these with efforts at interviewing terrorists and the process that this entails
as part of an effort to promote better first-hand research on terrorism and, ultimately, a
 Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 3

useful direction for future psychological research in this domain. At the very least,
greater first-hand data collection would offer new perspectives, new avenues for
better exploiting interdisciplinary collaboration, and hint at new answers to lingering
critical questions. A 2009 special issue of Political Psychology that presented a
multi-disciplinary symposium on suicide terrorism illustrated precisely why interview
data may help settle (or at least progress) arguments that, although richly informed by
the nature of the exchange, nevertheless remain without satisfactory resolution (see
Kruglanski, Chen, Dechesne, Fishman, & Orehek, 2009, and subsequent responses).
In this case, the various exchanges centered around one particular issue of whether
one can reliably and satisfactorily infer personal motivation from violent participants
in the absence of direct access to those individuals, by, for example instead attempting
to ascertain individual motivational factors from examining recorded ‘last will and tes-
tament’ videos of suicide bombers.
Regardless of where one fits in an interdisciplinary study of terrorism, prospective
researchers of all backgrounds must understand what is meant by an interview, and
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what it means to design, conduct and interpret the outcome from an interview. The
term ‘interview’ is unspecific because it is used in a variety of different ways
(Gubrium & Holstein, 2001). The most common meaning refers to a formal discussion,
often with the purpose of obtaining specific information, or conducting an evaluation of
some kind. There are many different kinds of interviews, and many different styles of
interaction. Each carries its own functions and expectations, from its theoretical under-
pinnings to guiding analytic strategies, to interpretation and eventual representation. An
interview is not necessarily an ordinary conversation. Stylistically, a conversation tends
to be fundamentally more ‘unprompted’ or spontaneous, and may have few if any of the
characteristics associated with formal interviews. Methodologically, an interview can
be understood as a core element in a case study (George & Bennett, 2005). An inter-
view might also form the bulk of something akin to grounded theory analysis. In a
broader sense, a central use of an interview is to not just collect information, but to
search for, elicit and collect data for analysis in some form.
Furthermore, a pressing need exists for comparative analysis of the specifics of
researchers’ experiences. Among the benefits to be gained from this is much-needed
clarity around the nature, purpose and function of interviewing as a tool for collecting
data. This is relevant not only for established researchers, but also for the next gener-
ation of terrorism researchers. Reports from graduate students entering the violent field
(e.g. Sangarasivam, 2001) that ‘nothing in my academic training prepared me for the
methodological challenges while conducting fieldwork in a setting of war’ (p. 95)
are a clear testament to the need for increased documentation of shared experiences,
and more reference points for future students who seek to employ interview methods
in their research. The cost of not explicitly addressing these issues for the future devel-
opment of research on terrorism is far greater than the immediate discomfort of sharing
experiences of research that is, for all the wrong reasons, shrouded in secrecy.
Let us first explore why interviews are so potentially useful in the study of terrorism,
and why they will be essential for enhancing future psychological research on
terrorism.

The case for interviews in terrorism research

Terrorism is a special form of political violence. It is a type of psychological warfare
mostly associated with nonstate actors that is characterized by the victimization of
 4 J. Horgan

civilian noncombatants as a deliberate part of a broader strategy aimed at overthrowing

or destabilizing some regime. While terrorist tactics are often used by state agencies,
the term terrorism is usually associated with nonstate movements. Although terrorism
is much more than the sum of individual acts, we need to understand the individual ter-
rorist and the ways in which a variety of issues (e.g. fellow members, ideology) impinge
upon that individual (Borum, 2004; McCauley & Segal, 1987; Silke, 2003; Taylor,
1988). That assertion is well established in the terrorism literature, but a consequence
of some false starts in terrorism research is confusion of what an ‘individual’ perspec-
tive implies. The individual perspective is not about trying to explain terrorism at the
level of the individual. This cannot be done since a group process perspective is critical
in this area. In a major contribution to building a psychology of terrorism, the Commit-
tee on the Psychological Roots of Terrorism as part of the 2005 Club de Madrid con-
ference emphasized ‘collective identity’ as a constructive framework (Post, 2005). But
while necessary, a group process account is not alone sufficient to explain terrorism
(Taylor, 2010). To appreciate what gives rise to and sustains that group process, we
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require an approach that draws on multiple levels of analysis – hence the now ubiqui-
tous characterization of terrorism studies as necessarily multidisciplinary (Reich, 1990;
Yammarino & Dansereau, 2006). Understanding the individual in context captures a
solid and clear role for the individual perspective. As highlighted in Horgan (2009a),
the individual perspective in the study of terrorism should be one that encompasses
the following types of questions:

