Political Science 4344 Spring 2026 Dr. Arnold Leder
THE POLITICS OF EXTREMISM

Department Of Political Science/Texas State University http://www.polisci.txstate.edu/
Office: UAC/Undergraduate Academic Center 355; Telephone number: (512) 245-2143; Fax number: (512) 245-7815

Please Note:
Covid-19 Case Reporting and Response Steps
All students, faculty, and staff are urged to look at the information for
Covid-19 Case Reporting and Response Steps provided by Texas State University
@ https://www.txstate.edu/coronavirus/road-map/reporting-processes.html

Password protected materials for this course can be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to the appropriate section on for this course. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course. For the link to this posted web syllabus and for the links for posted web syllabi for other courses taught by Dr. Leder see: http://www.arnoldleder.com/.

Note on links provided in this syllabus: For some "gated" sites access to the particular essay and/or website may require disabling or turning off (temporarily, if so desired) options/features on your browser which block cookies.

Department Of Political Science/Texas State University http://www.polisci.txstate.edu/
UAC/Undergraduate Academic Center 355; Telephone number: (512) 245-2143; Fax number: (512) 245-7815

Office: UCA 363
Office Hours: Office Hours for Distance Learning Format Courses:
Flexible mutually agreed on appointment days and times with individual students using email. Communication for appointments through email.
Dr. Leder's email address: al04@txstate.edu

Class Days and Times TBA

The online version of this syllabus can be accessed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/. Scroll to the link for this syllabus labeled Political Science The Politics of Extremism.
Password protected materials for this course can be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to the section on "Terrorism". Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course. For links to web syllabi for other courses taught by Dr. Leder see: http://www.arnoldleder.com/.

Link to: Texas State University Library

Note on Links: For all indicated links in this syllabus to the Texas State University Library please use this link: Texas State University Library.
A number of articles in this syllabus are accessible in pdf (portable document format) to students at the CANVAS site of Texas State University. A Texas State University User Name/ID and password are required for access. Materials in this syllabus which indicate they are accessible at TRACS have been transferred to CANVAS and are no longer accessible in TRACS. Additional materials in pdf may also be accessed at the CANVAS site for Political Science 4344/The Politics of Extremism. Please check the pdf materials at the CANVAS site for this course.

Texas State University Academic/Student Calendar @ https://www.registrar.txstate.edu/persistent-links/academic-calendar/academic-calendar-student.html

B.A. POLITICAL SCIENCE – PROGRAM LEARNING OUTCOMES - Please see end of syllabus and view statements.
Students pursuing a BPA (Public Administration), please see the program learning outcomes listed immediately below the B.A. in Political Science Program Learning Outcomes at the end of this syllabus.

Students with Disabilities:
Qualified students with disabilities are entitled to reasonable and appropriate accommodations in accordance with federal laws including Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act and the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, and the university policy UPPS 07.11.01. Students with special needs (as documented by the Office of Disability Services) should identify themselves at the beginning of the semester.
Note On Course & Syllabus Materials: Students may find books, articles, links, websites, and other materials provided in this syllabus useful and of interest. Their listing in this syllabus, including those which are required and recommended, does not necessarily indicate endorsement of or agreement with any views or positions on any issues found in these materials, websites, or on other sites to which they may provide links.

Note On Access To Articles: Access to articles through the Texas State University Library @Texas State University Library available to all Texas State University students, requires a valid User Name and a Password. Most of the links in this syllabus provide direct access to the article.

Password Protected Materials: Some materials on this web syllabus are password protected and are directly accessible @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. These materials are for student use. The password will be provided to students in the course.

Note: Wikipedia may be used in several instances in this syllabus as a convenient reference on a variety of matters. Students should be aware of the dispute among academics and others with respect to the reliability and accuracy of Wikipedia and they should not assume that a Wikipedia entry is the last word or most accurate information on the subject.

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OVERVIEW OF COURSE

ISIS - Link in this syllabus to a selection of readings on ISIS or scroll to Section IV. Radical Islam & Terrorism.

Course Title
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM

Topics
I. Conceptual Concerns: "Conventional", "Rancorous", & "Extremist" Politics
II. Terrorism: Definitions, "Causes", & Dimensions
III. Conceptualizing Terrorism: Strategic Choice; Product Of Psychological Forces; Fantasy; War; Culture
IV. Religion & Terrorism: Radical Islam
V. Suicide & Terrorism
VI. Women & Terrorism
VII. Islam in the West: Globalization, "Individualization", & Radicalism
VIII. Islam in Russia
IX. Defeating Terrorism: Terrorist Organization, Intelligence, Interrogation, & Moral Dimensions X. The Future Of Extremism and Terrorism

Note On Access To Articles: Access to articles through the Texas State University Library, available to all Texas State University students, requires a valid User Name and a Password. Most of the links in this syllabus provide direct access to the article.

Course Description & Purpose
This course is an undergraduate seminar on extremism with a focus on international terrorism. Theoretical literature, cross-national studies, single-case studies, and visits to selected web sites serve as the basis for examination and understanding of this phenomenon.

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COURSE ORGANIZATION & STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES - Distance Learning Format
Zoom class meeting times will be flexible. Generally, Zoom meetings will occur once every week. The day and time for these meetings will be announced.
Attendance at webinars is encouraged. Given the difficulties faced by many students and faculty at this time attendance at webinars will not be mandatory.

Grades
This course includes two formats. One is lecture when appropriate and the other is a webinar format when course materials make this suitable.
Determinants of Course Grade: Required short papers, likely no more than 3, on assigned readings and viewing materials. Length and specifics of these papers TBA. Dates for submission of each of these short papers TBA.
Oral Reports & Presentations and Webinar Participation when circumstances and conditions permit.

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Academic Honesty Statement/Texas State University
STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES
Please see: Academic Honesty Statement for Texas State University @
http://www.txstate.edu/effective/upps/upps-07-10-01.html.
An excerpt from this statement can be found at the end of this syllabus.
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COURSE CONTENT

Note On Course & Syllabus Materials: Students may find books, articles, links, websites, and other materials provided in this syllabus useful and of interest. Their listing in this syllabus, including those which are required and recommended, does not necessarily indicate endorsement of or agreement with any views or positions on any issues found in these materials, websites, or on other sites to which they may provide links.
NOTE: See CANVAS/Political Science 4344 @ https://discovery.canvas.txstate.edu/ on Texas State University website for select posted materials from this syllabus in pdf (portable document format).
A Texas State University User Name/ID and password are required for student access to CANVAS.

Required Books
-Paul Berman/Terror And Liberalism (Norton 2003)
-Mia Bloom/Dying To Kill: The Allure Of Suicide Terror (Columbia University Press 2005)
-Ian Buruma & Avishai Margalit/Occidentalism: The West In The Eyes Of Its Enemies (Penguin 2004)
-Bruce Hoffman/Inside Terrorism (Columbia University Press 2006)
-Walter Reich (ed.)/Origins Of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States Of Mind (Johns Hopkins University Press 1990 & 1998)

Recommended Books For Additional Reading On Issues Related To This Course:
(Please Note: These books are listed for the benefit and convenience of interested students. They are NOT required reading.)
Jean Bethke Elshtain/Just War Against Terror (Basic Books 2003)
Joseph Conrad/Under Western Eyes (Penguin - First Published 1911)
David Cook/Understanding Jihad (University of California Press 2005)
*Jessica A. Coope/The Martyrs of Cordoba:Community & Conflict In An Age Of Mass Conversion [During Muslim Rule In Spain 850-859]/(Univ. Of Nebraska Press1995)
Joel S. Fetzer, J. Christopher Soper/Muslims and the State in Britain, France, and Germany (Cambridge University Press 2005)
Fawaz A.Gerges/The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge University Press 2005)
Philip Jenkins/Images Of Terror;What We Can And Cannot Know About Terrorism (Aldine de Gruyter 2003)
Farhad Khosrokhavar/Suicide Bombers: Allah's New Martyrs (Pluto Press 2005-Translated from the original 2002 French editon)
Walter Laqueur/No End To War: Terrorism In The Twenty-First Century (Continuum 2003)
Matthew Levitt/Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad (Yale University Press 2006)
Ami Pedahzur/Suicide Terrorism (Polity Press 2005)
Olivier Roy/Globalized Islam: The Search For A New Ummah (Columbia University Press 2004)
Marc Sageman/Understanding Terror Networks (University of Pennsylvania Press 2004)
*Coope, The Martyrs of Cordoba, is not about terrorism. This overlooked, interesting book provides insight into the connection between religion and a willingness and even desire to die in defense of one's faith among radical Christians who feared assimilation into the flourishing Arab Muslim culture during the period of Muslim rule of much of Spain or al-Andalus.

Required Articles
Required articles are listed separately in each section of the syllabus.

Required Films/Videos
One Day In September (1999) [1hr. 34 min.]
The film One Day In September is accessible @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8VHxcb8kFA
Academy Award winning documentary on the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the Olympics in Munich. The Battle Of Algiers (1967) [French with English Subtitles - 2hrs. 1 min.]
The film The Battle of Algiers is accessible at the Texas State University Library @ https://txstate.kanopy.com/video/battle-algiers-0
A Texas State University ID and password are required for access.
The classic propaganda film justifying terrorism. This film has inspired many terrorist groups and it has been studied by various counter-terrorist agencies.

Recommended Films/Videos
My Son The Fanatic (British 1997) [1hr. 27 min.]
For more on this film see: June Thomas/The First 7/7 Movie: In the Wake of the London Bombings, a look back at My Son the Fanatic/slate.com/July 18 2005
Excerpt from June Thomas essay on the film My Son The Fanatic:
"After 9/11, the big question was why: Why do they hate us? In the days following 7/7, everyone seems to be asking how: How could apparently assimilated, British-born Muslims end up stuffing bombs into their backpacks and murdering dozens of their compatriots in the Tube and on a London double-decker bus?"

Some possible answers are offered in Udayan Prasad's 1997 movie My Son the Fanatic. Written by Hanif Kureishi (based on a skeletal short story he first published in The New Yorker), the film shows how the British-born son of Pakistani immigrants morphs from a clothes-obsessed, cricket-playing, music-loving accountancy student into a devout Muslim who rails against the corruption and emptiness of Western society, much to the uncomprehending consternation of his father."

Hate (French w/English subtitles 1995 [1hr. 35 min.]
An intense, violent film that depicts the life of angry, disaffected minority youth in the suburbs of Paris. Offers some insight into the perspective of mostly Muslim rioting youth in France, although the three young men on whom this disturbing film focuses are ethnically African, Arab, and Jewish.
For more on this film see: Alan Riding/In France, Artists Have Sounded the Warning Bells for Years NYT November 24, 2005
Excerpt from Alan Riding essay on the film Hate:
"So life often imitates art. Yet with the recent uprisings in some French immigrant neighborhoods, this cliché came with a new twist: art in the form of movies and rap music has long been warning that French-born Arab and black youths felt increasingly alienated from French society, that their banlieues were ripe for explosion.

Certainly, anyone who saw Mathieu Kassovitz's film, 'La Haine', or 'Hate' a decade ago had no reason to be surprised by this fall's violence. At the time, Kassovitz's portrayal of a seething immigrant Paris suburb, even his choice of the word 'hate' for his title, seemed shocking, even exaggerated. Today, the movie could almost pass as a documentary.

In 'Hate', burning cars light up the soulless space between high-rise public housing projects as local residents protest the beating of a young Arab, Ahmed. Nearby, graffiti proclaim: 'Don't forget, the police kill.' Three angry and restless youths - a Jew, an Arab and a black - visit Ahmed in the hospital and are themselves beaten by the police. They plan revenge."

Chaos (French w/English subtitles 2001 [1hr. 49 min.]
"Although comedy takes precedence in most parts of the film, it is the social commentary part that will spark the most debate. France has the largest Muslim population in Europe, mostly from its citizens who are from its former colonies in North Africa. Culture clashes are inevitable when a burgeoning and mostly traditional Muslim society slowly assimilates itself within a Western society that lives by much different values. In this film, Serreau tries to address the hot issue of traditional Muslim society’s treatment of women, specifically the issue of fathers 'selling' their teenage daughters into marriages with much older men. Melodrama aside, 'Chaos' has a serious message to convey to its audience and it does it with force and without fear".
Excerpt from: http://www.dvdtown.com/review/chaos/11612/1928/

For a Review Essay on Films Related to Islam in the West see:
Alan Riding/On Screen, Tackling Europe's New Reality (Review of Films by and/or about Muslims In Europe-w/links to information on noted films)/NYT/January 18 2005

Munich (Spielberg 2005 [2hrs. 44 min.]) See reviews below in "3. Dimensions Of Terrorism: Ethno-Nationalist & Separatist Terrorism; International Terrorism" in Section II.

Topics For Reading, Oral Presentations, & Discussion

I. Conceptualizing Political Behavior: "Conventional", "Rancorous", & "Extremist" Politics
Lecture & Discussion
Readings: Joel Olson, "The Freshness of Fanaticism: The Abolitionist Defense of Zealotry", Perspectives on Politics, Volume 5, Number 4, December 2007, pp. 685-701. This article by Joel Olson is accessible @ http://journals.cambridge.org.libproxy.txstate.edu/action/displayFulltext?type=6&fid=1429516&jid=PPS&volumeId=5&issueId=04&aid=1429508&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S1537592707072179. Texas State University Library link. A valid university ID and password are required for access. This article is also accessible in pdf in the Files section of CANVAS for Political Science 4344 The Politics of Extremism
Abstract:
Zealotry or fanaticism is increasingly regarded as one of the principal threats to liberal democracy in the twenty-first century. Yet even as it is universally disparaged, zealotry is a severely understudied concept. This article seeks to formulate a critical theory of zealotry and investigate its relationship to democracy through a close reading of the speeches of the radical abolitionist orator Wendell Phillips. The American abolitionists were passionate democrats. Yet many of them, such as Phillips, were also self-defined fanatics who believed in using extremist language and tactics on behalf of the slave. Phillips's speeches suggest a specifically political definition of zealotry as a strategy that seeks to mobilize populations in defense of a particular position by dividing the public sphere into friends (those who support the position) and enemies (those who oppose it) and pressuring the moderates in between. Through his defense of fanaticism and his argument for disunion, Phillips articulates a democratic form of fanaticism that challenges common pejorative associations of zealotry with irrationality, intolerance, fundamentalism, or terrorism. (boldface added)

Jon Grinspan, "Was Abolitionism a Failure?", NYT, February 1, 2015, Sunday Review, p. 6. @ http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/was-abolitionism-a-failure/?smid=pl-share.
Excerpt:
"But before abolitionism succeeded, it failed. As a pre-Civil War movement, it was a flop. Antislavery congressmen were able to push through their amendment because of the absence of the pro-slavery South, and the complicated politics of the Civil War. Abolitionism’s surprise victory has misled generations about how change gets made.
...
The problem is, that’s not really how slavery ended. Those upright, moral, prewar abolitionists did not succeed. Neither did the stiff-necked Southern radicals who ended up destroying the institution they went to war to maintain. It was the flexibility of the Northern moderates, those flip-floppers who voted against abolition before they voted for it, who really ended 250 years of slavery.

Abolitionists make better heroes, though, principled and courageous and seemingly in step with 21st century values. But people from the past who espoused beliefs we hold today were usually rejected at the time. We can only wonder which of today’s unpopular causes will, in 150 years, be considered the abolitionism of 2015."

Cass R. Sunstein, "The Polarization of Extremes", Chronicle of Higher Education, December 14, 2007, Volume 54, Issue 16, p. B9.
@ https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-polarization-of-extremes/ This article is accessible in pdf in the Files section of CANVAS for Political Science 4344 The Politics of Extremism
"... an experiment conducted in Colorado in 2005, designed to cast light on the consequences of self-sorting.
... In almost every case, people held more-extreme positions after they spoke with like-minded others.
...
A key consequence of this kind of self-sorting is what we might call enclave extremism. When people end up in enclaves of like-minded people, they usually move toward a more extreme point in the direction to which the group's members were originally inclined. Enclave extremism is a special case of the broader phenomenon of group polarization, which extends well beyond politics and occurs as groups adopt a more extreme version of whatever view is antecedently favored by their members. Why do enclaves, on the Internet and elsewhere, produce political polarization? The first explanation emphasizes the role of information. (boldface added)

The final explanation is the most subtle, and probably the most important. The starting point here is that on many issues, most of us are really not sure what we think. Our lack of certainty inclines us toward the middle. Outside of enclaves, moderation is the usual path. Now imagine that people find themselves in enclaves in which they exclusively hear from others who think as they do. As a result, their confidence typically grows, and they become more extreme in their beliefs. Corroboration, in short, reduces tentativeness, and an increase in confidence produces extremism. Enclave extremism is particularly likely to occur on the Internet because people can so easily find niches of like-minded types — and discover that their own tentative view is shared by others".

For an interesting discussion of the state of Internet use circa 2012 with implications for the observations of Cass Sunstein in his article "The Polarization of Extremes" noted immediately above, see:
Evgeny Morozov, "The Death of the Cyberflâneur", NYT, Sunday, February 5, 2012 Sunday Review
Today’s Internet is a place for getting things done, pushing aside the cyberflâneur — the heir to the flâneur culture of 19th-century France.

