Orient Blackswan

Imprint	Orient BlackSwan
Year of Publishing	2011
Number of pages	316
ISBN	9788125041665
Format	Paperback
Language	English
Dimensions	158 x 240 mm
Territorial Rights	India,Nepal,Bhutan,Bangladesh,Sri Lanka,Maldives,Pakistan

the Book
the Author(s)
Table of Contents

How do radical religious sects run such deadly terrorist organizations? Hezbollah, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Taliban all began as religious groups dedicated to piety and charity. Yet once they turned to violence, they became horribly potent, executing campaigns of terrorism deadlier than those of their secular rivals.

In Radical, Religious and Violent, Eli Berman approaches the question using the economics of organizations. He argues that these terrorists (even suicide terrorists) are best understood as rational altruists seeking to help their own communities. Yet despite the vast pool of potential recruits—young altruists who feel their communities are repressed or endangered —there are less than a dozen highly lethal terrorist organizations in the world capable of sustained and coordinated violence that threatens governments and makes hundreds of millions of civilians hesitate before boarding an airplane. What is special about these organizations, and why are most of their followers religious radicals?

Drawing on parallel research on radical religious Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Berman shows that the most lethal terrorist groups have a common characteristic: their leaders have found a way to control defection. Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Taliban, for example, built loyalty and cohesion by means of mutual aid, weeding out “free riders” and producing a cadre of members they could rely on. The secret of their deadly effectiveness lies in their resilience and cohesion when incentives to defect are strong.

These insights suggest that provision of basic social services by competent governments adds a critical, nonviolent component to counterterrorism strategies. It undermines the violent potential of radical religious organizations without disturbing free religious practice, being drawn into theological debates with jihadists, or endangering civilians.

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Eli Berman is Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego, and research Director of International Security Studies at the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation.

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Preface to the South Asian Edition
Acknowledgments
Note to Readers

1 Why Are Religious Terrorists So Lethal?
Hezbollah
The Taliban
Hamas
The Lethality of Religious Radicals
What Motivates Terrorists? The Afterlife and Other Myths
Terrorists Organizations—Why So Few?
Internal Economies and Organizational Efficiency
What’s Coming?

2 The Defection Constraints
Origins of the Taliban
Trade Routes and Defection
Coordinated Assault
Terrorism and Defection—Hamas
The Jewish Underground—Terrorists Who Overreached
Hezbollah and Suicide Attacks
The Mahdi Army in Iraq

3. Sects, Prohibitions and Mutual Aid: The Organizational Secrets of Religious Radicals
Prohibitions and Sacrifices—the Benign Puzzles
Where are the Dads?
Mutual Aid
Prohibitions and Clubs
Evidence
Fertility
Pronatalist Prohibitions
Radical Islam and Fertility

4. Sect, Subsidy, and Sacrifice
Subsidized Sacrifice
Madrassas
Subsidized Prohibitions and Fertility
How Many Radical Islamists?
Recap

5. The Hamas Model: Why Religious Radicals Are Such Effective Terrorists
The "Hamas Model"
Origins of the Mode
Hamas
Social Service Provision by the Taliban, Hezbollah, and al-Sadr
Why Religious Radicals Are Such Lethal Terrorists
Terrorist Clubs
Evidence
When Terrorists Fail
Clubs and Violence without Religion
Gratuitous Cruelty
Objections

6. Why Suicide Attacks?
Rebels, Insurgents, and Terrorists
Suicide Attacks
Evidence
Coreligionists Are Soft Targets
Clubs
Alternative Explanations
The Future of Suicide Attacks?

7. Constructive Counterterrorism
How Terrorist Clubs Succeed
Constructive Counterterrorism
What's Wrong with the Old-Fashioned Methods?
Where to Start?
The Malayan Precedent

8. Religious Radicals and Violence in the Modern World
Radical Christians, Benign and Violent
The Supernatural and Credibility
Markets and Denominations
Jewish and Muslim Denominations
What's Wrong with Religion in Government? Competition and Pluralism
Not about Us
What's Our Role?

Analytical Appendix
The Defection Constraint
Clubs, Loyalty, and Outside Options
Suicide Attacks vs. Hard Targets
Protecting Hard Targets by Improving Outside Options

Notes
References
Index

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Radical, Religious, and Violent

The New Economics of Terrorism

Eli Berman

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