(1) How, when, where and with whom, do people become involved in terrorism?
(2) What reasons do they give (to themselves and to others) for becoming
involved? Related to this, what are others’ representations of those reasons
and how do we interpret them?
(3) Are there any a priori qualities, traits or other common features that might act as
reliable risk factors for involvement in terrorism?
(4) How does the individual acquire the qualities inherent in, and necessary for,
sustained terrorist membership?
(5) What is the meaning of involvement, to:

(a) someone who is thinking about becoming involved;

(b) someone who is involved in a sustained and focused way;
(c) someone who is thinking about leaving;
(d) someone who has left?
(6) How, when and to what extent does the individual make decisions as a member
of the movement?
(7) What are the ways in which (a) ideological content and (b) ideological pro-
cesses impinge upon the individual behavior of the terrorist?

To understand the development of the terrorist, we must ask questions about how
decisions emerged, the meaning of those decisions, and their consequences for the
person concerned (Taylor & Horgan, 2006). For the purposes of collecting data, inter-
views would appear to be useful when research questions relate to personal accounts.
Interviews afford keen insight into how individuals involved with terrorism (whether
they are victims, security agents or terrorists themselves) perceive themselves, their
environments and their involvement pathways. Although survey data seemingly
 Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 5

allows us to do the same thing, only through in-depth interviews as part of case studies
(e.g. Atkinson, 1998; McAdams, 1993) are we able to understand the meaning associ-
ated with each individual’s experience and how that meaning affects motivation to act
(i.e. mobilization). Because the process of becoming involved with a terrorist move-
ment appears to be such an idiosyncratic and personalized experience, it can be challen-
ging to capture the meaning of events and experiences from the individual using any
other method. Interviews would appear to be essential to capture accounts of micro-
level processes at the depth of detail required to answer the questions described
above. Given that so relatively few interviews are available for interpretation, inferen-
tial statistical analysis here is either inappropriate or misleading. Greater engagement
with interview methods would produce substantively new data and knowledge,
helping accumulate the body of empirical data to promote conceptual development
in the study of terrorism more broadly and eventually give rise to the kinds of modeling
of relationships to which interdisciplinary collaboration aspires. While interviewing,
like all methods, will never provide answers to every question, from the perspective
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of psychological research on terrorist behavior, a greater focus on interviews such

that it becomes a standard tool for terrorism researchers would do nothing less than
revolutionize the field. If for no other reason, to echo Silke (2001, p. 3), more interviews
ensure that the researchers do not continue to re-work old material. Given these appar-
ent benefits, and the natural fit of interview methods, why then do academic interviews
with terrorists seem so relatively rare?
Because there are simply not many terrorists around, it would seem that there might
not be many opportunities to engage in interviews. However, there appears to be two
key issues in how we might address the concerns identified above. One relates to expli-
citly describing the value and significance of the interview as critical method in the
study of terrorism, while the other relates to issues of access to and engagement with
participants in terrorist behavior. These will be addressed in turn.

Understanding interviews: substance and significance

Thinking strategically, the purpose of an interview is to obtain information as to the
nature of the interviewee’s behavior – to identify its antecedents, qualities and conse-
quences (George & Bennett, 2005). It is also to determine the broader socio-cultural
context in which the behavior occurs (Nordstrom & Robben, 1995). What frequently
passes for an interview in terrorism research is a conversation, conducted under what
is later claimed to be pressing and difficult circumstances. That is not to deny the situa-
tional conditions and pressures that can come to bear on the interviewer (discussed
below, and in substantial detail by Dolnik, 2011), rather it represents easily obtained
evidence that researchers are rarely explicit about the particular methodological
issues in their enquiries, and subsequently are vague about the limitations of their
data. It can appear unusual to publicly chastise the quality and rigor of one’s data
from an interview, but doing so helps clarify the recipe for what might emerge in an
ideal scenario. Students are taught that good scientific discovery is first and foremost
about asking the right questions. Only upon reflection on when asking the ‘wrong’
questions occurred can this be improved.
An interview should entail a nonreciprocal relationship: most interviews consist of
the interviewer’s questions, and the interviewee’s answers (Sommers-Flanagan &
Sommers-Flanagan, 2009). The interviewer’s behavior should be planned and highly
organized. In circumstances that involve meeting with and speaking to people who
 6 J. Horgan