"The flâneur wandered in the shopping arcades, but he did not give in to the temptations of consumerism; the arcade was primarily a pathway to a rich sensory experience — and only then a temple of consumption. His goal was to observe, to bathe in the crowd, taking in its noises, its chaos, its heterogeneity, its cosmopolitanism.
...
Something similar has happened to the Internet. Transcending its original playful identity, it’s no longer a place for strolling — it’s a place for getting things done. Hardly anyone 'surfs' the Web anymore. The popularity of the “app paradigm,” whereby dedicated mobile and tablet applications help us accomplish what we want without ever opening the browser or visiting the rest of the Internet, has made cyberflânerie less likely.
...
This is the very stance that is killing cyberflânerie: the whole point of the flâneur’s wanderings is that he does not know what he cares about. As the German writer Franz Hessel, an occasional collaborator with Walter Benjamin, put it, 'in order to engage in flânerie, one must not have anything too definite in mind.' Compared with Facebook’s highly deterministic universe, even Microsoft’s unimaginative slogan from the 1990s — 'Where do you want to go today?' — sounds excitingly subversive. Who asks that silly question in the age of Facebook?"

For more recent perspectives, see:
Tiana Gaudette, Ryan Scrivens and Vivek Venkatesh, "The Role of the Internet in Facilitating Violent Extremism: Insights from Former Right-Wing Extremists", Terrorism and Political Violence 16 July 2020
@ https://www-tandfonline-com.libproxy.txstate.edu/doi/full/10.1080/09546553.2020.1784147
This article is accessible at the Texas State University Library. A Texas State University ID and password are required for access.
Excerpt from this article:
"...our study findings reveal that, regardless of how individuals are first exposed to violent extremist ideologies and groups, it is the Internet that eventually facilitates processes of violent radicalization by enabling them to immerse themselves in extremist content and networks—a finding supported by empirical research on the role of the Internet in facilitating an array of violent extremist movements (e.g., the extreme right, jihadi, single issue) 54 and the extreme right-wing movement in particular. And similar to previous research which observed that online spaces of the extreme right—from discussion forums to social media and fringe platforms—serve as important virtual communities for adherents to support one another, among other things, interviewees in our study oftentimes reported that seasoned or veteran extreme-right wing adherents “took them under their wing” in online settings ..."

For another perspective with implications for Internet use and influence see: Robert Henderson, "Tell Only Lies", City Journal, December 27, 2020
@https://www.city-journal.org/self-censorship This article by Robert Henderson is also accessible in pdf in the Files section of the CANVAS site for The Politics of Extremism Political Science 4344.
"Americans are increasingly afraid to express themselves honestly"

Dylan Rothman, "Are People Lying About Being Woke?", Commentary Magazine, September 2020
@ https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/dylan-rothman/adopting-woke-attitudes-preference-falsification/
Note: Commentary Magazine is a limited access site.
Dylan Rothman's article is posted in pdf in the Files section of the CANVAS site for The Politics of Extremism Political Science 4344.
Timur Kuran's book (see below) on this subject is referenced in this article. See below for more on Timur Kuran's book Private Truths, Public Lies.

Timur Kuran, Private Truths, Public Lies (Harvard University Press, June 1998)
A limited preview of this book is accessible @https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/ADPEDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1
See the preface and the limited preview of Chapter 1 "The Significance of Preference Falsification".

Jack Nicas, Mike Isaac and Sheera Frenkel, "Millions Flock to Telegram and Signal as Fears Grow Over Big Tech", The New York Times, January 14, 2021@ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/technology/telegram-signal-apps-big-tech.html?referringSource=articleShare

Michael Schwirtz, "Telegram, Pro-Democracy Tool, Struggles Over New Fans From Far Right", The New York Times, January 26, 2021
This article is accessible in pdf in the Files section of the CANVAS site for Political Science 4344/The Politics of Extremism. A Texas State University ID and password are required for access.

Written by Quillette Magazine (Note: The authors of this essay are not identified.), "Social-Media Oligopolists Are the New Railroad Barons. It's Time for Washington to Treat Them Accordingly", Quillette, January 11, 2021
@ https://quillette.com/2021/01/11/social-media-oligopolists-are-the-new-railroad-barons-its-time-for-washington-to-treat-them-accordingly/

Michael Lind, "America’s New Corporate Tyranny", Tablet Magazine, January 16, 2021
@ https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/americas-new-corporate-tyranny

Benedict Carey,"Making Sense of the 'Mob' Mentality", The New York Times, January 12, 2021
@ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/science/crowds-mob-psychology.html?referringSource=articleShare

Additional Perspectives on Internet Use Including Communication and Censorship
Evgeny Morozov, The Perils of Perfection, NYT, Sunday Review, March 3, 2013
"... a pervasive and dangerous ideology that I call 'solutionism': an intellectual pathology that recognizes problems as problems based on just one criterion: whether they are 'solvable' with a nice and clean technological solution at our disposal. Thus, forgetting and inconsistency become 'problems' simply because we have the tools to get rid of them — and not because we’ve weighed all the philosophical pros and cons. (boldface added)

Solutionists do not limit themselves to fixing the problems of individuals; they are as keen to fix the problems of institutions. Civic-minded start-ups ... which help(s) people create and join political movements, seek to bypass the conventional party system and allow individuals to practice politics without any mediation by institutions, on the assumption that the only reason we needed representative democracy in the past was because the communication costs were too high. Now that digital technologies have lowered the costs of participation, political parties can go the way of the dodo and be replaced, ad-hoc style, by online groups of concerned citizens.
...
Solutionists err by assuming, rather than investigating, the problems they set out to tackle. Given Silicon Valley’s digital hammers, all problems start looking like nails, and all solutions like apps." (boldface added)

For the implications for censorship and communication of the increasing use of apps or applications in Internet use, see:
Farhad Manjoo, "Clearing Out the App Stores: Government Censorship Made Easier", NYT, January 18, 2017 @ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/technology/clearing-out-the-app-stores-government-censorship-made-easier.html?_r=0
From this article by Farhad Manjoo:
"For more than a decade, we users of digital devices have actively championed an online infrastructure that now looks uniquely vulnerable to the sanctions of despots and others who seek to control information. We flocked to smartphones, app stores, social networks and cloud storage. Publishers like The New York Times are investing in apps and content posted to social networks instead of the comparatively open World Wide Web. Some start-ups now rely exclusively on apps; Snapchat, for instance, exists only as a mobile app.

Compared with older forms of distributing software, apps downloaded from app stores are more convenient for users and often more secure from malware, and they can be more lucrative for creators. But like so much else online now, they risk feeding into mechanisms of central control. In most countries, the Apple and Google app stores are the only places to find apps for devices running their respective operating systems".

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM

II. Terrorism
1. Defining Terrorism: An Overview
Readings: Hoffman, Chapter 1
A limited preview of Bruce Hoffman's book Inside Terrorism Chapter 1 is accessible at https://www.google.com/books/edition/Inside_Terrorism/_ayrAgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1
Click on Preview and then scroll to the 2006 preface of the 6th edition and then continue scrolling to Chapter 1. Chapter 1 includes pages 1 through 42. This limited preview provides access to pp. 1 through 35.

Laqueur (recommended) pp. 138-149 and Appendix, pp.232-238.

Clinton Watts, "Inspired, Networked & Directed - The Muddled Jihad of ISIS & al-Qaeda Post Hebdo", January 12, 2015 http://warontherocks.com/.
(Note: The link to this article by Clinton Watts is also listed in this syllabus in Section IV, 2. Readings on ISIS.)
Audrey Kurth Cronin/How al-Qaida Ends: The Decline and Demise of Terrorist Groups/International Security Summer 2006, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 7-48.
Read the introductory section of this article and the immediately following section with the title "Previous Research on How Terrorism Ends" up to but not including the section with the title "How Other Terrorist Groups Have Ended". These first two sections of the article provide an overview of approaches to the study of terrorism. The entire article will be examined in Part X The Future of Terrorism of this syllabus.
Abstract:
Al-Qaida will end. The fear that a small terrorist organization with a loose network has transformed itself into a protracted global ideological struggle without an end in sight is misguided. There are centuries of experience with modern terrorist movements, many bearing important parallels with al-Qaida; yet the lessons arising from the demise of these groups are little studied. Unfortunately, terrorist organizations in their final stages are often at their most dangerous. The outcomes can range from implosion of a group and its cause to transition to astonishing acts of violence and interstate war. Comparing al-Qaida's differences and similarities with those of earlier terrorist organizations, and applying relevant lessons to this case, can provide insights into al-Qaida's likely demise. It can also inform thinking about how to manage and hasten al-Qaida's end.
Note: Older browsers may not work for access to periodicals at the Texas State University Library. New or recent browsers are best. On some browsers, it may be necessary or more convenient to save the article to desktop as pdf with the extension .pdf following the title of the article. A valid Texas State University User Name and password are required.

Karen Rasler, William R. Thompson, "Looking for Waves of Terrorism", Terrorism & Political Violence, January-March 2009, Vol. 21, Issue 1, pp. 28-41.
Note: This article is accessible in pdf (portable document format) in the Files section of the CANVAS site at Texas State University for Political Science 4344/The Politics of Extremism. A student ID and registration in the course are required for access to this article.
Abstract [from authors]:
This article by Rasler and Thompson uses ITERATE data on international terrorism 1968-2004 to test Rapoport's wave-like behavior of modern terrorism. While the interpretation encompasses a much longer period of time than can be tested empirically with readily available data, it is possible to examine the past 3-4 decades of terrorist activity for traces of the coming and going of old and new groups. The article codes the type of group (anarchists, nationalists, leftists/Marxists, and religious fundamentalists) and then examines the type of tactics employed, deaths, and targets across time. The results confirm the presence of heterogeneous, wave-like behavior that conforms to the Rapoport interpretation as new and old groups/tactics/issues cycle in and out of activity.

Leonard Weinberg, William Eubank, "An End to the Fourth Wave of Terrorism?", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, July 2010, Vol. 33, Issue 7 pp. 594-602.
Note: This article is accessible in pdf (portable document format) in the Files section of the CANVAS site at Texas State University for Political Science 4344/The Politics of Extremism. A student ID and registration in the course are required for access to this article.
Abstract:
It is widely believed that the current wave of religiously inspired terrorism will persist for the foreseeable future. Is this necessarily the case? This article asserts that this present wave may be cresting, much like previous waves in the modern history of terrorist violence. Further, the article goes on to forecast not an end to terrorism in general, but the likely emergence of still new manifestations of terrorist violence.
Avishag Gordon, "Terrorism as an Academic Subject after 9/11: Searching the Internet Reveals a Stockholm Syndrome Trend", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, January-February 2005, Vol. 28: 45-59 @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
For some discussion of the "Stockholm Syndrome" in a different context, see this recommended article on Patty Hearst immediately below:
Rick Perlstein, "That Girl: The Captivity and Restoration of Patty Hearst", The Nation December 29, 2008
"The story of the hostage who comes by turns to identify with the captor is one of the oldest ever told. Tales of unsullied Puritan maidens kidnapped by Indians only to end up 'going native' were staples of early American literature. The Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, which describes the ordeal of a minister's wife held for eleven weeks by Narragansett Indians during King Philip's War in 1676, was among the first such narratives, and it was enormously popular when it was published in Boston in 1682. Three hundred years later, a similar story seized the West's imagination: in Stockholm in 1973, after four customers were taken hostage in a holdup of the Sveriges Kreditbank, there were reports that one of them became affianced to one of the bank robbers. The archetype is of such sturdy provenance, in fact, that it surprised me to learn from William Graebner's Patty's Got a Gun that it wasn't until six years after the Kreditbank incident that the term 'Stockholm syndrome' appeared in the American mass media. The phrase first surfaced in 1979, Graebner explains, 'when Time magazine suggested that the syndrome might have taken hold among those being held hostage by Iranian militants in Tehran.' Perhaps the obsession with the notion of a loss of self under conditions of duress is so primal, so elemental of modern anxieties, that people feared to give it a proper name. Until, that is, the 1970s--a time so drenched in the detritus of captivity that the culture suddenly could not do without the shorthand." (boldface added)
For background information on the related issue of "brainwashing", see this highly recommended article on the 1962 film "The Manchurian Candidate":
Susan L. Carruthers,"The Manchurian Candidate (1962) & The Cold War Brainwashing Scare", Historical Journal Of Film, Radio & Television, March1998.
The classic film on conspiracy thinking referred to by both the left and the right. "Brainwashed" Americans held as prisoners of war by the North Koreans and others during the Koran War of 1950-1953 return to America where one of them has been programmed to commit assassination. See this review of the film "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962). This article is directly accessible with a valid Texas StateUniversity User Name and password @ http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=472884&site=ehost-live.

2. "Causes" Of Terrorism
Analysis & Methodology: Generalization & Singularity
Robert Darnton, "The Good Way to Do History", The New York Review of Books, January 9, 2014, Vol. LXI, No. 1, pp. 52-55. @ http://www.nybooks.com.libproxy.txstate.edu/articles/archives/2014/jan/09/good-way-history/?insrc=toc
Texas State University Library permalink. A valid ID and password are required for access.

A review essay on
The Allure of the Archives by Arlette Farge, translated from the French by Thomas Scott-Railton, with a foreword by Natalie Zemon Davis (Yale University Press, 131 pp.)
Excerpts from Robert Darnton's review essay:
"Still, her vast experience of archival research led her to reflect on one issue that had not received adequate analysis: what she calls the torrent of singularities. Behind every case in the thousands of dossiers she consulted is a singular individual who cannot be assimilated in a general proposition, because there is always another individual whose experience will contradict it. Few historians have wrestled with this problem, because few have attempted to see patterns by examining all the lives exposed in vast stretches of documents. (boldface added)
...
Richard Cobb, the only recent historian who worked through a comparable quantity of archives, ultimately gave up: he rejected any notion of general trends, and he pictured history as the playing out of countless individual existences, each intent on making its own way through an endlessly varied landscape. Sir Lewis Namier combined exhaustive case studies into a general argument, but it was essentially negative: a challenge to the accepted view that British politics in the eighteenth century involved a contest between coherent parties. Farge does not refer to their work or to that of any other scholar who could provide a model for her variety of history—except one: Michel Foucault.

Foucault offered her a way of coping with the problem of endless singularity while respecting the peculiarity of each document and the integrity of the life that appeared, however fragmentarily, in the ink scratched on the paper. Instead of searching for lowest common denominators or higher covering laws, ..." (boldface added)
Readings: Laqueur, Chapter 1 (recommended).
James Q. Wilson/What Makes a Terrorist?/City Journal/Winter 2004
William Gamson, "Rancorous Conflict in Community Politics", American Sociological Review, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Feb., 1966), pp. 71-81 (11 pages)
@ https://www-jstor-org.libproxy.txstate.edu/stable/2091280?refreqid=excelsior%3Af131afc8253e983102b689f4cfb30bb0&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Texas State University Library. A User ID and password are required for access.
William Gamson's article is accessible in pdf in the Files section of CANVAS for Political Science 4344 Politics of Extremism.

Mark Kukis, "Political violence is not just for poor countries anymore", Aeon, 5 January 2021
@ https://aeon.co/essays/political-violence-is-not-just-for-poor-countries-anymore
This essay is accessible in pdf in the Files section of the CANVAS site for Political Science 4344 The Politics of Extremism under the title "Unrest in your backyard".

Alan Krueger, “What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism”, The Lionel Robbins Memorial Lectures, London School of Economics 2006.
@ https://data.nber.org/ens/feldstein/Krueger/20071107-What%20Makes%20a%20Terrorist--AEI-The%20American,%20A%20Magazine%20of%20Ideas.pdf
This article is accessible in pdf in the Files section of CANVAS for Political Science 4344 Politics of Extremism.
"Politicians, pundits, and religious leaders ascribe terrorism to poverty and lack of education. Economic research points elsewhere."

For another perspective on the link between poverty, minority economic discrimination, and domestic terrorism, see:
Kennedy Odede, "Terrorism's Fertile Ground", NYT Opinion Pages, p.A23/OP-ED Contributor, January 9, 2014 @ http://nyti.ms/1eGLOli (NYT permalink).
"A 2011 study in the Journal of Peace Research* found that the perpetuation of Islamist extremism was more significantly associated with urban poverty than with variables like religiosity, lack of education and income dissatisfaction. The urban poor are so close to the city’s opportunities — but they always remain out of reach.
Given the link between urban poverty and terrorism, the best strategy to limit the power of militant groups to seduce recruits is to fight poverty, not terrorism. Instead of investing billions of dollars on drones, let’s focus on augmenting economic opportunities and providing basic and essential services like health care and education."
This article is accessible by Kennedy Odede in pdf in the Files section of CANVAS for Political Science 4344 Politics of Extremism.

*The referenced study in the January 9, 2014 NYT op-ed piece above by Kennedy Odede is:
James A Piazza, "Poverty, minority economic discrimination, and domestic terrorism", Journal of Peace Research May 2011 48: 339-353.
Texas State University Library permalink to this article@ http://jpr.sagepub.com.libproxy.txstate.edu/content/48/3/339.full.pdf+html. A valid Texas State University User Name/ID and password are required for access. This article by James A. Piazza is accessible in pdf on CANVAS for Political Science 4344/The Politics of Extremism.
Abstract:
Recognizing that the empirical literature of the past several years has produced an inconclusive picture, this study revisits the relationship between poverty and terrorism and suggests a new factor to explain patterns of domestic terrorism: minority economic discrimination. Central to this study is the argument that because terrorism is not a mass phenomenon but rather is undertaken by politically marginal actors with often narrow constituencies, the economic status of sub national groups is a crucial potential predictor of attacks. Using data from the Minorities at Risk project, I determine that countries featuring minority group economic discrimination are significantly more likely to experience domestic terrorist attacks, whereas countries lacking minority groups or whose minorities do not face discrimination are significantly less likely to experience terrorism. I also find minority economic discrimination to be a strong and substantive predictor of domestic terrorism vis-a`-vis the general level of economic development. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of the findings for scholarship on terrorism and for counter-terrorism policy. (boldface added)

For more on the view that marginalization of and discrimination against minority groups in a society may be linked to recruitment of Islamist extremists (boldface added) see:
Francis Robles, "Trying to Stanch Trinidad's Flow of Young Recruits to ISIS", NYT, February 21, 2017 @
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/21/world/americas/trying-to-stanch-trinidads-flow-of-young-recruits-to-isis.html
" ... has since been released from prison, said ... the government had created a climate where young Muslims did not feel safe or welcome in the military or civil service. 'This is total discrimination and isolation against young Muslims in Trinidad,' he said in an interview".

For a study which examines a perceived link between economic conditions and recruitment to the radical Islamist group Boko Haram in Nigeria (boldface added), see:
William W. Hansen (with the assistance of Kingsley Jima, Nurudeen Abbas and Basil Abia), "Poverty and 'Economic Deprivation Theory': Street Children, Qur’anic Schools/almajirai and the Dispossessed as a Source of Recruitment for Boko Haram and other Religious, Political and Criminal Groups in Northern Nigeria", Perspectives On Terrorism, Volume 10, No. 5 (2016)
@
https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.terrorismanalysts.com%2Fpt%2Findex.php%2Fpot%2Farticle%2Fview%2F543%2Fhtml&data=01%7C01%7Cal04%40txstate.edu%7C3ffc5bc42bc24ef81a4608d45da24448%7Cb19c134a14c94d4caf65c420f94c8cbb%7C0&sdata=XpGz8g70dk68bd2mc7nsHypRCJWEzheCS%2Bv%2F5kOubkQ%3D&reserved=0
Abstract:
Street children, many of whom are ... are part of a vast underclass that populates the cities of Northern Nigeria. Many of these children and young adults have no means of support other than begging for their daily food, petty crime or providing casual labor. For the most part illiterate, they have few educational skills that would allow them to function in a modern economy. This article argues that the appalling economic conditions experienced by these young people makes them prime targets for recruitment into fanatical religious groups such as Boko Haram, or into one or another of the political/criminal gangs – generically called the ‘Yan Daba’–that proliferate in northern Nigerian cities. It further argues that the underclass from which these young people emerge is the direct consequence of the failed governance of the parasitic predator class that dominates the post-colonial Nigerian state. This, in turn, makes attempts at de-radicalization and bolstering the security forces doomed to failure – unless there are far-reaching social reforms that would undermine the very class that dominates the post-colonial state. (boldface added)
For additional information on Boko Haram and links to numerous materials with varying perspectives, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boko_Haram.
Note: Materials posted on wikipedia are often changed or challenged. The posting of this wikipedia link to materials on Boko Haram does not necessarily indicate agreement or disagreement with conclusions or perspectives in these materials.

3. Dimensions Of Terrorism
a. Ethno-Nationalist & Separatist Terrorism
Readings: Hoffman, Chapter 2.
A limited preview of Chapter 2 of Bruce Hoffman's book Inside Terrorism is accessible
@ https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/RSzyEx4do48C?hl=en&gbpv=1

Peter A. Coclanis, "Terror in Burma: Buddhists vs. Muslims", World Affairs, December 2013 @ Texas State University Library. A Texas State University User ID and password are required for access.
Excerpts from this article:
"It seems pretty clear that what is going on in most of Burma right now is more akin to terrorism than to sectarian conflict, as some have preferred to style it. Even in Rakhine State, where there is a large Muslim minority and the violence is somewhat less one-sided, the power of the Buddhist majority—supported, when necessary, by the Buddhist Bamar-controlled government—is ironhanded. To be sure, Muslims have often been accused of instigating specific incidents across Burma—there have been an uncanny number of rumors of Muslim men attempting to rape Buddhist women, for example—but the weight of the evidence suggests that such rumors are more often than not fictions useful primarily for provocation or to rationalize Buddhist promoting, or at least supporting, violence. (boldface added)
... To those with only a casual interest in Asian affairs, the notion of Buddhist terrorism seems something of an oxymoron. For example, in Time magazine’s much-discussed story on the country ('The Face of Buddhist Terror,' July 1, 2013), there is a pullout quote on the first page that reads: 'It’s a faith famous for its pacifism and tolerance. But in several of Asia’s Buddhist-majority nations, monks are inciting bigotry and violence—mostly against Muslims.' Later in the piece, another line reads: To much of the world, it [Buddhism] is synonymous with nonviolence and loving kindness, concepts propagated by Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, 2,500 years ago.” This sentence is qualified immediately by another: “But like adherents of any other religion, Buddhists and their holy men are not immune to politics and, on occasion, the lure of sectarian chauvinism.” (italics added) b. The Internationalization of Terrorism
Readings: Hoffman, Chapter 3.

c. Public Opinion: Old & New Media
Readings: Hoffman, Chapters 6, 7.
d. Tactics & Targets
Readings: Hoffman, Chapter 8.
Noah Feldman/Islam, Terror & the Second Nuclear Age/NYT-Sunday Magazine/October 29, 2006
Films/Videos:
One Day In September (1999) [1hr. 34 min.] For remarks on the 1972 Munich massacre, see Hoffman, "The PLO and the Internationalization of Terrorism", pp. 65-71. On deception and "pseudo-groups" as a framework for examination of the "Black September" terrorist group which carried out the 1972 Munich massacre, see Jenkins, "False Flags", pp. 87-109. For specific remarks on the links between Arafat's al-Fatah group and the "Black September" group, see Jenkins, p. 97. [The Jenkins materials cited here are available at the Reserve Desk Texas State University Library.]

See also: Alexander Wolff, "When the Terror Began", Sports Illustrated, August 26 2002 @ http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=7206282&site=ehost-live
Texas State University permalink. A valid User Name and Password are required.

See also: Andrew Keh, "In Munich, a Tribute to Israeli Athletes and Families' Persistence", NYT, August 30, 2017 @
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/sports/olympics/munich-olympic-massacre-1972-memorial-israeli-athletes.html?mcubz=0&_r=0

Munich (Spielberg 2005 [2hrs. 44 min.] )
See: Aaron J. Klein/The History Behind Munich: Separating truth from fiction in Spielberg's movie/Slate/December 23 2005
David Brooks, "What 'Munich' Left Out", NYT, December 11, 2005 @ http://www.israpundit.com/archives/2005/12/what_munich_lef.php
This Brooks article can also be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required. This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
Edward Rothstein/Seeing Terrorism as Drama With Sequels and Prequels/NYT/December 26 2005
Leon Wieseltier, "Hits-Washington Diarist", The New Republic, December 19 2005. The complete text of Wieseltier's essay can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

III. Conceptualizing Terrorism
1. Terrorism As Strategic Choice
Readings: Martha Crenshaw, "The Logic Of Terrorism: Terrorist Behavior As A Product Of Strategic Choice" in Reich, Chapter 1.
Martha Crenshaw, "The Logic Of Terrorism: Terrorist Behavior As A Product Of Strategic Choice" in Walter Reich (ed.), Origins of Terrorism, Chapter 1.
Note: This link opens on the cover of Walter Reich (ed.), Origins of Terrorism: psychologies, ideologies, theologies, states of mind (Woodrow Wilson Center Press & John Hopkins University Press, 1990, 1998). Scroll to the Table of Contents and click on the link for Chapter 1 for direct access to Martha Crenshaw's essay.

Max Abrahms/What Terrorists Really Want: Terrorist Motives and Counterterrorism Strategy, International Security Volume 32, Number 4, Spring 2008, pp. 78-105.
Abstract
What do terrorists want? No question is more fundamental for devising an effective counterterrorism strategy. The international community cannot expect to make terrorism unprofitable and thus scarce without knowing the incentive structure of its practitioners. The strategic model—the dominant paradigm in terrorism studies—posits that terrorists are political utility maximizers. According to this view, individuals resort to terrorism when the expected political gains minus the expected costs outweigh the net expected benefits of alternative forms of protest. The strategic model has widespread currency in the policy community; extant counterterrorism strategies seek to defeat terrorism by reducing its political utility. The most common strategies are to fight terrorism by decreasing its political benefits via a strict no concessions policy; decreasing its prospective political benefits via appeasement; or decreasing its political benefits relative to nonviolence via democracy promotion. Despite its policy relevance, the strategic model has not been tested. This is the first study to comprehensively assess its empirical validity. The actual record of terrorist behavior does not conform to the strategic model’s premise that terrorists are rational actors primarily motivated to achieving political ends. The preponderance of empirical and theoretical evidence is that terrorists are rational people who use terrorism primarily to develop strong affective ties with fellow terrorists. Major revisions in both the dominant paradigm in terrorism studies and the policy community’s basic approach to fighting terrorism are consequently in order.
Note: Older browsers may not work for access to periodicals at the Texas State University Library. New or recent browsers are best. On some browsers, it may be necessary or more convenient to save the article to desktop as pdf with the extension .pdf following the title of the article. A valid Texas State University User Name and password are required.

This Max Abrahms article, "What Terrorists Really Want", is also accessible in pdf in the Files section of CANVAS for Political Science 4344 The Politics of Extremism

Scott Shane, "From Minneapolis to ISIS: An American's Path to Jihad", NYT, March 22, 2015 @
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/world/middleeast/from-minneapolis-to-isis-an-americans-path-to-jihad.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Films/Videos:
The Battle Of Algiers (1967) [French With English Subtitles - 2hrs. 1 min.]
A. O. Scott/How Real Does It Feel?/NYT December 9, 2010
In a year of true hoaxes and fake documentaries, accuracy was in the eye of the beholder.
"Is it a documentary?” 'Is it like a documentary?' I find myself hearing (and asking) these questions so often that I have started to wonder what they mean. It’s not just that the definition of “documentary” itself is mutable: unlike other journalistic and quasi-journalistic forms, no code of ethics has ever been agreed upon by practitioners of the art, and what rules of thumb there are tend to be temporary, controversial and broken as soon as they are made."
This article by A. O. Scott "How Real Does It Feel?", is accessible in pdf in the Files section of CANVAS for Political Science 4344 The Politics of Extremism

Philip Gourevitch/Winning & Losing (Iraq&TheFilm"The Battle Of Algiers")/The New Yorker/December 12, 2003
Charles Paul Freund/The Pentagon's Film Festival: A Primer for The Battle of Algiers/Slate/August 27, 2003
Christopher Hitchens/Guerrillas in the Mist:Why the war in Iraq is nothing like The Battle of Algiers/Slate/January 2, 2004
Leslie Camhi/Battle Cries: Fifty years on, a guerilla leader revisits the fight of his life/Village Voice/January 14-20, 2004
Elisabetto Povoledo/Gillo Pontecorvo, 86, Director of "Battle of Algiers" Dies/NYT October 14, 2006

Todd Shepard, "Algeria", Dissent, Winter 2009, Vol. 56, No. 1.
This article is accessible @ this location: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/dissent/v056/56.1.article_sub05.html. This article is also directly accessible @ this Texas State University Library permalink: http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=36407225&site=ehost-live.
Note: On some browsers, it may be necessary or more convenient to save the article to desktop as pdf with the extension .pdf following the title of the article. A valid Texas State University User Name and password are required.
Abstract:
In March 1962, in the eighth year of the Algerian War, the French government signed off on the Evian Accords, which established a ceasefire as well as a process that led to the July 5 proclamation in Algiers of independence—one hundred and thirty-two years to the day after the Ottoman ruler of that city had surrendered to French invaders. Few people were surprised—the only surprising thing was that ending the French occupation took so long. The end was, after all, inevitable, or so it can seem in retrospect. But the war was long, and its violence was shocking to contemporaries both in its forms—the French Armed Forces' systematic use of torture on suspected nationalists and the embrace of terrorism by the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN)—and its effects: the dead numbered some 17,000 French soldiers, about 3,500 French civilians, and (according to current estimates) between 250,000 and 578,000 Algerians, the vast majority of whom were noncombatants.
Readings: Jerrold M. Post, "Terrorist Psycho-logic: Terrorism As A Product Of Psychological Forces" in Reich, Chapter 2.

2. Terrorism As A Product Of Psychological Forces
Readings: Jerrold M. Post, "Terrorist Psycho-logic: Terrorism As A Product Of Psychological Forces" in Reich, Chapter 2.
Jerrold M. Post, "Terrorist Psycho-logic: Terrorism As A Product Of Psychological Forces" in Walter Reich (ed.), Origins of Terrorism, Chapter 2.
Note: This link opens on the cover of Walter Reich (ed.), Origins of Terrorism: psychologies, ideologies, theologies, states of mind (Woodrow Wilson Center Press & John Hopkins University Press, 1990, 1998). Scroll to the Table of Contents and click on the link for Chapter 2 for direct access to Jerrold M. Post's essay.

Scott Shane, Richard Perez-Pena and Aurelien Breedensept, "'In-Betweeners' Are Part of a Rich Recruiting Pool for Jihadists", NYT, September 24, 2016 @ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/us/isis-al-qaeda-recruits-anwar-al-awlaki.html

Sarah Kershaw/The Terrorist Mindset: An Update NYT Week in Review, Sunday, January 10, 2010

Richard Hofstadter/The Paranoid Style In American Politics (Harvard Univ. Press 1996/Original Publication 1952)
For the link to the original classic Richard Hofstadter see: Richard Hofstadter, “The Paranoid Style In American Politics”, Harpers Magazine, November 1964
@https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/
This article is also accessible in pdf in the File section of CANVAS for Political Science 4344/The Politics of Extremism.

Rukmini Callimachi, "Not 'Lone Wolves' After All: How ISIS Guides World's Terror Plots From Afar", NYT February 5, 2017 @
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/world/asia/isis-messaging-app-terror-plot.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
"Close examination of both successful and unsuccessful plots carried out in the Islamic State’s name over the past three years indicates that such enabled attacks are making up a growing share of the operations of the group, which is also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh."

Ramon Spaaij/The Enigma of Lone Wolf Terrorism: An Assessment/Studies in Conflict & Terrorism September 2010, Vol. 33, Issue 9, pp. 854-870.
Abstract:
Lone wolf terrorism remains an ambiguous and enigmatic phenomenon. The boundaries of lone wolf terrorism are fuzzy and arbitrary. This article aims to define and analyze the main features and patterns of lone wolf terrorism in fifteen countries. Lone wolf terrorism is shown to be more prevalent in the United States than in the other countries under study. The cross-national analysis suggests that in the United States lone wolf terrorism has increased markedly during the past three decades; a similar increase does not appear to have occurred in the other countries under study. The numbers of casualties resulting from lone wolf terrorism have been relatively limited, and there is no evidence that the lethality of lone wolf terrorism is on the increase. The rates of psychological disturbance and social ineptitude are found to be relatively high among lone wolf terrorists. Lone wolf terrorists tend to create their own ideologies that combine personal frustrations and aversion with broader political, social, or religious aims. In this process, many lone wolf terrorists draw on the communities of belief and ideologies of validation generated and transmitted by extremist movements.
Note: Older browsers may not work for access to periodicals at the Texas State University Library. New or recent browsers are best. On some browsers, it may be necessary or more convenient to save the article to desktop as pdf with the extension .pdf following the title of the article. A valid Texas State University User Name and password are required.

Nancy Hartevelt Kobrin, "Sadomasochism and the Jihadi Death Cult", Tablet, February 11, 2015, @ http://tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/188892/sadomasochism-islamist-death-cult.
A psychoanalytic look at why people throw themselves into campaigns of murder and suicide.

Sabrina Tavernise and Waqar Gillani/Frustrated Strivers in Pakistan Turn to Jihad (w/photos)/NYT February 27, 2010
"It is the lower middle class in Pakistan that is most vulnerable to radicalization, according to Amir Rana, director of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies. They consume virulently anti-American media. They are recruited aggressively by Islamic student groups in public universities, which are attended almost exclusively by lower- and middle-class youth.
...
A Powerful Addiction (boldface in the original)
...
... socio-economic theories explain only so much. For Mr. Kundi, an emotional young man with thwarted ambitions, militancy had a psychological pull. Mr. Parvez of the National Counterterrorism Authority said militants he had interviewed called jihad an addiction, a habit that made them feel powerful in a world that ignored them. (boldface added)

Out there I’m a useless guy, unemployed and cursed by my family,” one militant said. “Here I’m a commander. My words have weight.”