have been involved in terrorism (with the associated choreography that accompanies
statements by terrorist organizations or their members), it can be challenging to main-
tain a sense of control over the direction of that interaction, particularly if and when
groups use researchers for publicity. In any event, good interviews require sustained
attention to the interaction, and the interviewer must be prepared to acknowledge
that, despite the qualities associated with terrorism, the interviewee may have
avoided facing unpleasant issues (ibid.).
The simplicity of the interview explains both its appeal and danger. Interviews and
their interpretation are profoundly complex activities, whether conducted in highly
structured clinical settings or in the chaos of the dynamic ethnographic field study.
Accounting for timing and context represent critical issues for researchers (Aronson
Fontes, 2008; George & Bennett, 2005). These are not simply technical issues to be
briefly acknowledged in Results sections. They give rise to significant conceptual
and interpretation challenges (Gubrium & Holstein, 2001). The fact that these are
rarely acknowledged is a poor testament to their importance. For example, timing is
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of enormous significance: an interview with someone who has just been apprehended
by the security forces will yield different outcomes from an interview with the same
person days, weeks or months later. This, in turn, will yield different kinds of results
when compared with the person who has been convicted for a terrorist offense. This
will differ again from an interview conducted with someone who has been sentenced
and imprisoned. An interview with a person traumatized by a recent event (e.g.
faced with the consequences of their involvement in a terrorist act) will yield different
results from an interview with that same person weeks later. Time is a central variable
that can heavily influence, if not determine, what is disclosed (and how) to the inter-
viewer. Schweitzer (2006) compared failed suicide bombers’ explanations of their
involvement from the time of their arrest with accounts given weeks later. Schweitzer
finds that, because the women he interviewed became quickly politicized in prison, they
became armed with a new vocabulary to help explain their political motivation to inter-
viewers. It does not necessarily imply that they are being deceptive or engaging in a
type of ‘malingering’.
This raises a question that is common to those who conduct interviews in a broad
variety of forensic contexts: ‘how do you know if they are telling the truth?’ A problem
here may lie with the assumption that identifying what constitutes a ‘truthful’ account is
something that researchers can realistically do in this context. Debate has recently
begun to emerge on these issues as they apply to risk assessing terrorist offenders
(Devernik, Beck, Grann, Hogue, & McGuire, 2009; Gudjonnson, 2009) and it is
clear that the terrorism studies community has barely begun to scratch the surface on
these issues. While the same person may have been interviewed across stages as
above, the account in subsequent stages may be no less meaningful or ‘truthful’ to
the interviewee. To further develop the example of Schweitzer’s interviewees, it is
not necessarily the case that the subsequent accounts are ‘less truthful’ given the
new ideological garb acquired by detainees. It may be, according to Bloom (2010),
that in prison the women simply find the relevant vocabulary to verbalize what was
already there, but the expression of which could only be learned through culture-
specific social engagements open to men only. Equally, all accounts are partial
because they reflect current and past situations, and the detail associated with some
of them may or may not be demonstrably false if there is an agenda that is being
played out (either by interviewee or interviewer). Much of what is said by individual
terrorists about ideology is post-hoc invention after the event. This can emerge either
 Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 7

when the person has been apprehended and when some justification is needed to
counter what in reality might be rather sordid and low-level activity that constitutes
‘involvement’, or when the event is being used for some other purpose.
Closely related, and critical to placing the interview into context, is the issue of
content. Often missing from interviews with terrorists is the necessary detail of what
kinds of questions have been asked by researchers, and how researchers themselves
ultimately guide the interview. The wording of the enquiry heavily influences what
people say and how they say it. Of conceptual significance in the psychology of terror-
ism has been, as mentioned above, figuring out what are the ‘right’ questions to ask.
Asking a former terrorist about how they became involved with a movement as
opposed to why yields different kinds of answers. In some interviews, the issue of
truth is really irrelevant. The significance of the interview may be that it gives psycho-
logical insight into the person being interviewed. Finding ‘reality’ may be less impor-
tant than acknowledging the significance of its meaning for the interviewee (see
McAdams, 1993, 2001).
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Access and engagement

Close examination of the literature suggests there are more researchers conducting
first-hand research on terrorism than might be expected. Issues of secrecy and
access are especially significant and may help explain why there remains virtually
no meaningful discussion around methodology in this context. There are copious
amounts of information collected on terrorism, but counterterrorism officials are
not necessarily collecting it for scientific analysis. This is to be expected, but
sometimes the explanation is a justification for restricting control and access to that
information. The exploration of equal partnerships to enable access to data, with
clear boundaries about reporting, can bring with it significant benefits for better
understanding the data. Yet, efforts to explore these benefits remain limited. Although
such debate is not new (Ezekiel & Post, 1991), renewed acrimony followed the US
Department of Defense (DoD) Minerva Initiative (Asher, 2008). This initiative pro-
vided grants to the value of US$18 million in 2009 with further funding becoming
available in subsequent years to support social science research on issues of strategic
interest to the national security policy of the United States (ibid.). The source of the
controversy stemmed from fears that academics would be groomed for assisting in the
deployment of ethically dubious counter-insurgency strategies including the Human
Terrain Team system (Rhode, 2007). Reaction to such initiatives highlights the
dilemma of how social scientists can usefully contribute to government policy initiat-
ives without violating their professional ethics. The present day conundrum can be
traced back to the DoD-funded Project Camelot in Latin America in 1964. The initiat-
ive, designed to conduct social science research on the causes of violent rebellion,
sparked fears that academic research would be used to assist in effecting regime
change either by quelling rebellion or training insurgents (Horowitz, 1967). The
fallout from the program was such that it did little more than scar cultural anthropol-
ogists and lay down a basis of resistance to engagement in similar initiatives with the
US military since then.
However, and despite notable exceptions (e.g. Dolnik, 2011), those researchers who
do engage in fieldwork rarely if ever describe the process involved in establishing
contact with terrorist interviewees. This is understandable. There is no doubt that
this particular population brings with it unique challenges when compared with other
 8 J. Horgan