Recommended:
Joseph Conrad/Under Western Eyes (Penguin - First Published 1911)
For remarks on the insights of Conrad's book, see: Tom Reiss/The True Classic of Terrorism/NYT/September 11, 2005

3. Terrorism As Fantasy & "Theater Of The Mind"
Readings:
Lee Harris, "Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology", Policy Review August-September 2002 @ http://www.hoover.org/research/al-qaedas-fantasy-ideology
(For Lee Harris' views on how the West has perceived the terrorism practised by radical Islam, in this syllabus see Edward Rothstein's reflections on Lee Harris' recent book as well as Lee Harris' article in the Summer 2007 issue of City Journal below in Section c. of IV.)
Michael Ignatieff/The Terrorist As Auteur/NYT Sunday Magazine November 14, 2004
Arthur Saniotis, "Re-Enchanting Terrorism: Jihadists as 'Liminal Beings'", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, November 2005, Vol. 28: 533-545. This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required. This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

Yuval Noah Harari, "The Theatre of Terror", The Guardian, January 31, 2015 @ http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/31/terrorism-spectacle-how-states-respond-yuval-noah-harari-sapiens.
"Terrorists have almost no military strength so they create a spectacle. How should states respond?"

4. Terrorism As Totalitarianism's War Against Liberalism
Readings:
Andrew Nagorski, "The Totalitarian Temptation: Liberalism's Enemies, Then and Now", A review essay in Foreign Affairs, January/February, 2013, Vol. 92, No. 1., pp. 172-176.
Texas State University Library permalink. A valid Texas State User Name and password are required for access.

Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism, Chapters I, II.

See also: Allen Barra/The rebel/Salon/November 01, 2004 and "The rebel. The political right and left have been fighting for Albert Camus' legacy, but Europe's most influential literary export remains stubbornly elusive."
Scott McLemee/Fighting Words:Camus, Sartre, And The Rift That Helped Define Them/bookforum.com/Spring 2004

For a negative critique of Paul Berman's book, Terror and Liberalism, see:
Ian Buruma/Revolution from Above (A review of Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism)/New York Review of Books/Vol. 50, No. 7, May 01, 2003
The book The Rebel by Albert Camus is important in the development of Paul Berman's views in his book Terror and Liberalism.

See also: Richard Eder/Uncomfortable in His Skin, Thriving in His Mind/NYT June 25, 2008, p. B8. A review of Albert Camus, Notebooks 1951-1959, Translated by Ryan Bloom (Ivan R. Dee 2008). For additional materials on Camus, see: Albert Camus
"The split took place when Camus took issue with the absolutism of revolutions. Seeking to realize their ideals, he argued, they end up using violence and tyranny. It was an attack on Soviet Communism at a time when Sartre and his followers were becoming its increasingly rigid supporters.
... They insisted that overt repression, however repellent, was the only way to fight the insidious structural tyranny of colonialist capitalism. One must choose, painfully. No we mustn’t, Camus rejoined: neither be killers nor victims.
... There was nothing convenient in Camus. He was closer to Milovan Djilas, once a hard-line Communist, then jailed by Tito, and in the end proclaiming his battle-won political credo: 'the unperfect society.'
... The vicious war between French forces and the F.L.N. — the Algerian nationalists — was his own civil war.
... He writes to an Algerian friend, an F.L.N. supporter: “You should not ignore the shooting, nor justify that they shoot at the French-Algerians in general, and thus entangled, shoot at my family, who have always been poor and without hatred ... No cause, even if it had remained innocent and just, will ever tear me from my mother, who is the greatest cause that I know in the world.” (boldface added)

For more discussion of Albert Camus and his views on the Algerian War, see:
Souleymane Bachir Diagne/Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, University of Notre Dame, April 16, 2009 - A review of David Sherman/Camus (Wiley-Blackwell 2009).
"Camus the Algerian (to paraphrase D. Carroll, Albert Camus the Algerian, Columbia UP, 2007) occupies an important place in Sherman's analysis of Camus' ethics. It is certainly the 'battle against the events' of the Algerian war, which Camus felt in such a deep and personal way, as a pied-noir, that was the most dubious' of all. When he was a journalist writing for Alger Républicain just before World War II, Camus' engagement was clearly on the side of the colonized subjects, those who were called the 'Algerian Muslims or 'the Arabs' in opposition to the pieds-noirs who enjoyed French citizenship. Camus called for justice for these people who were treated as outsiders in their own homeland. But after the Algerian war broke out in 1954 and the Front for National Liberation was committed to only one goal, independence, while the colonial administration and its army were left with the alternative of brutal repression or withdrawal, how 'narrow' -- to the point of inexistence -- the 'pure' path became! Sherman's book shows perfectly how Camus' 'stubborn humanism' led him to declare desperately that one should not have to choose between justice and the murder of an innocent victim. (Camus famously considered the possibility that his own mother could be the innocent victim. Even when Camus decided not to speak publicly anymore about 'the events of Algeria', he continued to think that one should not have to make the choice between justice and an innocent victim's murder.) Sherman discusses this without falling, as others do, into the inanity of talking about a 'clash of civilizations', and pretending, anachronistically, that today's 'age of terror' proves Camus right, in retrospect, when he did not fully embrace the war of liberation as Sartre and the French Left then did." (boldface added)

See also: Jason Herbeck/Review of: Albert Camus: From the Absurd to Revolt by John Foley (McGill-Queen's UP, 2008) in Notre Dame Philosphical Review August 22, 2009.

Paul Berman/Why Radical Islam Just Won't Die/NYT Week in Review/Sunday, March 23, 2008
"... radical Islamism is a modern philosophy, not just a heap of medieval prejudices. In its sundry versions, it draws on local and religious roots, just as it claims to do. But it also draws on totalitarian inspirations from 20th-century Europe. I wanted my readers to understand that with its double roots, religious and modern, perversely intertwined, radical Islamism wields a lot more power, intellectually speaking, than naïve observers might suppose....
... Five years ago, anyone who took an interest in Middle Eastern affairs would easily have recalled that, over the course of a century, the intellectuals of the region have gone through any number of phases — liberal, Marxist, secularist, pious, traditionalist, nationalist, anti-imperialist and so forth, just like intellectuals everywhere else in the world.

Western intellectuals without any sort of Middle Eastern background would naturally have manifested an ardent solidarity with their Middle Eastern and Muslim counterparts who stand in the liberal vein — the Muslim free spirits of our own time, who argue in favor of human rights, rational thought (as opposed to dogma), tolerance and an open society.

But that was then. In today’s Middle East, the various radical Islamists, basking in their success, paint their liberal rivals and opponents as traitors to Muslim civilization, stooges of crusader or Zionist aggression. And, weirdly enough, all too many intellectuals in the Western countries have lately assented to those preposterous accusations, in a sanitized version suitable for Western consumption. (boldface added)

Even in the Western countries, quite a few Muslim liberals, the outspoken ones, live today under a threat of assassination, not to mention a reality of character assassination. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-Dutch legislator and writer, is merely an exceptionally valiant example. But instead of enjoying the unstinting support of their non-Muslim colleagues, the Muslim liberals find themselves routinely berated in the highbrow magazines and the universities as deracinated nonentities, alienated from the Muslim world. Or they find themselves pilloried as stooges of the neoconservative conspiracy — quite as if any writer from a Muslim background who fails to adhere to at least a few anti-imperialist or anti-Zionist tenets of the Islamist doctrine must be incapable of thinking his or her own thoughts.

A dismaying development. One more sign of the power of the extremist ideologies — one more surprising turn of events, on top of all the other dreadful and gut-wrenching surprises".

For discussion of the similarities and differences between radical Islamism/Jihadism and fascism, see: David A. Charters, "Something Old, Something New...? Al Qaeda, Jihadism, and Fascism", Terrorism & Political Violence, Spring 2007, Vol. 19, Issue 1 in section IV. 2C Jihad: Theory & Practice of this syllabus.

See also: Fouad Ajami/The Furrows of Algeria (review essay of The German Mujahid by Boualem Sansal, translated by Frank Wynne [Europa Editions 2009] /The New Republic February 18, 2010, Vol. 241, Issue 2, pp. 27-33. This is a direct permalink to the Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University user name and password are required.
From the product description at amazon.com:
"Banned in the author's native Algeria for of the frankness with which it confronts several explosive themes, The German Mujahid is a truly groundbreaking novel. For the first time, an Arab author directly addresses the moral implications of the Shoah (The Holocaust). But this richly plotted novel also leaves its author room enough to address other equally controversial issues-Islamic fundamentalism and Algeria's "dirty war" of the early 1990s, for example; or the emergence of grim Muslim ghettos in France's low-income housing projects. In this gripping novel, Boualem Sansal confronts these and other explosive questions with unprecedented sincerity and courage."

From Fouad Ajami's review essay:
"In Sansal's unforgettable portrait of this malevolent figure, the totalitarianism of the first half of the twentieth century speaks to, and finds an echo in, a new totalitarianism. Its insistence upon this echo is one of the novel's most significant contributions to our understanding. After all, the Islamists did not descend from the sky. They were radical children of the faith, literalists in the way they read the scripture, angry men committed to forcing history's pace. They were convinced that the society around them had abandoned and betrayed the true faith. And in their attitude toward the Jews, in the way they dealt with the Zionist project in Palestine, and in the manner in which they came to read the Holocaust, the Islamists worked their will on older and "traditional" forms of prejudice, and forged a new and very lethal version of anti-Semitism." (boldface added)

5. Terrorism As Murderous Occidentalism
Readings: Buruma & Margalit, pp. 1-99.
See also: Ian Buruma, "The Origins Of Occidentalism", Chronicle of Higher Education, February 6, 2004, Vol. 50, Issue 22, pp. B10-12. Direct Texas State University permalink @
http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=12408860&site=ehost-live. A valid Texas State University user name and password are required.

From the publisher's note for Ian Buruma & Avishai Margalit/Occidentalism: The West In The Eyes Of Its Enemies (Penguin 2004):
"Twenty-five years after Edward Said's Orientalism, a whole field of study has developed to analyze and interpret the denigrating fantasies of the exotic "East" that sustained the colonial mind. But what about the fantasies of "the West" in the eyes of our self-proclaimed enemies"?
For more on Edward Said's Orientalism and critics of his book, see:
Charles P. Freund/2001 Nights:The End Of The Orientalist Critique/Reason/December, 2001
Bernard Lewis, "The Question of Orientalism", The New York Review of Books, Vol. 29, No. 11, June 24, 1982.
This article can be accessed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to the section on "Readings on Islam" and look for Lewis: The Question of Orientalism. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course. From the first paragraphs of above Bernard Lewis article: "Imagine a situation in which a group of patriots and radicals from Greece decides that the profession of classical studies is insulting to the great heritage of Hellas, and that those engaged in these studies, known as classicists, are the latest manifestation of a deep and evil conspiracy, incubated for centuries, hatched in Western Europe, fledged in America, the purpose of which is to denigrate the Greek achievement and subjugate the Greek lands and peoples. In this perspective, the entire European tradition of classical studies—largely the creation of French romantics, British colonial governors (of Cyprus, of course), and of poets, professors, and proconsuls from both countries—is a long-standing insult to the honor and integrity of Hellas, and a threat to its future. The poison has spread from Europe to the United States, where the teaching of Greek history, language, and literature in the universities is dominated by the evil race of classicists—men and women who are not of Greek origin, who have no sympathy for Greek causes, and who, under a false mask of dispassionate scholarship, strive to keep the Greek people in a state of permanent subordination. The time has come to save Greece from the classicists and bring the whole pernicious tradition of classical scholarship to an end. Only Greeks are truly able to teach and write on Greek history and culture from remote antiquity to the present day; only Greeks are genuinely competent to direct and conduct programs of academic studies in these fields. Some non-Greeks may be permitted to join in this great endeavor provided that they give convincing evidence of their competence, as for example by campaigning for the Greek cause in Cyprus, by demonstrating their ill will to the Turks, by offering a pinch of incense to the currently enthroned Greek gods, and by adopting whatever may be the latest fashionable ideology in Greek intellectual circles.
...
Stated in terms of classics and Greek, the picture is absurd. But if for classicist we substitute "Orientalist," with the appropriate accompanying changes, this amusing fantasy becomes an alarming reality. For some years now a hue and cry has been raised against Orientalists in American and to a lesser extent European universities, and the term "Orientalism" has been emptied of its previous content and given an entirely new one—that of unsympathetic or hostile treatment of Oriental peoples. For that matter, even the terms "unsympathetic" and "hostile" have been redefined to mean not supportive of currently fashionable creeds or causes".

Edward Said-Bernard Lewis Exchange/The New York Review of Books, Vo. 29, No. 13, August 12, 1982.

Edward Said, Islam Through Western Eyes, The Nation, April 26, 1980.

Martin Kramer/Said's Splash-chapter two (pp. 27-43.) of: Martin Kramer/Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001).

Robert Irwin/Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism And Its Discontents (The Overlook Press 2006 -paperback edition 2008).
From Publishers Weekly:
"Almost 30 years ago, in his classic Orientalism, the late cultural critic Edward Said published a scathing denunciation of Oriental studies, blaming the field for the rise of Western imperialism and racist views about Arabs and other Eastern peoples. British historian Irwin (The Alhambra) fiercely condemns Said's misinterpretation, offering both a brilliant defense of Orientalism and a masterful intellectual history of the Orientalists and their work, which opened windows on the world of Asia in general and Islam in particular, providing the West with glimpses of the social and religious practices of these cultures. Irwin surveys the history of Orientalism from the Greeks through the Middle Ages to its height in the 18th and 19th centuries. He chronicles the lives and works of the men who introduced the ideas of Islamic and Asian culture to the West. Many of these men were biblical critics whose command of Hebrew allowed them to move easily to Arabic and to explore the Koran. In the 17th century, the dragomans, or translators, moved the study of Islam forward by providing translations of Turkish, Arabic and Persian texts. Irwin's wide-ranging study splendidly captures a time when intellectual polymaths traversed foreign territories in search of new and compelling ideas".

From the Introduction to Robert Irwin's book: "... that book (Edward Said's Orientalism) seems to me to be a work of malignant charlantry in which it is hard to dsitinguish honest mistakes from wilful misrepresentations". (p. 4., hardcover edition)

See also:
Robert Irwin, "Edward Said's shadowy legacy", The Times Literary Supplement (London), May 7, 2008.
Tricky with argument, weak in languages, careless of facts: but, thirty years on, Said still dominates debate.
"So many academics want the arguments presented in Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) to be true. It encourages the reading of novels at an oblique angle in order to discover hidden colonialist subtexts. It promotes a hypercritical version of British and, more generally, of Western achievements. It discourages any kind of critical approach to Islam in Middle Eastern studies. Above all, Orientalism licenses those academics who are so minded to think of their research and teaching as political activities. The drudgery of teaching is thus transformed into something much more exciting, namely 'speaking truth to power'.
...
Said had a problem with languages. For example, when discussing the writings of Sir William Jones and Friedrich Schlegel, he was mysteriously determined to deny that Sanskrit, Persian, German and Greek all belonged to the same broad group of languages – a sort of club to which Arabic could not belong. Ibn Warraq, in discussing Said’s attitude to Orientalists, remarks that he was “particularly jealous of their mastery of languages”. German scholars dominated Arabic, Hebrew and Sanskrit studies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, yet Said avoided any substantial discussion of their work. Some critics have argued that this was because the pre-eminence of German Orientalists did not fit his thesis about the interdependence of Orientalism and imperialism in the Middle East, but others have suggested that it was because his German was not very good
...
Said died in 2003, and it is thirty years since he launched his assault on Western culture. Things may have moved on since then. As a last resort, some of Said’s nervous apologists have suggested this, hoping, perhaps, to fend off further criticism of his inconsistent methodology and shaky grasp of facts".

Gary Kamiya/How Edward Said took intellectuals for a ride/Salon.com December 06, 2006
Maya Jasanoff/Before and After Said/London Review of Books, June 8, 2006
Efraim Karsh and Rory Miller/Did Edward Said Really Speak Truth to Power?/Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2008, pp. 13-21.

See also:
David Cannadine/Ornamentalism: How The British Saw Their Empire (Oxford Univ. Press 2001)
"David Cannadine's Ornamentalism is so stimulating and original that it will now and forever after be read hand in hand with Edward Said's Orientalism." (boldface added) This is the comment of Wm. Roger Louis, Editor-in-Chief, The Oxford History of the British Empire, Oxford University Press.

Reviews of David Cannadine's Ornamentalism:
Sarah Lyall/Was the Sahib, Then Just a Snob?/NYT August 25, 2001
His (David Cannadine's book Ornamentalism) serves as a riposte of sorts to Edward Said's highly influential work ''Orientalism'' (1978), which argued that Western attitudes toward the nonwhite world have traditionally been informed by a manufactured notion of ''otherness,'' used both to interpret and control it and to bolster the West's own sense of identity. Mr. Cannadine feels that Mr. Said's thesis is indeed valid, but only up to a point. (boldface added)
Benjamin Schwarz/A Bit Of Bunting/The Atlantic, November 2001

6. Terrorism As Part Of A Cultural Template
Stanley Kurtz/I and My Brother Against My Cousin/Weekly Standard, April 14, 2008, Vol. 013, Issue 29.
This is a direct Texas State University permalink. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required. The Stanley Kurtz article can also be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required. This article is a review essay on Culture and Conflict in the Middle East by Philip Carl Salzman (Humanity Books 2008). See also: Philip Carl Salzman/The Middle East's Tribal DNA/Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2008, pp. 23-33.

From Stanley Kurtz's article:
Is Islam the best way to understand the war on terror? Tribalism may offer a clearer view of our enemies' motivations.

"Universal male militarization, surprise attacks on apparent innocents based on a principle of collective guilt, and the careful group monitoring and control of personal behavior are just a few implications of a system that accounts for many aspects of Middle Eastern society without requiring any explanatory recourse to Islam. The religion itself is an overlay in partial tension with, and deeply stamped by, the dynamics of tribal life. In other words--and this is Salz-man's central argument--the template of tribal life, with its violent and shifting balance of power between fusing and fissioning lineage segments, is the dominant theme of cultural life in the Arab Middle East (and shapes even many non-Arab Muslim populations). At its cultural core, says Salzman, even where tribal structures are attenuated, Middle Eastern society is tribal society.
...
The swift and seemingly disproportionate resort to retaliatory force against apparently trivial offenses is an effective technique for suppressing future challenges. Most of the feuds Salzman describes, however weighty and enduring, break out over seemingly petty and inconsequential matters, like the mistaken appropriation of some palm trunks. Rifle shots, intentionally off the mark, are used to intimidate, as are calculated threats of murder. The careful use of targeted force and credible threats against Western critics of Islamism shows genuine mastery of the technique of deterrent intimidation. Here as elsewhere, an overtly religious action is actually shaped by a hidden tribal template.
...
The most disturbing lesson of all is that, in the absence of fundamental cultural change, the feud between the Muslim world and the West is unlikely ever to end. Tribal feuds simmer on and off for generations, with negotiated settlements effecting only temporary respites. Among the tribes of Waziristan, the saying goes: "I took my revenge early. I waited only 100 years." The Western liberal template takes an experience of peace under the lawful authority of a state as the normal human condition. In this view, when peaceful equilibrium is disturbed, reasonable men reason together to restore normalcy".

Philip Carl Salzman's first-person statement on his book may be read at @ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2008/04/culture_and_conflict_in_the_middle_east/.
"I argue that a major influence is Arab culture, grounded in Bedouin culture—understanding “culture” as cognitive frames which serve as “models of” the way the world is, and “models for” action in the future. Two major characteristics of Arab culture are particularist group loyalty, and balanced or complementary opposition. These models serve well for decentralized social control and security in segmentary tribal settings, but are uncongenial to inclusive polities and universalistic legal regimes.
...
Postcolonial theorists, inspired by Edward Said’s Orientalism, take a harder line, arguing that no generalization about the Middle East is valid, because such generalizations suppress the variety and diversity of reality, essentialize where no essence exists, and imposes disparaging interpretations in the service of imperialism and colonialism. But my judgment is that these postcolonial arguments are unsound and without foundation. First, all concepts and categories, without which thinking is impossible, are abstractions, encompassing the many variations of the unique individuals (whether trees, camels, or cultures) included. So abstraction and generalization are not only not the wrong things, they are the only things possible. Second, all peoples and societies are not the same; they are different, and differ significantly. Ignoring these indisputable differences is not good manners; it is ignorance or denial".

Matt Apuzzo, "Who Will Become a Terrorist? Research Yields Few Clues", NYT March 27, 2016.
@ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/28/world/europe/mystery-about-who-will-become-a-terrorist-defies-clear-answers.html

Return To Beginning Of Syllabus

IV. Religion & Terrorism: Radical Islam
1. Religion & Terrorism
Readings: Hoffman, Chapter 4.

Bernard Lewis, "The Roots Of Muslim Rage", Atlantic Monthly, September 1990.
This article by Bernard Lewis,"The Roots of Muslim Rage", is accessible in pdf in the Files section of CANVAS for Political Science 4344 Politics of Extremism. This Bernard Lewis article,"The Roots of Muslim Rage", can also be accessed @ http://go.galegroup.com.libproxy.txstate.edu/ps/i.do?id=GALE|A201547008&v=2.1&u=txshracd2550&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w&asid=a5214eeb05e62deedf21d072b2faf133. Texas State University Library link. A valid Texas State University User Name/ID and Password are required.

This Bernard Lewis article, "The Roots of Muslim Rage", can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Readings on Islam" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

Jonathan Fine/Contrasting Secular and Religious Terrorism/Middle East Quarterly Winter 2008, Vol. XV, No. 1, pp. 59-69
"Since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, there has been a steady rise in Islamist terrorism. Too many analysts underestimate the ideological basis of terrorism and argue instead that rational-strategic rather than ideological principles motivate Islamist terror groups. Comparison between terrorist groups with secular and religious agendas, however, suggests that ideology matters for both and that downplaying religious inspiration for terrorism in an effort to emphasize tactical motivations is both inaccurate and dangerous." (boldface added)

Bruce Hoffman, "Holy Terror: The Implications of Terror Motivated by a Religious Imperative", Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, October-December 1995,Vol. 18, Issue 4, pp. 271-284
Texas State University Library Permalink for this article. A valid Texas State University User Name/ID and Password are required.
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2. Radical Islam & Terrorism
a. Origins
Readings: Laqueur, Chapter 2 (recommended).
Bernard Lewis, "The Revolt of Islam", The New Yorker, December 19, 2001 @ http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/11/19/the-revolt-of-islam.

Quintan Wiktorowicz, "A Genealogy of Radical Islam", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, March-April 2005, Vol. 28: 75-97 @ http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=16495534&site=ehost-live. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

_____________________________________________________________________________

ISIS - Readings

Graeme Wood, The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State (Publication dates 2016 and 2019)
@ https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Way_of_the_Strangers/7I-RDwAAQBAJ?hl=en
A limited preview is provided to both the Prologue and Chapter 1.
For a review which poses some research and analytical concerns about this book by Graeme Wood,
see Dexter Filkins, "What Do They Want? Graeme Wood Speaks With Supporters of ISIS", The New York Times, January 19, 2017
@ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/books/review/way-of-the-strangers-isis-graeme-wood.html
From this review:
"The first problem with Wood’s argument is the people he has chosen to speak for ISIS; with the exception of Georgelas, whom Wood did not meet, none of the characters featured in his book have actually fought for, or even joined, the Islamic State. They are fellow travelers, whose zealotry has not brought them to join the group they claim to support."

Rukmini Callimachi, "Not 'Lone Wolves' After All: How ISIS Guides World's Terror Plots From Afar", NYT February 5, 2017 @
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/world/asia/isis-messaging-app-terror-plot.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
"Close examination of both successful and unsuccessful plots carried out in the Islamic State’s name over the past three years indicates that such enabled attacks are making up a growing share of the operations of the group, which is also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh."

Anonymous, "The Mystery of ISIS", The New York Review of Books, August 13, 2015, Vol. 62, No. 13.
@ http://resolver.ebscohost.com.libproxy.txstate.edu/openurl?sid=EBSCO%3af6h&genre=article&issn=00287504&ISBN=&volume=62&issue=13&date=20150813&spage=27&pages=27-29&title=New+York+Review+of+Books&atitle=The+Mystery+of+ISIS.&aulast=&id=DOI%3a&site=ftf-live
Texas State University link. Select the August 13, 2015 issue. A valid Texas State University User Name (ID) and password are required for access.
Access to this article may also be possible @ The Mystery of ISIS and http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/08/13/mystery-isis/.
From this article:
"I have often been tempted to argue that we simply need more and better information. But that is to underestimate the alien and bewildering nature of this phenomenon. To take only one example, five years ago not even the most austere Salafi theorists advocated the reintroduction of slavery; but ISIS has in fact imposed it. Nothing since the triumph of the Vandals in Roman North Africa has seemed so sudden, incomprehensible, and difficult to reverse as the rise of ISIS. None of our analysts, soldiers, diplomats, intelligence officers, politicians, or journalists has yet produced an explanation rich enough—even in hindsight—to have predicted the movement’s rise.

We hide this from ourselves with theories and concepts that do not bear deep examination. And we will not remedy this simply through the accumulation of more facts. It is not clear whether our culture can ever develop sufficient knowledge, rigor, imagination, and humility to grasp the phenomenon of ISIS. But for now, we should admit that we are not only horrified but baffled." (boldface added)

For a critical response to the article by Anonymous, see:
Costantino Pischedda, "A provocative article says the Islamic State is a mystery. Here's why that's wrong.", Washington Post, August 27, 2015.
@ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/08/27/the-islamic-state-is-no-mystery/
From this article:
"In sum, the Islamic State has behaved in ways that existing theories on insurgency and terrorism help us understand quite well. This is certainly not to deny that more research on the phenomenon is needed or to imply that being able to make sense of the group’s actions automatically makes its threat less serious. But future academic endeavors and policy initiatives are more likely to succeed if they take seriously the wealth of insights generated by students of political violence. By labeling the Islamic State a unique mystery, we are depriving ourselves of the very tools that can help us contextualize, understand and ultimately take on this organization." (boldface added)
Richard Barrett, "THE ISLAMIC STATE", The Soufan Group, (pdf) November 2014.

Lee Smith & Hussein Abdul-Hussain, "On the Origin of ISIS", The Weekly Standard, September 8, 2014, Vol. 19, No. 48, pp.28-30 @ http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.txstate.edu/docview/1561358550/4BF59AAF1E8849E9PQ/18?accountid=5683. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

Graeme Wood, "What ISIS Really Wants", Atlantic, March 2015, Vol. 315, Issue 2, pp78-94. This article by Graeme Wood can be accessed @ http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=100848076&site=ehost-live (permalink). A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
"The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it".

Bob de Graaff, "IS and its Predecessors: Violent Extremism in Historical Perspective", Perspectives On Terrorism, Research Note #160, Vol 10, No 5, 2016,
@ http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/544/html
Abstract:
Islamic State uses an age old apocalyptic narrative to attract followers and legitimatize its existence. This research note show which narrative elements were used during previous violence-inciting apocalyptic manifestation in Christianity and Western ideology and how they can be retraced in the communications and enactments of Islamic State. The use of such narratives explains why the movement has been so much more powerful in attracting followers than al-Qaeda. Based on historical experience the prospects of fighting such a movement without annihilating it are gloomy, the more so as apocalyptic movements have a tendency to provoke a confrontation with their opponents as a manifestation of the promised final battle between the forces of Good and Evil which will produce the salutary end state, both of which are central elements in their narrative.

Paul Berman, "Epidemics of Insanity: Euripides, Mao, and Qutb", Tablet, September 20, 2016
@ http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/213767/euripides-mao-and-qutb
How virulent contagions of political fanaticism spread across the globe—or, what the Muslim Brotherhood and its descendants share with The Little Red Book.

Audrey Kurth Cronin, "ISIS Is Not a Terrorist Group", Foreign Affairs, March 25, 2015, Vol. 94, Issue 2 @ http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=100961105&site=ehost-live (permalink). A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
Sarah Burke, "How ISIS Rules", nyrblog December 09, 2014 @http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/dec/09/how-isis-rules/.

Daniel Byman, "The Six Faces of the Islamic State", Lawfare, December 20, 2015.

@ https://www.lawfareblog.com/six-faces-islamic-state

Scott Jasper and Scott Moreland, "The Islamic State is a Hybrid Threat: Why Does That Matter", Small Wars Journal, December 1, 2014.
@ The Islamic State is a Hybrid Threat: Why Does That Matter ? (pdf)

Clinton Watts, "Inspired, Networked & Directed - The Muddled Jihad of ISIS & al-Qaeda Post Hebdo", January 12, 2015 http://warontherocks.com/.
(The link to this article by Clinton Watts is also listed in Section II, 1. in this syllabus - Defining Terrorism: An Overview.)

Robert D. Kaplan, "*Wat in the World", The American Interest, October 10, 2015, Vol. 11, Number 2.
@ http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/10/10/wat-in-the-world/ (*Wat was the name of Aleksander Wat, a Polish poet and thinker in the early & mid-20th century.)

Malise Ruthven, "Lure of the Caliphate", The New York Review of Books, February 28, 2015.

@ http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2015/02/28/lure-caliphate-isis/

Malise Ruthven, "Inside the Islamic State", The New York Review of Books, July 9, 2015, Vol. 62, No. 12.
@ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/07/09/inside-islamic-state/

Scott Atran, "ISIS is a revolution", Aeon Magazine, December 15, 2015.
All world-altering revolutions are born in danger and death, brotherhood and joy. How can this one be stopped?
@ https://aeon.co/essays/why-isis-has-the-potential-to-be-a-world-altering-revolution

J. M. Berger, "ISIS Is Not Winning The War of Ideas", The Atlantic, November 11, 2015.
The Islamic State isn’t succeeding because of the strength of its narrative. It’s succeeding because it can mobilize a microscopic minority.
@ http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/11/isis-war-of-ideas-propaganda/415335/

Robyn Creswell and Bernard Haykel, "Why Jihadists Write Poetry", The New Yorker, June 8, 2015.
@ http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/08/battle-lines-jihad-creswell-and-haykel

Matti Friedman, "The Age of the Terror Selfie", Tablet Magazine, January 5, 2016.
"... the shooters in Paris or San Bernadino ... aren’t soldiers but storytellers. Along with many others ..., they have escaped despair into a fevered movie set where they are the directors and stars and everyone else is a disposable prop. We all need to understand this movie, because we’re all in it."
@ http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/196313/the-age-of-the-terror-selfie

Louisa Tarras-Wahlberg, "Seven Promises of ISIS to its Female Recruits" January 9, 2017, International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism @ http://www.icsve.org/research-reports/seven-promises-of-isis-to-its-female-recruits/
Abstract
Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 close to 30 000 foreign recruits from more than 100 countries have migrated to the area of Iraq and Syria in support of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Among those traveling is a historically unprecedented number of women. Why women are drawn to violent Islamic extremist groups is a not well-explored topic and a conundrum to many. Through a qualitative text analysis of official ISIS-propaganda this report investigates the pulls that draw women towards ISIS conceptualized as promises the organization makes to women. The report concludes that women are promised seven things: the possibility to fulfill their religious duty, become important state builders, experience deep and meaningful belonging and sisterhood, to live an exciting adventure in which they can find true romance, as well as being increasingly influential. Based on these findings one can argue that preventive counter measures targeting young women about each of these promises should be devised. Such counter measures need to creatively address the needs that the ISIS claims to be fulfilling while simultaneously debunking the ISIS propaganda lies of being able to deliver a perfect paradise on earth. Only by so doing can we decrease the attraction of the message delivered by the Islamic State.

Erin Mari Saltman and Melanie Smith, 'Till Martyrdom Do Us Part': Gender and the ISIS Phenomenon, May 2015
Institute for Strategic Dialogue
From the Introduction: Although often assumed to be passive agents, women have played significant roles in a number of contemporary terrorist organizations. Violent extremist groups across the political and ideological spectrum have utilized female forces for a range of activities including logistics, recruitment, political safeguarding, operations, suicide bombing and combat.1 However, the recent unprecedented surge in female recruits to the terrorist organization Islamic State (ISIS) has brought this phenomenon into sharp focus. For many there remain misperceptions and misunderstandings concerning the role women play within these violent networks, often paired with engendered responses to the radicalization of women.

Katrin Bennhold, "Jihad and Girl Power: How ISIS Lured 3 London Girls", NYT, August 17, 2015 (See links and video in this article.)
@ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/18/world/europe/jihad-and-girl-power-how-isis-lured-3-london-teenagers.html?_r=0

Rukmini Callimachi, "For Women Under ISIS, a Tyranny of Dress Code and Punishment", NYT December 12, 2016
@http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/world/middleeast/islamic-state-mosul-women-dress-code-morality.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Frukmini-callimachi&action=click&contentCollection=undefined&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=collection

Lorenzo Vidino and Seamus Hughes, "ISIS IN AMERICA: FROM RETWEETS TO RAQQA", December 2015 (Full Report.pdf), Program on Extremism, THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
@ https://cchs.gwu.edu/sites/cchs.gwu.edu/files/downloads/ISIS%20in%20America%20-%20Full%20Report.pdf
From the Report Description:
What explains the recent surge in American jihadi recruits? Who are the Americans lured by the siren songs of ISIS's propaganda? How do they embrace such radical ideology? What do they seek?

Owen Bennet-Jones, "Islamic State v. al-Qaeda, London Review of Books, Vol. 38 No. 21, November 3, 2016
@ https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n21/owen-bennett-jones/islamic-state-v.-al-qaida?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
This article is accessible in pdf in the Files section of CANVAS for Political Science 4344 Politics of Extremism.

Iain R. Edgar, "Islamic State and Dream Warfare", https://sustainablesecurity.org/, September 8, 2016
@ https://sustainablesecurity.org/2016/09/08/islamic-state-and-dream-warfare/

Francis Robles, "Trying to Stanch Trinidad's Flow of Young Recruits to ISIS", NYT, February 21, 2017 @
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/21/world/americas/trying-to-stanch-trinidads-flow-of-young-recruits-to-isis.html

List of Readings for ISIS ends here. Related materials may be found in the readings in other sections of this syllabus.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

William Dalrymple/Inside the Madrasas/The New York Review of Books/December 1, 2005, Vol. 52, No. 19. Access to the entire article is restricted at this site. The entire Dalrymple article as well as the entire Wiktorowicz article can be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to the section on "Terrorism" and look for the authors and titles of these articles. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
Frank Hairgrove; Douglas M. Mcleod, "Circles Drawing Toward High Risk Activism: The Use of Usroh and Halaqa in Islamist Radical Movements", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 31, Issue 5, May 2008, pages 399 - 411.
Abstract:
Kurzman (2004) argued that social movements research and Islamic studies “followed parallel trajectories, with few glances across the chasm that have separated them.” This article will illuminate one influential process that has relevance to both these areas, the use of small groups for the purpose or radical mobilization. Specifically, it examines the impact of the use of small Islamic study groups (usroh and halaqa) for fundamental and radical Islamic movements. Although small-group mobilization is not unique to Islam, the strategic use of these study groups empowered by the Islamic belief system has yielded significant returns in capacity building for high-risk activism.
The full text of this article by Frank Hairgrove; Douglas M. Mcleod can be accessed @ http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=31656994&site=ehost-live. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

Matthias Küntzel/Jew-Hatred and Jihad: The Nazi Roots of the 9/11 attack/Weekly Standard September 17, 2007, Vol. 013, Issue 01
Jeffrey Goldberg/Seeds of Hate/NYT Sunday Book Review January 6, 2008
A German scholar argues that Muslim anti-Semitism can be traced to a project of the Nazi Party. A review essay on Matthias K ü ntzel, Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11 (Telos Press 2007). Read the first chapter of this book.