violent or forensic populations. Despite the fact that, in many communities, terrorist
groups exist in plain sight through the services they claim to provide for their ‘rep-
resented’ communities (whether running a taxi service in Belfast or building schools
in Lebanon), they remain secretive organizations steeped in ongoing illegal and subver-
sive activity, with publicly observable activity merely the tip of the iceberg. Although
the point has been made time and time again (e.g. Taylor & Quayle, 1994) that access is
not as difficult as researchers assume, it takes months if not years to even locate poten-
tial interviewees. Positive experiences are critical to ensure continued contact with
either the same individual interviewee (e.g. for longitudinal research) or the organiz-
ation more broadly. Identifying a convenient sample of interviewees in a prison
offers different kinds of challenges when compared with the prospects of working
through a political front to gain access to recently disengaged terrorists, for example.
Any researchers who are successful in ‘breaking in’ will not risk undermining their con-
tinued access by revealing specific details surrounding their access.
Barriers to sharing knowledge of both contacts and the specifics of the process are
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exacerbated by the culture of competitive funding for research that ensures researchers
take every effort to keep data so safe and secure such that the circumstances of how that
data was acquired are rarely even discussed except informally and anecdotally. Conse-
quently, what emerges is a highly idiosyncratic characterization of those efforts that
have led to first-hand interviews, as well as continued suspicion that academics rely
heavily on state bodies for ‘privileged’ access to special populations (Jones & Smith,
2009).
Broader concerns come from academic fears of being part of what Laqueur (1980)
described as the unwitting ‘men and women of goodwill’ (p. 107): ‘psychiatrists, social
workers . . . are the terrorist’s next-best friends. They are eager to advise, to assuage and
to mediate . . . [they] think they know more than others about the mysteries of the
human soul and that they have the compassion required for understanding the feelings
of “desperate men”’ (p. 107). As with the disquiet associated with political debate,
apprehension surrounds the belief that interviewing terrorists (even those vaguely
defined) is ultimately tantamount to appeasement, and that any kind of understanding
is the same as excusing or sympathizing.
Researcher characteristics pose other complications. Tamil researcher Yamuna
Sangarasivam (2001) laments the fact that not only did she not have a ‘tool belt of
methods’ at her disposal when undertaking graduate studies in Sri Lanka, but also
that she did not have ‘any methodological strategy for responding to academics
who assumed I was representative of the LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam]
and demanded from me justifications for the latest bout of reported violence’
(p. 96). As if such matters were not complicated enough, there is recent evidence
that some researchers, despite openly acknowledging their research on ‘Jihadism’,
do not accept the value of interviews with terrorists such that they essentially discou-
rage engagement from researchers. In a recent account of her experiences conducting
interviews, Speckhard (2009) suggests that it is the friends, not the violent partici-
pants themselves, who provide ‘considerable insights’ (p. 199). Interviewing terror-
ists who have quit, she claims, results in ‘useful but dated information’. This
characterization is unfortunate and ultimately misguided not just about the potential
for research on terrorism, but about psychology as a discipline. Equating past partici-
pants as unfruitful sources for interviews suggests a lack of appreciation of the true
value of interview methodology. The purpose of a research interview is not for the
academic to gather operational information on current or future terrorist activities
 Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 9