Joshua Muravchik & Charles Szrom, "In Search of Moderate Muslims" Commentary, Vol. 125, No. 2, February, 2008. Access @ this Texas State University Library permalink. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required: http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=28755137&site=ehost-live
"When we speak of moderate Muslims as a counterweight to extremists, then, what we seek has nothing to do with the ardor of their religious convictions. Rather, it centers on the acceptance or rejection of pluralism. In this view, Muslims may still hope and pray for the eventual recognition by all mankind of the truth of Muhammad's message. (Christians and Jews do something similar.) But they may not take up the sword to hasten the advent of that goal or pursue disputes among or within countries by violent means. That implies democratic methods and a spirit of tolerance.
... But if this explains what we mean--or ought to mean--by moderate Muslims, where can we find them, and how can we tell the real thing?
... ... there are six questions to be asked of any such group.
Does it both espouse democracy and practice democracy within its own structures?
Does it eschew violence in pursuit of its goals?
Does it condemn terrorism?
Does it advocate equal rights for women?
Does it advocate equal rights for minorities?
Does it accept a pluralism of interpretations within Islam?
... Any group that meets these six criteria seems to us to merit support and cooperation, and groups that go a long way toward meeting them deserve at least a second look".

Tamara Cofman Wittes/Islamist Political Parties: Three Kinds of Movements, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 19, No. 3, July 2008 (pdf)
See also: Tamara Cofman Wittes/Categories of Islamism/Middle East Strategy at Harvard (MESH), July 30, 2008.
For responses to Tamara Cofman Wittes' analysis of Islamism, scroll down from Tamara Cofman Wittes' comment to the responses by Michele Dunne, Steven A. Cook, and Lee Smith.

b. Seyyid Qutb
Readings: Buruma & Margalit, pp. 101-149.

See also: Sayed Khatab, "Hakimiyyah and jahiliyyah in the thought of Sayyid Qutb", Middle Eastern Studies, July 2002, Vol. 38. This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required. This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Readings on Islam" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

Links To Sayyid Qutb's Writings-"Milestones" & More online

On Seyyid Qutb in America, see: http://www.vagablogging.net/06-11/from-the-october-2006-issue-of-the-believer.html
See also: Benny Morris/Qutb and the Jews/The National Interest October 20, 2010. This is a review essay on John Calvert, Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism (Columbia University Press 2010).

Michael Scott Doran/The Saudi Paradox:The Schizophrenic Saudi State/Foreign Affairs/January-February 2004
"Saudi Arabia is in the throes of a crisis, but its elite is bitterly divided on how to escape it. Liberal reformers seek rapprochement with the West while others side with an anti-American Wahhabi religious establishment that has much in common with al Qaeda".
This Doran article can also be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

Bernard Lewis/What Went Wrong?/The Atlantic Monthly/January 2002
The complete text of this Lewis article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required. c. Jihad: Theory, Interpretation, & Practice
Readings: Berman, Chapters III, IV.
Douglas E. Streusand/What Does Jihad Mean?/Middle East Quarterly/September 1997
David A. Charters, "Something Old, Something New...? Al Qaeda, Jihadism, and Fascism", Terrorism & Political Violence, Spring 2007, Vol. 19 Issue 1, pp. 65-93, 29 pages.

Abstract (from author): [Note: This article by David Charters is referenced above in the section of this syllabus labeled "International Terrorism" - No. 4: "Terrorism As Totalitarianism's War Against Liberalism" - immediately above No. 5: "Terrorism As Murderous Occidentalism".]

This article attempts to answer the question: Is Al Qaeda a new fascist movement? It explores this issue by comparing the situations and ideas which gave birth to fascism and jihadism and the beliefs and behaviours common to both movements. The essay demonstrates a close coherence between the two movements, but concludes that the differences between them are significant enough to proclaim that they are not the same. Indeed, Al Qaeda's jihadism may warrant a new category of analysis. Jihadism's differences from fascism notwithstanding, defeating it will be very difficult. (boldface added)

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Marc Lynch/Islam Divided Between Salafi-Jihad and the Ikhwan/Studies in Conflict & Terrorism June 2010, Vol. 33, No. 6, pp. 467- 487.
Abstract [from author]:
The Muslim Brotherhood poses a unique challenge to efforts to combat Al Qaeda and like-minded groups. It is one of the key sources of Islamist thought and political activism, and plays a significant role in shaping the political and cultural environment in an Islamist direction. At the same time, it opposes Al Qaeda for ideological, organizational, and political reasons and represents one of the major challenges to the salafi-jihadist movement globally. This dual nature of the Muslim Brotherhood has long posed a difficult challenge to efforts to combat violent extremism. Does its non-violent Islamism represent a solution, by capturing Islamists within a relatively moderate organization and stopping their further radicalization (a “firewall”), or is it part of the problem, a “conveyor belt” towards extremism? This article surveys the differences between the two approaches, including their views of an Islamic state, democracy, violence, and takfir, and the significant escalation of those tensions in recent years. It concludes that the MB should be allowed to wage its battles against extremist challengers, but should not be misunderstood as a liberal organization or supported in a short-term convergence of interests.
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Irshad Manji/Soldiers of Allah/NYT Sunday Book Review January 6, 2008 - a review essay on John Kelsay, Arguing the Just War in Islam (Harvard 2007).

David Cook, "The Implications of Martyrdom Operations for Contemporary Islam", Journal of Religious Ethics, Vol. 32, Issue 1, Spring 2004, pp. 129-151.
This article by David Cook can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

Pete Lentini, Muhammad Bakashmar, "Jihadist Beheading: A Convergence of Technology, Theology, and Teleology?", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 30, Issue 4, April 2007, pp. 303-325. This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required. (Note: Use the EBSCO data base and save to your desktop as a pdf file.)
Abstract:
Although contemporary jihadist terrorists are most well known for perpetrating operations that generate mass casualties, they also conduct violent acts that yield fewer victims, such as beheading hostages. Examining the religious and cultural contexts that surround jihadist beheadings, developments in new media, and drawing on examples from the Chechen Wars and the Iraq War, this article argues that jihadists have employed this tactic for a range of reasons, including obtaining ransom payments, hampering foreign investment, discrediting transitional states, and recruiting supporters. It also suggests that jihadists' beheading of their captives corresponds with aspects of cosmic war, particularly on how religious terrorists' desires to please a deity and secure a place of honor in the hereafter has devalued the lives of both captor and prisoner. Consequently, contemporary jihadist beheading is an outgrowth of the practice of terrorist hostage taking. As this article goes to press (February 2007) UK authorities disrupted a terrorist cell allegedly plotting to behead British Muslim soldiers who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to broadcast the filmed executions through jihadist websites. Journalists have described the intended beheadings and their dissemination as "Iraq-style." There is no doubt that jihadist beheading became more widely known as a result of the Iraq conflict. However, the beheadings in Iraq were largely used to recruit future jihadists and to demonstrate jihadists' strength to their potential support base, the global Muslim community. In contrast, the alleged UK beheading plot was aimed at striking terror into Muslims living in the UK so that they would not support or serve their government. Indeed the Iraq beheadings were intended to persuade, and the UK plot was intended to dissuade. These alleged activities suggest that contemporary jihadist beheading is not only an extension of hostage-taking, it is also an independently evolving terrorist tactic.

Assaf Moghadam, "Mayhem, Myths, and Martyrdom: The Shi'a Conception of Jihad", Terrorism & Political Violence, Spring 2007, Vol. 19 Issue 1, pp. 125-143, 19 pages.
Abstract (from author): The article examines the perception of jihad in Shi'a Islam. It first provides an overview of the understanding of jihad in Islam at large, and then examines the reflections of four central Shi'a thinkers on jihad. More so than the traditional Sunni approach to this concept, the Shi'a understanding of jihad is heavily influenced by perceptions of historical suffering, placing an emphasis on injustice, tyrannical rule, indignity, humiliation, and resistance. In recent decades, Shi'a and Sunni notions of jihad have become more closely aligned, as Salafi-Jihadists, who increasingly monopolize the Sunni discourse on jihad, persistently frame jihad as a response to the oppression by Western "infidel" regimes and tyrannical "apostate" regimes in the Arab and Muslim world. (boldface added)
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Edward Rothstein/Reconsidering the Role of the Warrior in our Post-Enlightenment World/NYT August 06, 2007
Edward Rothstein's reflections on Lee Harris/The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West (Basic Books 2007).
"... Harris argues that the modern view of how to vanquish enemies is based on false ideas: first, that history progresses; second, that it progresses toward greater influence of reason; and finally, that reason, through its powers, can overcome all opposition. Our smug disdain for the warrior, he suggests, is based on a mistaken view of the powers of modernity and the Enlightenment....
In Mr. Harris’s view these errors are affecting the crucial confrontations now taking place between jihadists and Western liberal culture. We keep straining, he says, to see terrorists as if they were just slightly more extreme versions of ourselves, reflecting our own convictions, as if the jihadist were advocating destruction in the name of a version of liberalism.
... Harris suggests that the jihadist is more accurately thought of as a fanatic, a warrior of the old school, whose technique has been remarkably successful over the centuries. Such warfare accepts no rules other than fealty to the tribe and accepts no compromise other than victory. Islam, he points out, has made 'permanent conquests in every part of the world into which it has expanded with only three exceptions: Spain, Sicily, and certain parts of the Balkans': three areas where Islamic fanaticism was confronted with opposing fanaticism.
... Harris argues that by failing to characterize Islamist warfare accurately, the West deludes itself, even employing another Enlightenment idea — tolerance — to grant harbor to those who seek to destroy it. And the West implicitly affirms that, in the end, reason will triumph".

See also Ayaan Hirsi Ali's review essay on Lee Harris, The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West @ Ayaan Hirsi Ali/Blind Faiths/NYT Sunday Book Review January 6, 2008. She maintains that the West’s “fanaticism of reason” is no match for the fanaticism of radical Islam.

For a brief indication of Lee Harris' own expression of his views on radical Islam, terrorism, and the Enlightenment, see:
Lee Harris/Mad Scientists: The disturbing lessons of the Doctors' Plot/City Journal Vol. 17, No. 3, Summer 2007.
From Lee Harris' essay: "This Enlightenment model, which has worked quite effectively in Europe and the United States, as well as in other parts of the world, has always relied on an advanced elite that brings learning to the masses through universal secular education. Many have hoped that Muslim nations would adopt the same model, with the same results. A minority of Muslim technocrats, who had received Western-style scientific educations, would help lead the Middle East into the modern era. They, too, would be eager to transcend their own narrow cultural perspectives, and to join other like-minded men and women across the globe.
... But if Westernized technocrats like the Glasgow terrorists and the London bombers can enthusiastically embrace radical Islam, what group is left that can bring about the modernization of the Middle East?"
For another view of radical Islam and reason, see: Riaz Hassan/The Jihad and the West-Part I/Yale Gobal online September 21, 2006.
"Jihad is ultimately political action that can be influenced by dialogue and negotiations".
d. Jihadis: The Near Enemy, The Far Enemy, & Internal Debate
Readings: David C. Rapoport, "Sacred Terror: A Contemporary example from Islam", Chapter 7 in Reich (ed.) - See especially Rapoport's analysis of Abd Al-Salam Faraj, author of "The Neglected Duty", referring to jihad. Faraj coined the terms "near enemy" and "far enemy".
Thomas Hegghammer, "The Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters: Islam and the Globalization of Jihad", International Security, Winter 2010/11, Vol. 35, Issue 3, pp. 53-94. (pdf)
Texas State University permalink. A valid User Name/ID and Password are required for access.
Abstract: Why has transnational war volunteering increased so dramatically in the Muslim world since 1980? Standard explanations, which emphasize U.S.-Saudi support for the 1980s Afghan mujahideen, the growth of Islamism, or the spread of Wahhabism are insufficient. The increase in transnational war volunteering is better explained as the product of a pan-Islamic identity movement that grew strong in the 1970s Arab world from elite competition among exiled Islamists in international Islamic organizations and Muslim regimes. Seeking political relevance and increased budgets, Hijaz-based international activists propagated an alarmist discourse about external threats to the Muslim nation and established a global network of Islamic charities. This "soft" pan-Islamic discourse and network enabled Arabs invested in the 1980s Afghanistan war to recruit fighters in the name of inter-Muslim solidarity. The Arab-Afghan mobilization in turn produced a foreign fighter movement that still exists today, as a phenomenon partly distinct from al-Qaida. The analysis relies on a new data set on foreign fighter mobilizations, rare sources in Arabic, and interviews with former activists.
Recommended:
Fawaz A.Gerges/The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge University Press 2005)
Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, "The Unraveling: Al Qaeda's Revolt Against bin Laden", The New Republic, June 11, 2008, Vol. 238, No. 4, 837, pp. 16-21.
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See also: Lawrence Wright/The Rebellion Within: An Al Qaeda mastermind questions terrorism/The New Yorker, June 2, 2008

Hamas:
Matthew A. Levitt/Hamas from Cradle to Grave/Middle East Quarterly Winter 2004, Vol. XI, No. 1
"Yet there is one terrorist organization that still benefits from an ostensible distinction drawn by some analysts between its "military" and "political" or "social" wings: Hamas. Analysts who make such a distinction regularly dwell on the "good works" of Hamas, as though these activities had no connection whatsoever with the attacks on civilians and the suicide bombings that are the trademark of the organization. Because of the notion that Hamas has independent "wings," its political and charitable fronts are allowed to operate openly in many European and Middle Eastern capitals.

This distinction is convenient for certain governments and supporters of the Palestinian cause. It is certainly convenient for Hamas. However, it is totally contradicted by the consistent if scattered findings of investigators, journalists, and analysts. This article assembles and reviews the evidence for the integration of social service and terrorism in Hamas. That evidence demonstrates that the distinction is not only false but actually abets the very acts of terrorism that have thwarted all initiatives for peace."

See also: Matthew Levitt/Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad (Yale University Press 2006).
Read the entire Introduction to Levitt's book here. (pdf)
From the Introduction: "The Myth of Disparate Wings" (Section Title)
"As a result of the heightened focus on exposing terrorist networks in the post-9/11 global environment, investigators have revealed how terrorist groups systematically conceal their activities behind charitable, social, and political fronts. Indeed, many of these fronts have seen their officials arrested, their assets seized, and their offices shut down by authorities. Still, Hamas benefits from an ostensible distinction drawn by some analysts between its 'military' and 'political' or 'social' wings. Analysts who make such a distinction regularly dwell on the good works ofHamas, rarely looking at the connections between these activities and the attacks on civilians and the suicide bombings that are the organization's trademark. Because of the notion that Hamas has independent 'wings,' its political and charitable fronts are allowed to operate openly in many Western and Middle Eastern capitals. In these cities, Islamic social welfare groups tied to Hamas are often tolerated when their logistical and financial support for Hamas is conducted under the rubric ofcharitable or humanitarian assistance.

While convenient for Hamas and its supporters, this distinction is contradicted by the consistent if scattered findings of investigators, journalists, and analysts. A review ofthe evidence regarding the integration of Hamas' political activism, social services, and terrorism demonstrates the centrality of the group's overt activities to the organization's ability to recruit, indoctrinate, train, fund, and dispatch suicide bombers to attack civilian targets.

The social welfare organizations of Hamas answer to the same political leaders who play hands-on roles in Hamas terrorist attacks. In some cases, the mere existence of these institutions is invoked to classify Hamas as a social welfare rather than a terrorist organization. To debunk these specious assumptions, it is necessary to fully expose what Hamas calls the dawa (its social welfare and proselytization network). This is sometimes difficult because, as one U.S. official explained, Hamas is loosely structured, with some elements working clandestinely and others working openly through mosques and social service institutions to recruit members, raise money, organize activities, and distribute propaganda."

V. Suicide & Terrorism
1. An Overview
Readings: Hoffman, Chapter 5; Laqueur, Chapter 4 (recommended); Bloom, Chapters 1 & 4.
Merari, A. Diamant, I., Bibi A., Broshi, Y., & Zakin, G./ Personality Characteristics of “Self Martyrs”/“Suicide Bombers” and Organizers of Suicide Attacks/Terrorism and Political Violence, January-March 2010, Vol. 22, Issue 1, pp. 87-101.
Abstract [from author]:
This is a report of a direct psychological examination of suicide, or “martyrdom” terrorists and of organizers of martyrdom attacks. Assessments of the personality of self-martyrs have so far relied on biographical material drawn from secondary sources. In the absence of direct psychological examinations, the debate on the existence of distinctive personality factors among suicide terrorists has so far remained at the hypothetical level. This study subjected failed Palestinian suicide terrorists, a control group of non-suicide terrorists, and a group of organizers of suicide attacks, to clinical psychological interviews and tests. Significant differences were found between suicide and non-suicide terrorists and between these two groups and the organizers of martyrdom attacks. Two main personality styles were found among the would-be suicides. Members of this group had a significantly lower level of ego strength than the organizers of martyrdom attacks. Most of the would-be martyrs displayed a dependent and avoidant personality style, a profile that made them more amenable to group, leader, and public influence. Others were assessed as having an impulsive and emotionally unstable style. Some of the would-be martyrs but none of the control and organizers groups' participants displayed sub-clinical suicidal tendencies. Significantly more martyr than control group members displayed symptoms of depression.
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Martha Crenshaw/Explaining Suicide Terrorism: A Review Essay/Security Studies, January 2007, Vol. 16, Issue 1, pp. 133-162.
Abstract:
The article reviews several books dealing with the subject of suicide bombings published between 2003-2006, including "Root Causes of Suicide Terrorism: The Globalization of Martyrdom," edited by Ami Pedahzur, "Martyrs: Innocence, Vengeance and Despair in the Middle East," by Joyce M. Davis, and "Making Sense of Suicide Missions," edited by Diego Gambetta.
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Ariel Merari, "The Readiness to kill and die: Suicidal terrorism in the Middle East", Chapter 10 in Reich (ed.).
Michael Roberts, "Suicide Missions as Witnessing: Expansions, Contrasts", Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Volume 30, Number 10 (2007), pp. 857-887.
Abstract:
Studies of suicide missions usually focus solely on attacks. They also have highlighted the performative character of suicide missions as acts of witness. By extending surveys to suicidal acts that embrace no-escape attacks, theatrical assassination, defensive suicide, and suicidal protest, one gains further insight into the motivations of individuals and organizations. Illustrative studies, notably the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and Sadat as well as Tamil Tiger operations, generate a typology that underlines the benefits of such extensions. The Japanese and Tamil contexts reveal the profound differences in readings of sacrificial acts of atonement or punishment by local constituencies. Norman Morrison in Washington in 1965 and Jan Palach in Prague in 1969 did not have such beneficial settings and the immediate ramifications of their protest action were limited. Morrison's story highlights the significance of a societal context of individuated rationalism as opposed, say, to the "pyramidical corporatism" encouraging martyrdom operations in the Islamic world.
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Recommended Books:
Farhad Khosrokhavar/Suicide Bombers: Allah's New Martyrs (Pluto Press 2005-Translated from the original 2002 French editon)
Ami Pedahzur/Suicide Terrorism (Polity Press 2005) 2. The Logic Of Suicide Terrorism
Readings:
Max Boot, "Suicide by Bomb: Misunderstanding a weapon in the terrorist' arsenal", Weekly Standard, August 1, 2011, Vol. 16, No. 43.
"Ah, social science. All those numbers. All those technical terms. How comforting. How reassuring. How definitive. If only."
Texas State University permalink. A valid User Name/ID and Password are required for access.
The above article is a review essay on this book: Robert A. Pape & James K. Feldman, The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It (Chicago 2010).

Adam Lankford/Do Suicide terrorists exhibit clinically suicidal risk factors? A review of initial evidence and call for future research (w/links)/Aggression and Violent Behavior, Vol. 15, Issue 5, September-October 2010, pp. 334-340
Abstract:
Despite growing evidence to the contrary, it is still widely assumed that suicide terrorists are not actually suicidal. However, this review supports recent studies which suggest the opposite, and presents initial evidence that much like other suicidal individuals, many suicide terrorists appear to be driven by clinically suicidal risk factors, including: (1) the desire to escape the world they live in, (2) the desire to escape moral responsibility for their actions, (3) the inability to cope with a perceived crisis, and (4) a sense of low self-worth. By establishing the links between suicide terrorism and suicidality, scholars may be able to better understand the nature of these violent attacks and develop more effective ways to stop them.
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Arie W. Kruglanski, Xiaoyan Chen, Mark Dechesne, Shira Fishman, Edward Orehek /Fully Committed: Suicide Bombers' Motivation and the Quest for Personal Significance Political Psychology, Volume 30, Number 3 (June 2009), pp. 331-357. (pdf)
Abstract:
A motivational analysis of suicidal terrorism is outlined, anchored in the notion of significance quest. It is suggested that heterogeneous factors identified as personal causesof suicidal terrorism (e.g. trauma, humiliation, social exclusion), the various ideological reasonsassumed to justify it (e.g. liberation from foreign occupation, defense of one's nation or religion), and the social pressuresbrought upon candidates for suicidal terrorism may be profitably subsumed within an integrative framework that explains diverse instances of suicidal terrorism as attempts at significance restoration, significance gain, and preventionof significance loss. Research and policy implications of the present analysis are considered.
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Martha Crenshaw/Intimations of Mortality or Production Lines? The Puzzle of "Suicide Terrorism" Political Psychology Vol. 30, No. 3 (June 2009), pp. 359-364.
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Mia Bloom/ Chasing Butterflies and Rainbows: A Critique of Kruglanski et. al., "Fully Committed: Suicide Bombers' Motivation and the Quest for Personal Significance" Political Psychology, Volume 30, Number 3 (June 2009), pp. 387-395. (pdf)
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Robert A. Pape/The Strategic Logic Of Suicide Terrorism/American Political Science Review(pdf)August 2003/danieldrezner.com
The Pape article can also be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
For a critique of Pape's article, including a challenge to Pape's conclusion, see: Martin Kramer's remarks in his web log @
Political Science Targets Suicide Terrorism. Bystanders: Take Cover! "Robert Pape's analysis is solid. Just his data and conclusions are flawed."
An additonal critique of Robert Pape's conclusions can be found in: Jonathan Fine/Contrasting Secular and Religious Terrorism/Middle East Quarterly Winter 2008, Vol. XV, No. 1, pp. 59-69 (revisited)

For another critique of Robert Pape's work, see: Max Abrahms/Why Terrorism Does Not Work/International Security, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Fall 2006), pp. 42-78. (pdf)

See also:
Scott Ashworth, Joshua D. Clinton, Adam Meirowitz, and Kristopher W. Ramsay/Design, Inference, and the Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism/American Political Science Review April 23, 2008, Vol. 102, No. 2. (pdf)
Abstract
In The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, Robert Pape (2003) presents an analysis of his suicide terrorism data. He uses the data to draw inferences about how territorial occupation and religious extremism affect the decision of terrorist groups to use suicide tactics. We show that the data are incapable of supporting Pape 'sconclusions because he “samples on the dependent variable.”—The data only contain cases in which suicide terror is used. We construct bounds (Manski, 1995) on the quantities relevant to Pape's hypotheses and show exactly how little can be learned about the relevant statistical associations from the data produced by Pape's research design.

For comments on this critique, see: http://www.themonkeycage.org/2008/04/reassessing_the_strategic_logi.html @ the Political Science blog http://www.themonkeycage.org/.
"To know whether X causes suicide terrorism, we need to know how the propensity to use suicide terrorism varies with X. That is, we not only need data on when suicide terrorism occurs, we need data on when suicide terrorism does not occur — i.e., when groups choose other tactics besides suicide terrorism. Analyzing only instances when suicide terrorism occurred is not sufficient.
... Ashworth et al. conclude:
The data Pape collects do not speak to the correlates of suicide terror, and the policy conclusions he advocates cannot be justified by appealing to the data he collects".

For Robert A. Pape's reply to this critique, see:
Robert A. Pape, "Methods and Findings in the Study of Suicide Terrorism, American Political Science Review, May 2, 2008, Vol. 102, No. 2. (pdf). Direct access to Robert Pape's reply at this Texas State University permalink: http://ejournals.ebsco.com.libproxy.txstate.edu/direct.asp?ArticleID=493DAB064A260DA9BA46. A valid Texas State University user name and password are required.
Abstract
Scott Ashworth, Joshua Clinton, Adam Meirowitz, and Kristopher Ramsay (2008) allege that I have committed the sin of sampling on the dependent variable by considering only the universe of suicide terrorist attacks rather than the universe of all imaginable instances when potential or actual terrorists might have committed suicide attacks, and so cannot measure the effects of any independent variables. They go on to describe a method that they say I should have used, which is not of interest because the accusation that is supposed to motivate this discussion is inaccurate.

The main claim—that my work on suicide terrorism samples on the dependent variable—is simply wrong. Indeed, the authors paid no attention to the large portions of my recent book that explain what we know about factors that make resort to suicide terrorist campaigns more or less likely, and how we know it. Hence, this letter is mainly devoted to updating Ashworth, Clinton, Meirowitz, and Ramsay on my work. I also make a few comments about the general question of whether concerns about “sample bias” should carry significant weight when dealing with the complete universe of a phenomenon, as is the case in my work on suicide terrorism.

Bruce Hoffman/The Logic Of Suicide Terrorism/The Atlantic Monthly/June 2003
"The perceived randomness of suicide bombings is in large part responsible for the emotional suffering that they inflict on society. But the planners of these attacks use a strategy that is anything but random: they aim to relentlessly shrink to nothing the areas in which people can move freely".
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Bruce Hoffman; G. H. McCormick, "Terrorism, Signaling, & Suicide Attack", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, July-August 2004, Vol. 27, Issue 4.
This article by Hoffman and McCormick can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required. This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

David Bukay/The Religious Foundations of Suicide Bombings: Islamist Ideology/Middle East Quarterly Fall 2006

Recommended:
David Brooks/The Culture Of Martyrdom:How Suicide Bombing Became Not Just A Means But An End/The Atlantic Monthly/June 2002
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Egyptian Muftu's Opinions On Suicide Bombings & Jihad/Memri /October 01, 2003

Andrea Elliott/Where Boys Grow Up to Be Jihadis (a small neighborhood in the Moroccan city of Tetouan)/NYT Sunday Magazine, November 25, 2007
Many of the men involved in the Madrid train bombings came from one small neighborhood in the Moroccan city of Tetouan. A number of would-be suicide bombers in Iraq are from there, too.

"Since the start of the war, a few thousand foreign jihadis have heeded the call to join militant networks in Iraq. Most are men in their 20s. Typically, they fall under the influence of an imam who helps them contact intermediaries for the insurgents in Iraq, the American official told me. They go off expecting to fight a heroic battle but often find out after arriving in Iraq that they are to be deployed instead on suicide missions targeting other Muslims, the official said. Based on the accounts of captured fighters, even when they protest, they are sometimes given no choice. 'At the end of the day, nobody cares about these kids,' the official said. 'They are Al Qaeda precision-guided munition.' ...

The numbers of foreign fighters entering Iraq have dropped substantially since this spring, the official said, at least in part because would-be jihadis have become more aware that the majority of suicide attacks are aimed at other Muslims. Military officials also gleaned information from the raid in September that indicates a shift: fewer jihadis are coming from Saudi Arabia, while more are arriving from North Africa, an estimated 40 percent of the roughly 60 to 75 fighters who land in Iraq every month. The shift happened in the summer of 2006, when the first men from Jamaa Mezuak began leaving for Iraq. ...
None of them, it appears, left behind videos explaining their decisions, as is common for suicide bombers in some Arab countries. There are no posters in the neighborhood exalting them". (Boldface added)

Adam Nossiter/Lonely Trek to Radicalism for Terror Suspect (w/links to related materials & video)/NYT January 17, 2010
Behind Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s journey from gifted student to terrorism suspect was a struggle between an investment in this life and a longing for the next.

Katrin Bennhold/A Grandfather's Suicide Bombing Puzzles Algerians/NYT December 18, 2007
"The case of Rabah Bechla casts doubt on the practice of profiling. As a prominent Algerian journalist observed, If a grandfather can blow himself up, anyone can".
Michael Slackman/In Algeria, a Tug of War for Young Minds [w/photos & links to related stories]/NYT June 23, 2008

Ronen Bergman/Living to Bomb Another Day/NYT September 10, 2008
"It may well be that we are witnessing a shift toward advanced technologies that will enable jihadist bombers to carry out attacks and live to fight another day".
3. Case Studies of Suicide Terrorism
a. Palestinian Suicide Bombing
Readings: Laqueur, Chapter 5 (recommended); Bloom, Chapter 2.
b. Suicide Attacks in Sri Lanka
Readings: Bloom, Chapter 3.

c. Kurdish Suicide Terrorism in Turkey
Readings: Bloom, Chapter 5.

VI. Women's Roles in Terrorism
1. Women's Role in Secular & Religious Terrorism
Readings:
Rukmini Callimachi, "For Women Under ISIS, a Tyranny of Dress Code and Punishment", NYT December 12, 2016
@http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/world/middleeast/islamic-state-mosul-women-dress-code-morality.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Frukmini-callimachi&action=click&contentCollection=undefined&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=collection

Cindy D. Ness, "In the Name of the Cause: Women's Work in Secular and Religious Terrorism", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, September 2005, Vol. 28: 353-373. This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

Rafia Zakaria, "Women and Islamic Militancy", Dissent Magazine, Winter 2015 @ http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/why-women-choose-isis-islamic-militancy.

Anat Berko, Edna Erez, "Gender, Palestinian Women, and Terrorism: Women's Liberation or Oppression?", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 30, Issue 6, June 2007, pp. 493-519. This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required. (Note: Use the EBSCO data base and save to your desktop as a pdf file.)
Abstract:
Prior literature on women's participation in terrorism has paradoxically interpreted this involvement as a sign of women's newfound empowerment, and as an indication of ongoing gender oppression. The study examines the hypothesis that Palestinian women's involvement in terrorism indicates women's liberation. The data are derived from in-depth interviews with fourteen women who were detained or incarcerated in Israeli prisons for security offenses. The interviews shed light on the women's pathways to terrorism, the roles that they play in terrorist activity, and the aftermath of their security offenses within Palestinian society and culture. The study underlines the "no return" option and "no win" situation that Palestinian women who embark on terrorist activities encounter. The results demonstrate that although some women became involved in terrorism due to the sense of liberation that it provided, the women largely became disempowered in the aftermath of their offenses; rather than receiving praise for their activism as they had expected, they were shunned by others for their violation of gender expectations, and failure to fulfill traditional gender roles. The social and personal costs of involvement in terrorism for Palestinian women are analyzed, and policy implications of the findings for theory and practice are discussed.

Jolande Withuis/Suffer, fight, become a saint/signandsight.com June 12, 2007 (An essay on women and terrorism.)
"Muslima terrorism – to many this new word will sound like a contradiction in terms. This is an erroneous and dangerously naive response. The common association of women with peacefulness and harmony is a myth. Although it is quite rare for women to carry out terrorist attacks, the phenomenon is not new. (boldface added)
... Regardless of how different their respective cultures were, politics was traditionally the domain of men in all of the cultures. Women were excluded and as they were also considered to have no interest in politics, they had to prove, more than their male counterparts, their commitment and loyalty to the cause. More than that: to be allowed to participate at all, they also had to prove their courage, loyalty and competence to those sceptical and sexist brothers-in-arms, and refute the expectation that they would probably desert or fail. And there you have it: the pathway to taking it one step further.
... Political and spiritual female radicalism has a long tradition in which a pattern can be distinguished. (boldface added)
... We should not overestimate the importance of the ancient texts in order to understand what is going on around us. The answer is not in the texts of Islam, but rather in how they are interpreted and in how they are used. It would be an illusion to think that we can find answers by studying the Koran, and a misunderstanding that we cannot comprehend anything without studying it. As a person radicalizes, the pure doctrine unmistakably becomes an obsession, but never without mediation: it always requires opportunistic interpretations and teachers. Women do not have enough power to push through a new interpretation as pure doctrine.
... Muslim fundamentalism is gender fundamentalism. Muslima terrorism is complex in that it concerns a faith that focuses on the global (and also smaller-scale) preservation of patriarchal power, while at the same time there are women who want to use this patriarchal faith to emancipate themselves, and who are even willing to resort to acts of terrorism. Based on the same ambiguity it could be appealing for their male brothers to "allow" their "sisters" to participate in the jihad, i.e.: use the women to aid terrorists or even for suicide attacks". (boldface appears in the essay)

2. Women in Jihad
Readings: David Cook, "Women Fighting in Jihad?", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, September 2005, Vol. 28: 375-384.
Anne Nivat, "The Black Widows: Chechen Women Join the Fight for Independence - and Allah", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, September 2005, Vol. 28: 413-419.
These articles can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
These articles can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

See also:
Clifford J. Levy and Ellen Barry/Russia Says Suicide Bomber Was Militant's Widow (with photo)/NYT April 2, 2010
Officials said one of two bombers in the Moscow subway attacks (March 29, 2010) was the 17-year-old widow of an insurgent.
See photo: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/04/03/world/03moscow-cnd-inline1/03moscow-cnd-inline1-popup.jpg.
"In this photo distributed by Newsteam, a Russian news agency, and published in Kommersant, a Russian daily newspaper, Dzhennet Abdullayeva is identified posing with her husband Umalat Magomedov. Russian investigators have said that Ms. Abdullayeva, 17, was one of the suicide bombers who blew themselves up in the Moscow subway on March 29, and Mr. Magomedov was a militant Islamist who was killed in 2009. The agency did not give a date for the photo or explain the circumstances in which it was taken."
From the article:
"... posing with his arm around this 17-year-old woman is the man who would put her on this path, a 30-year-old militant leader who lured her from her single mother, drew her into fundamentalist Islam and married her. He was killed by federal forces in December, driving her to seek revenge. On Friday, as the photograph circulated widely, the couple turned into an unsettling symbol of Islamic militancy in Russia — deeply repugnant to most people but also likely to be embraced by other extremists as a propaganda coup, a kind of Bonnie and Clyde of the insurgency. (boldface added)
...
'These religious ideas are very attractive, because they give a kind of alternative to the world that exists,' said Zaur Gaziyev, editor in chief of Svobodnaya Respublika, an independent newspaper in Dagestan. 'And so this young girl, who grew up without a father, who didn’t know male power, suddenly she meets a strong, brutal man, who gives her the sense of support.'