(which is ultimately what emerges from the argument that the interviews can only
uselessly result in ‘dated information’).
Past experience demonstrates, ironically, that those terrorists who have long dis-
engaged from their movements are willing to disclose substantial details that help
provide what Crenshaw (2001) describes as the ‘primary data based on . . . life his-
tories’ (p. 416). To invoke a sentiment from Oscar Wilde, knowing the value of
such information is worth the cost of at least being willing to interview former par-
ticipants in violent activity. A primary aim of interviewing even those who have
quit is to contribute to building a picture of psychological process. Such data, if devel-
oped through rigorous techniques and interpreted within inevitable limitations, ought
to be impervious to concerns like these. In fact, it is frequently the case that friends
and family of terrorists are deliberately duped as part of the recruit’s cover story. Any
information they may offer after the fact about the motivating influences of the
individual under examination may reflect varied and complex influences. Despite
grieving the martyrdom of a son, daughter, brother or sister, there may be social
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and cultural pressures towards condoning or approving the actions of the terrorist
operative (Bloom, 2010).
Mischaracterizations aside, a reluctance to enter the field in the first instance is
understandable. There are immediate assumptions that interviewing former terrorists
cannot or should not be done. There are appreciable concerns about personal risk
and possible danger in any field setting that involves exploring sensitive topics (see
Lee, 1995; Nordstrom & Robben, 1995). The associated institutional challenges for
researchers can be significant, not least in assuaging the concerns of university ethics
committees and navigating the bureaucracy of Institutional Review Boards. Further-
more, even at the design phase of field research, cultural issues can be overwhelming
to the point of discouraging (see Kitayama & Cohen, 2007; Matsumoto, 2001). It takes
significant skill and experience to be sensitive to nuance in interviewing in one’s own
cultural milieu, let alone doing this in a foreign country and on a population embedded
in a particular socio-political context (Aronson Fontes, 2008; Dolnik, 2011). A further
challenge, highlighted earlier, stems from the realization that the research will involve
interviewing someone from an organization that is, in key areas, bound to secrecy
(Zulaika, 1995): there is mutual suspicion, not only from host communities, but from
academic researchers themselves concerned about being perceived not as sympathizers
but as the opposite – spies, ‘embedded’ academics and more counter-insurgency
agents. For these and other reasons, before even getting to the field, it is understandable
why reworking old material has its appeals.
When a researcher is able to manage these issues, and is ultimately able to engage,
the next question is clear – how can interviews with terrorists be arranged? To echo
Taylor and Quayle (1994), the counter-intuitive answer is that access is not that diffi-
cult. The perception that interviews are difficult to procure is probably because
researchers either rarely try to arrange one or simply assume it to be impossible.
Taylor and Quayle found that ‘contacts can usually be established with the various
groups, and once you are accepted, they are usually cooperative and facilitative in so
far as you have the capacity to meet some of their objectives of gaining a broader
hearing and publicity’ (p. 24). It is here that the first major issue relating to safety expec-
tations arises: researchers should be aware that ‘the only reason for which an organiz-
ation is willing to allow a meeting is because they feel they have something to gain from
it’ (ibid., emphasis mine). Any other assumption about the granting of an interview is
naı̈ve, just like any belief that the researcher who tries to ingratiate him/herself with
 10 J. Horgan

that the movement can somehow (perhaps with the ‘right’ introduction) come to be seen
as an impartial observer.

Interviewee access routes

Access to interviewees can be targeted through:

(1) formal contact with a political front;

(2) formal contact with other ‘gatekeepers’;
(3) informal introductions during formal events (e.g. marches, commemorations,
funerals, public meetings);
(4) informal approaches in conflict zones.

While the specific circumstances of each case and the experiences of individual
researchers may differ, there tends to be a general process. The first phase involves
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identifying a ‘gatekeeper’ to whom an approach is made to explore initial access.

The gatekeeper can be an academic, journalist or perhaps an official member of the ter-
rorist’s political front. The latter option assumes that the group has an identifiable pol-
itical affiliation. This raises the issue for the interviewer about discovering not just
whether and how to interview a terrorist, but when (which, in some cases, may not
be possible until the group evolves to such an extent that they have such a front). A
gatekeeper may also be the editor of the publishing press for whom the terrorist has
written a memoir, or may be (as is very common) another terrorism researcher who
has already interviewed the person in question. Whatever the case, this initial approach
to those who are de facto ‘gatekeepers’ serves both to formally introduce the researcher
to the interviewee and simultaneously give the gatekeeper an opportunity to screen the
researcher before the interview request is ultimately passed on. This initial phase will
often entail providing a detailed letter that serves both the gatekeeper and the potential
interviewee. It provides background information on the researcher, their training,
affiliation and research goals, and the desired outcome of the meeting. The importance
of the letter of introduction cannot be overstated. It can be the primary deciding factor in
passing on or declining a request and whether the potential interviewee can make an
informed decision about whether or not to proceed to the next phase – a meeting.
Such a letter, because it is a participant recruitment tool, is also a fundamental require-
ment of most University Institutional Review Boards.

Initial meetings and reactions

A frequent concern of terrorism researchers is that interviewees will discover that they
study ‘terrorism’ (as opposed to what has been described in introductions and letters as
‘militant behavior’, ‘insurgency’ or ‘political violence’). It is safe to assume that the
groups in question will already know this. In the experiences of the author, the
purpose of the verification (whether through an Internet search or other mechanism)
is to ensure that the researcher can be associated with an institution. Related to this
is the assumption academic researchers have that, if they are perceived to be connected
in any way to some government influence, this negatively harms their chances of being
granted an interview. On the contrary, it is more likely that, if the group perceives the
academic to have influence with government or policy audiences, they will be more
likely to embrace the researcher in the hope that their group is portrayed positively.
 Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 11

However this will be a function of the kind of group being accessed by the researcher,
and is more likely to be the case for a terrorist movement that has started to progress
into the political process in some way, however informal.
The main questions posed time and time again for researchers are: ‘why do you
want to ask these questions?’ and ‘where will this information go?’ The present
author is often asked whether the information being collected and recorded will go
to the police, military or intelligence community. It is made clear that the primary
outlet for the research is for academic journals, books and reports. It is also explained
that the research informs teaching and that the immediate recipients are university stu-
dents. If probed further, it is acknowledged that government analysts may well read the
results of the research and sometimes may extend an invitation to the author to present
results before a policy audience. However, it is made clear to respondents that there is
no influence placed on the researcher to ask particular questions, and that the researcher
alone determines the research agenda.
Another common question is ‘who is paying for this research?’ Academic research-
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ers may assume, plausibly, that if a government funds a research project they should be
deceptive about this. This is probably unwise. As above, a common answer is that,
while a project may have government funding, it does not influence either the original
questions posed or any aspect of the outcome of the research. Also, it is explained to
prospective interviewees that the research may be policy-relevant, but is never partisan.
The concern is not necessarily about who is specifically funding the researcher (because
no researcher will, whether they believe it or not, assuage suspicions on the part of the
group about collusion), but whether the researcher is willing to be open and provide
clear answers when engaged by a gatekeeper or interviewee. There is evidence that ter-
rorist organizations are acutely aware of how academics may be (unwittingly or other-
wise) open to exploitation either by those that fund their research or government bodies
that show interest in an academic’s work. In this, and in a broader sense, many field
researchers come to acknowledge, in the words of Sangarasivam (2001) that ‘research-
ers are not innocent subjects who are in the field to listen and learn from local people.
We bring research agendas’ (p. 98).
Once a gatekeeper sets up a meeting, there is no guarantee that the interview will
take place. Gatekeepers may tell the researcher that ‘no promises’ can be made. The
nature of this and other similar barriers will vary from setting to setting. Interviewing
terrorists in prison has several attendant problems. Approaches to imprisoned terrorists
can be arranged either through the authorities or via the prisoner’s representatives
(family members, lawyers, prison officials, prisoner associations, etc.). Depending on
the jurisdiction in which such an approach is made, the researcher may face completely
context-specific and highly diverse experiences (from design to IRB to access). This is
especially the case given that terrorist investigations remain technically ‘open’ for a
long time, and researchers who engage with prisoners rarely are afforded confidentiality
and/or anonymity. However, gaining the cooperation of prison officials to facilitate
access to the subjects can be a major enterprise, as was the case with interviews of incar-
cerated Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons conducted by Post et al. (2003.) More-
over, as there is often a clear organizational structure developed within prison, Anat
Berko (2007) found that it was important first to interview the leaders before others
in the organization would feel it was permissible to engage in interviews. Even after
the interviewer is allowed to meet with the potential interviewee, the screening
process may continue. Taylor and Quayle (1994) described the reaction of one of
Taylor’s interviewees, a Loyalist terrorist in Northern Ireland, who sat in the interview
 12 J. Horgan

room flanked by two ‘heavies’: ‘You’re a psychologist, aren’t you?’, he asked, smiling
as he spoke. I replied that I was. ‘Does this mean that you will use what I say to make it
easier to catch people? Why are you doing this?’ (p. 26). Crenshaw (1990, p. 248)
warned that research by psychologists can frequently lead to perceptions of attempts
at diagnosis.
A final issue here is the question of whether or not the interviewer is engaging with
an ‘active’ terrorist, or someone who has disengaged. The issue of involvement is one
of the trickiest to resolve. In conflict zones, the researcher may begin by interviewing a
person who appears to have disengaged from a movement, but may accidentally be pre-
sented with a situation of interviewing someone who is currently involved and happens
to be in the area. This is why it is imperative to be clear on the parameters and bound-
aries of the interview, and to resist the real temptation to ask questions that transcend
the scope of the original argument. Resolving ethical dilemmas is far tougher than
taking careful steps to avoid placing oneself in situations that could easily have been
avoided.
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Interview styles
There are many different ways to interview someone, ranging from highly structured and
relatively rigid approach to what Atkinson (1998) describes as the ‘open-ended, just-turn-
on-the-tape-recorder-and-ask-people-to-talk conversational approach’ (p. 39). It may thus
be unhelpful to assert core principles in the absence of knowing what the researcher is
trying to do. However, to generate the kind of rich, meaningful data necessary for psycho-
logical research on terrorist behavior, rigorous interviewing principles are key. These
have been well established elsewhere before (e.g. Gubrium & Holstein, 2001;
Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan, 2009) and will not be repeated here, but it
is important to address some aspects of interview strategies and to reflect on the potential
these provide for researchers.
There are two main types of structured interview: (1) the semi-structured interview
format and (2) the highly structured interview format. The highly structured format is
incorrectly assumed to be the superior research tool. For many, it is designed to mini-
mize the role of inference in the process and is used by individuals with a minimum of
training. There are significant disadvantages associated with highly structured inter-
views, including as Kleinmuntz (1982) described, overly rigid approaches that
ensure the interview becomes little more than ‘an inquisition’ (p. 179). Consequently,
this may ‘yield little more than minimal answers to the questions . . . Moreover, with
greater structure, the interviewer cannot cover the wide range of topics that could ident-
ify problems of which the respondent is unaware’ (ibid.).
Semi-structured interviews permit greater latitude in phrasing questions, allowing
the researcher to pursue alternative lines of enquiry and thus permitting a broader
interpretation of responses. Semi-structured interviews require experience, training
and domain knowledge, even for exploratory research. They permit detailed, rich
accounts to emerge of both the complexity of life in a terrorist movement and the
process of people becoming involved, remaining involved and ultimately disengaging
from terrorist groups.
Perhaps more relevant for those using semi-structured interviews, a competent
interviewer will often want to probe about emotions. Critically important is the need
to be aware of the consequences of doing so even where, especially the context of ter-
rorism, there may be faulty assumptions on the part of the researcher about just how
 Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 13

‘routine’ this is for the interviewee (industrial/organizational psychologists will be well

aware of these issues as they apply to industrial settings, e.g. interviews with mid- to
senior-level executives). As with any interview, the interviewer must analyze infor-
mation appropriately and be equipped to handle self-disclosures accordingly, especially
important given the moral, legal and ethical issues surrounding interviews with those
who have been involved in illegal activity.

Benefits, challenges and limitations

Post (2008) argues that most terrorism researchers ‘have never laid eyes upon a terror-
ist, much less spoken with one’ (p. 9). He is correct, but let us clarify that engagement is
worthless unless the researcher is capable of properly conducting and effectively inter-
preting the interview. An assumption in terrorism research is that, because interviews
are so rare, they merit special status in terms of method and/or data quality. As with
any research method, there are challenges and limitations. Regardless of what kind
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of interview appeals to the researcher, it is vital to know what constitutes a good inter-
view and that different kinds of interview yield different kinds of results. Interviewees
may provide inaccurate information, despite the best of intentions, and interviewers
may not either understand the information that is given by respondents, or possess
enough contextual knowledge or experience to understand the significance of what
has been said. This is particularly likely in cross-cultural settings (Kitayama &
Cohen, 2007).
Silke (2001) argued that interviews with terrorists are ‘carried out with conveniently
available groups or individuals with little effort made to sample systematically’ (p. 8).
His concern is merited, but this should not necessarily be interpreted as a limitation for
interviews with terrorists. It is a reflection of what can be expected in exploratory
research. To paraphrase Silke, the disengaged sample may be representative, but
then again, it may not. As he states, ‘with opportunity sampling, there is no way to
tell’ (p. 8). Some authors will be critical in general of interviews with small sample
sizes. Unless carefully qualified, this stems not only from a misunderstanding of
what case studies and exploratory research are all about, but also from unrealistic
expectations about generalizability. Understanding the value of data driven by rigorous
data collection and making the effort to sample systematically may lessen the efficacy
of arguments about sample size (George & Bennett, 2005). In the study of terrorism,
researchers are heavily reliant on opportunity sampling. Researchers’ resistance to gen-
eralizability, however, should not be frowned upon when we consider the preponder-
ance of political science models that are rarely empirically derived at all. In fact,
such resistance should be encouraged. Yet, this does not constitute blind acceptance
of a method. While the case study is the only method appropriate for unusual or rare
cases, researchers cannot (nor should they) generalize the results. Given the comments
earlier about the unreliability and invalidity of much of what we claim to know about
terrorism, this is not necessarily a bad thing. The inability to generalize may be frustrat-
ing for the academic eager to contribute to discussions about policy, but should be
embraced by the academic who is serious about developing an interdisciplinary
science of terrorist behavior. Scientific best practice and validated strategies, more
than any other, must determine the nature and scope of research efforts. Speckhard
(2009) states that her interviewees are afforded the ‘luxury of discussing their lives
with a psychologist’ (p. 203) and that this has resulted in ‘continued contact with indi-
viduals I have interviewed or stayed long with after the interview’ (p. 203). She
 14 J. Horgan

describes how important it is to signify ‘kindness’ to respondents (p. 206) by bringing

gifts, but at the same time, suggests this as consistent with a ‘very clinical stance’
(p. 215).
In addition to issues of reliability, there are also challenges with the validity of the
interview. These include the extent to which interview information corresponds to that
obtained through other methods (e.g. surveys vs interviews). An issue frequently con-
sidered by psychologists who work with clinical populations is predictive validity. This
concerns the degree to which the interview information predicts either treatment plan or
treatment outcome. Although this might seem irrelevant for the current discussion, it
may be very relevant to the design of a treatment, rehabilitation or risk reduction initiat-
ive (see Horgan & Braddock, 2010) concerned with managing or controlling terrorist
behavior.

Conclusions
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Despite impressive and encouraging growth of psychological research in the study of

terrorism, the overall assessment remains unclear. There is exciting potential for
major progress, particularly as the interdisciplinary nature of terrorism studies begins
to yield ambitious collaborative ventures. However, we can contrast this with what
appears to be little sense of true long-term investment in research on terrorism at uni-
versity psychology departments. Outside a few small centers, there is little if any pro-
motion of terrorism research at the graduate level. Furthermore, it remains challenging
to promote the development of psychological research that can be part of both interdis-
ciplinary (and not just multidisciplinary) and policy-relevant efforts. These critical
issues will not be resolved in the short-term, but Gordon (2010) echoes these concerns
by arguing that, on a list of serious shortfalls, terrorism research remains unambigu-
ously characterized by a lack of empirical, evidence-based research. There is extensive
primary source data about what terrorists say about themselves and others. What is in
short supply is individual-level data about the terrorists themselves. Undeniably,
however, until we begin to more explicitly share experiences of interviews with terror-
ists, research on the psychology of terrorism will suffer from misguided assumptions
and a failure of imagination. As a consequence, future interviews with those who
have been directly involved in terrorism will remain limited and will continue to
retain their unfortunate ‘novelty’ value. Continued efforts to find a way to interview
those involved in terrorism may bring with them numerous benefits for the develop-
ment of the field. Perhaps most urgently, such efforts serve to ‘demystify’ (Sangarasi-
vam, 2001, p. 101; also a sentiment echoed by Dolnik, 2011) a research method that
brings with it tough challenges. There is no shortage of rich ethnographic and forensic
psychological research on sensitive topics and on the volumes of material discussing
lessons learned from researchers’ engagement with sensitive populations. Yet terrorism
researchers too frequently appear oblivious to such progress.
As we look to the future, however, there are some positive notes. More and more
psychologists are finding that safe access is possible, and typically follows a predictable
process. So far, respondents tend to be cooperative and the response rate quite high.
However, most critical is the indisputable fact that rigorous and ethically sound data
collection is possible. For us to build on this, it is clear where we need to go. We
must advocate greater transparency about the process by which interviews are obtained
and worked through. While all quantitative research on terrorism (even poor-quality
research) has an air of rigor about it, it is difficult to underestimate the damage done
 Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 15

by poor qualitative research to this field of study. Only from greater exploration of these
issues may we be in a position to finally distinguish simply talking with terrorists from
interviewing terrorists. Skilled interviewing can be a catalyst for extraordinary progress
in psychological research on terrorism, and what other reason need there be for more
efforts to promote this? We should not allow unrealistic expectations and premature cri-
ticism to detract from the urgent need to work towards greater academic development of
these issues (Leweling & Nissen, 2007).

Acknowledgment
The work presented in this paper was supported (in part) by the Office of Naval Research under
grant no. N00014-09-1-0667. The paper is based on presentations to the International Studies
Association 50th Annual Convention, ‘Exploring the Past, Anticipating the Future’, 15 February
2009, New York, and to the International Society of Political Psychology’s 33rd Annual Scien-
tific Meeting, San Francisco, CA, July 2010. I thank Ginamarie Ligon, Max Taylor, Paul Gill,
Mia Bloom, Brock Renshaw, Kurt Braddock and Victor Asal for their comments on the ISPP
Downloaded by [Dr John Horgan] at 04:19 18 July 2011

paper and an earlier draft. All errors are the author’s.

Notes on contributor
John Horgan is Director of the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at the Pennsyl-
vania State University, where he is also Associate Professor of Psychology. His forthcoming
book Divided We Stand: The Strategy and Psychology of Ireland’s Dissident Terrorists will
be published by Oxford University Press.

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