'She is herself a child,' Mr. Gaziyev said. 'I don’t think she even understood what she was doing.'

In the photograph, Ms. Abdullayeva and her husband, Umalat Magomedov, are both brandishing weapons. In a separate photograph, she is holding a grenade. Her head is covered by a black Islamic scarf.

Ms. Abdullayeva — whose first name means 'paradise' in her local Dagestani language — was one of two female suicide bombers who attacked the Moscow subway system, killing 40 people and wounding scores, the authorities confirmed Friday.

She is a striking example of the phenomenon of the so-called Black Widows — young women from the Caucasus who are deployed as human bombs and sent off to kill civilians in Russian cities, often after their husbands are killed by security forces.

Especially active in the early part of the last decade, they have carried out at least 16 bombings, including two aboard planes.

An official at the Interior Ministry of Dagestan said that it was not difficult for militant groups to recruit teenage women in a region with more women than men.

'The girls say, ‘Here is how you will live, and a man will always be beside you,’ the official said. 'There is some romance about a man with a gun, with an automatic weapon. They make the fighters into heroes, naturally. These girls aren’t thinking straight.'

Ms. Abdullayeva apparently met Mr. Magomedov through the Internet.

This happens with increasing frequency, as young women strike up Internet relationships with older men who persuade them to accept fundamentalist Islam and, out of naïveté and romantic impulse, to abandon their families, said Ragimat Adamova, news editor for Novoye Delo, a newspaper in Dagestan.

Ms. Adamova says that once women are brought into the militant structure, they typically never leave. If a woman’s husband is killed, she typically marries a second, third or even a fourth fighter.

'Crudely speaking, these women are passed along like trophies, she said. 'They do not let their girls go.' " (boldface added)

Somini Sengupta/Red Mosque Fueled Islamic Fire in Young Women (Pakistan)/NYT July 24, 2007

3. Female Suicide Bombers
Lindsey O'Rourke/Behind the Woman Behind the Bomb/NYT August 2, 2008 (op ed piece)
There is precious little evidence of uniquely feminine motivations driving women’s suicide attacks.

"... the root cause of suicide terrorism appears to be anger at occupying forces..."
For several informative responses to and comments on Lindsey O'Rourke's essay, including the author's reply, see: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2008/08/suicide_bombers_f/.

Anne Speckhard/The Emergence of Female Suicide Terrorists/Studies in Conflict and Terrorism Vol. 31, No. 11, November 2008
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Abstract:
Female suicide terrorists do not differ significantly from their male counterparts in terms of individual motivations. Although societal oppression may play a minor role in their self-recruitment to terror organizations women do not bomb themselves primarily to drive a feminist cause. Instead they act out of motivations inside conflict zones of trauma, revenge, nationalism, expression of community outrage and in non-conflict zones feelings of alienation, marginalization, negative self-identity, and a desire to act on behalf of those inside conflict zones. Groups find it to their advantage to use female bombers as they receive more media attention, increased sympathy for the terrorist cause, are able to pass security measures more easily than men, and are more dispensable because they are rarely in leadership positions.

Alissa J. Rubin/How Baida Wanted to Die/NYT Sunday Magazine, August 16, 2009
An encounter in Iraq with a (would-be) female suicide bomber.

Return To Beginning Of Syllabus

VII. Islam in the West - Globalization, "Individualization", & Radicalism
1. An Overview

Readings:
Kenan Malik, "The Failure of Multiculturalism", Foreign Affairs, March 2015, Vol. 94 Issue 2, pp21-32 @
http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=100961098&site=ehost-live (permalink) A valid Texas State University User Name and password are required.
Akil N. Awan, "Antecedents of Islamic Political Radicalism Among Muslim Communities in Europe", PS: Political Science & Politics, Volume 41, Issue 01, January 2008, pp 13-17. This article can be viewed directly @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/Awan.htm or @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to the section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this article. For both of these protected links, password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
Abstract:
Recent years have witnessed a rapid proliferation of radical Islamist activity in western Europe, from MI5's claim in 2006 of 30 incipient “terror plots” and 1,600 individuals under surveillance, to actual terrorist atrocities in European cities, the most infamous and deadly of which included the transport network bombings in Madrid in 2003 and in London in 2005. ... This paper will attempt to address the complex issues by providing a fuller, more nuanced understanding of some of the causes and antecedents of Islamic political radicalism among western European Muslims.
For a British film that depiicts several of the themes addressed in this article, see:
My Son The Fanatic (British 1997) [1hr. 27 min.]
For more on this film see: June Thomas/The First 7/7 Movie: In the Wake of the London Bombings, a look back at My Son the Fanatic/slate.com/July 18 2005
Robert S. Leiken/Europe's Angry Muslims/Foreign Affairs/July-august 2005
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This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Readings on Islam" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
Timothy M. Savage, "Europe and Islam: Crescent Waxing, Cultures Clashing", The Washington Quarterly, Summer 2004, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp.25-50.
This article can be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Readings on Islam" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
Olivier Roy/Born again to kill:Why Islamic terrorism is born in Europe/signandsight.com/August 08 2004
Lorenzo Vidino/Aims and Methods of Europe's Muslim Brotherhood/Hudson Institute-Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, vol. 4 November 1, 2006
Ian Buruma/Tariq Ramadan Has an Identity Issue: Is he an activist scholar or an extremist in scholarly garb?/NYT Sunday Magazine February 04, 2007
For a critical, highly recommended, review of this article by Buruma and much more on Western intellectuals and radical Islam, see:
Paul Berman, "Who's Afraid of Tariq Ramadan?: The Islamist, the journalist, and the defense of liberalism", The New Republic, June 4, 2007, Vol. 236, No. 4, 814.
Berman's essay can be directly accessed here and here. This essay can also be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
The Paul Berman essay can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to the section labeled "Readings on Islam" and look for "Paul Berman: on Tariq Ramadan". This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

"The equanimity on the part of some well-known intellectuals and journalists in the face of Islamist death threats so numerous as to constitute a campaign; the equanimity in regard to stoning women to death; the journalistic inability even to acknowledge that women's rights have been at stake in the debates over Islamism; the inability to recall the problems faced by Muslim women in European hospitals; the inability to acknowledge how large has been the role of a revived anti-Semitism; the striking number of errors of understanding and even of fact that have entered into the journalistic presentations of Tariq Ramadan and his ideas; the refusal to discuss with any frankness the role of Ramadan's family over the years; the accidental endorsement in the Guardian of the great-uncle who finds something admirable in the September 11 attacks--what can possibly account for this string of bumbles, timidities, gaffes, omissions, miscomprehensions, and slanders? ... Two developments account for it. The first development is the unimaginable rise of Islamism since the time of the Rushdie fatwa. The second is terrorism".

See also this critical review of Tariq Ramadan's writings and views:
Malise Ruthven, "The Islamic Optimist", The New York Review of Books, Vol. 54, No. 13, August 16, 2007 @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to the section labeled "Readings on Islam" and look for "Malise Ruthven: The Islamic Optimist". This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

For a discussion of the Ian Buruma-Paul Berman debate and the larger issues addressed, see:
Peter Collier, "Backbone, Berman, and Buruma: A Debate that Actually Matters", World Affairs, Winter 2008 @ this Texas State University permalink:http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=28448084&site=ehost-live. A valid Texas State University user name and password are required.

For a collection of essays debating issues discussed in Paul Berman's essay in the June 4, 2007 issue of The New Republic (noted above), see:

The "Islam in Europe" debate/signandsite.com 22/03/07
Who should the West support: moderate Islamists like Tariq Ramadan, or Islamic dissidents like Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Are the rights of the group higher than those of the individual? With a fiery polemic against Ian Buruma's "Murder in Amsterdam" and Timothy Garton Ash's review of this book in the New York Review of Books, Pascal Bruckner has kindled an international debate. By now Ian Buruma, Timothy Garton Ash, Necla Kelek, Paul Cliteur, Lars Gustafsson, Stuart Sim, Ulrike Ackermann, Adam Krzeminski, Halleh Ghorashi, Bassam Tibi and Margriet de Moor have all stepped into the ring.
This collection of essays is accessible @ http://www.signandsight.com/features/1167.html.

See also: Michael Kimmelman/When Fear Turns Graphic/NYT Sunday Arts Section, January 17, 2010
Switzerland stunned many Europeans, including not a few Swiss, when near the end of last year the country, by referendum, banned the building of minarets. Much predictable tut-tutting ensued about Swiss xenophobia, even though surveys showed similar plebiscites would get pretty much the same results elsewhere.
See photo @ http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/01/17/arts/17abroad_CA0.html & slide show @ http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/01/17/arts/0117-abroad_index.html.
Populist parties in Europe mobilize posters as weapons in their culture wars.

For links to readings on Islamism and democracy, see the section of the web syllabus on Islam (Political Science 4313) labeled "Issues in Contemporary Islam: Islamism/Radical Islam; Democracy" @ http://arnoldleder.com/4313.htm#VI..

Recommended Books:
Joel S. Fetzer, J. Christopher Soper/Muslims and the State in Britain, France, and Germany (Cambridge University Press 2005)
Olivier Roy/Globalized Islam: The Search For A New Ummah (Columbia University Press 2004)
The following works by Caldwell (and the reviews), Warner & Wenner, and Fetzer and Soper are listed here as different views on the issue of Muslim minorities in Western Europe.
Christopher Caldwell/Reflections On The Revolution In Europe: Immigration, Islam, And The West (Doubleday 2009)
See these reviews of this book: Dwight Garner/A Turning Tide in Europe as Islam Gains Ground/NYT July 30, 2009 and Fouad Ajami/Strangers in the Land (w/photo) NYT Sunday Book Review, August 2, 2009.
For a perspective very different from that of Christopher Caldwell on Muslims in Western Europe, see: Carolyn M. Warner, Manfred W. Wenner/Religion and the Political Organization of Muslims in Europe, Perspectives on Politics, Volume 4, Number 3 (September 2006), pp. 457-479. (pdf) Note: This is a Texas State University Library permalink. A valid Texas State University User Name and password are required to access this article.

Recommended Films/Videos:
For a Review Essay on Films Related to Islam in the West see:
Alan Riding/On Screen, Tackling Europe's New Reality (Review of Films by and/or about Muslims In Europe-w/links to information on noted films)/NYT/January 18 2005

2. Muslims in France
Readings: Christopher Caldwell, "The Crescent and the Tricolor", The Atlantic Monthly, November 2000.
This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
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Claire Berlinski, "The Hope of Marseille", Azure Winter 2005, No. 19.
This article can be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to the section labeled "Readings on Islam" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
Michael Kimmelman/In Marseilles, Rap Helps Keep the Peace/NYT December 19, 2007
It is hip-hop, as much a source of local pride as the town’s soccer team, that turns out to be a lens through which to examine why this city didn’t burn.

"When the slums outside Paris, Lyon, Toulouse and Strasbourg exploded last month, repeating the violence that erupted two years ago, here in Marseille, France’s second-largest city, all remained calm.
...
Here the basic interconnectedness of all modern music expresses a local truth about the city’s cultural identity. An ancient, gritty seaport, Marseille flaunts its history as an immigrant magnet. Its population of 820,000 includes 200,000 Muslims, 80,000 North African Jews, 80,000 Armenians. One of the largest immigrant groups is made up of Muslims from the Comoro Islands, near Madagascar.
...
Different communities in Marseille are still quite separate, there’s racism here, but it’s a city in which you have the freedom to move among communities if you choose.
...
Marseille can surely use the money, but hardly at the cost of undoing the social chemistry that has kept the peace and fostered, among other things, the city’s musical life. At Le Mille-Patte those dozen or so young rappers outside were a typical Marseille mix: first-, second- or third-generation immigrants from Algeria, Morocco, the Comoro Islands, Eastern Europe, Argentina.

Habib was a skinny 18-year-old with a doleful face and a band called Urban Revolution. We all get along because we share music, he explained. Le Mille-Patte had first encouraged him to rap as a young boy: I didn’t know what to do with my days, so this place was very important". (boldface added)

Clara Beyer/The Jihadist Threat in France/Hudson Institute-Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, Vol. 3 February 16, 2006
John Rosenthal/The French Path to Jihad: Islamist inmates tell their stories/Policy Review October & November 2006
(Note: Much of the Rosenthal piece is based on the work of Farhad Khosrokhavar. Farhad Khosrokhavar's book, Suicide Bombers: Allah's New Martyrs [Pluto Press 2005-Translated from the original 2002 French edition], is a recommended book for this course.)
See also: "French Riots Special Feature"/December 6, 2005 @ http://www.signandsight.com/features/500.html. This Special Feature contains links to many articles on Muslims in France.
Steven Erlanger/For a French Imam, Islam’s True Enemy Is Radicalism (w/photo)/NYT February 13, 2010
Hassen Chalghoumi supports a ban on the full facial veil, the burqa, and favors dialogue with France’s Jews, but many Muslims say he does not speak for them.
Recommended Films/Videos:
Hate (French w/English subtitles 1995 [1hr. 35 min.]
An intense, violent film that depicts the life of angry, disaffected minority youth in the suburbs of Paris. Offers some insight into the perspective of mostly Muslim rioting youth in France, although the three young men on whom this disturbing film focuses are ethnically African, Arab, and Jewish.
For more on this film see: Alan Riding/In France, Artists Have Sounded the Warning Bells for Years NYT November 24, 2005.

Excerpt from Alan Riding essay on the film "Hate":
"So life often imitates art. Yet with the recent uprisings in some French immigrant neighborhoods, this cliché came with a new twist: art in the form of movies and rap music has long been warning that French-born Arab and black youths felt increasingly alienated from French society, that their banlieues were ripe for explosion.

Certainly, anyone who saw Mathieu Kassovitz's film, "La Haine," or "Hate," a decade ago had no reason to be surprised by this fall's violence. At the time, Kassovitz's portrayal of a seething immigrant Paris suburb, even his choice of the word "hate" for his title, seemed shocking, even exaggerated. Today, the movie could almost pass as a documentary.

In "Hate," burning cars light up the soulless space between high-rise public housing projects as local residents protest the beating of a young Arab, Ahmed. Nearby, graffiti proclaim: "Don't forget, the police kill." Three angry and restless youths - a Jew, an Arab and a black - visit Ahmed in the hospital and are themselves beaten by the police. They plan revenge".

Chaos (French w/English subtitles 2001 [1hr. 49 min.]
"Although comedy takes precedence in most parts of the film, it is the social commentary part that will spark the most debate. France has the largest Muslim population in Europe, mostly from its citizens who are from its former colonies in North Africa. Culture clashes are inevitable when a burgeoning and mostly traditional Muslim society slowly assimilates itself within a Western society that lives by much different values. In this film, Serreau tries to address the hot issue of traditional Muslim society’s treatment of women, specifically the issue of fathers “selling” their teenage daughters into marriages with much older men. Melodrama aside, “Chaos” has a serious message to convey to its audience and it does it with force and without fear".
Excerpt from: http://www.dvdtown.com/review/chaos/11612/1928/

3. Muslims in Britain
Readings:
Christopher Caldwell/Jihadtropolis?: After Londonistan/NYT June 25, 2006
James Brandon/Islam rises among young Britons/The Christian Science Monitor/July 11 2005
Sukhdev Sandhu, "Come hungry, leave edgy", London Review of Books, October 9, 2003, Vol. 25, No. 19. - An informative review essay on the novel Brick Lane by Monica Ali. The essay provides much material on the experiences of immigrants to Britain, including Muslim immigrants. Sukhev Sandu's review essay can be accessed onine @ http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n19/sand01_.html. This review essay can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Readings on Islam" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
John F. Burns/British Muslim Leaders Propose 'Code of Conduct'/NYT November 30, 2007
"Moderate British Muslim leaders on Thursday proposed guidelines that aim to root out extremism, promote a culture of “civic responsibility” and foster women’s rights in the country’s mosques, Islamic centers and Muslim schools.
... The guidelines, circulated in draft form to Muslim groups across the country, represent a sweeping new effort by the moderate leaders to combat alienation among disaffected Muslim youth and to foster a new atmosphere of openness and tolerance among Britain’s two million Muslims, particularly in the country’s 1,500 mosques".
Elaine Sciolino/Britain Grapples With Role for Islamic Justice (w/photos)/NYT November 19, 2008
Recommended Films/Videos
My Son The Fanatic (British 1997) [1hr. 27 min.]
For more on this film see: June Thomas/The First 7/7 Movie: In the Wake of the London Bombings, a look back at My Son the Fanatic/slate.com/July 18 2005

4. Muslims in Germany
Readings:
Alison Smale, "Germany Adds Lessons in Islam to Better Blend Its Melting Pot", NYT, January 7, 2014
Public schools for the first time are offering classes in Islam to primary school students to better integrate Germany’s large Muslim minority and to try to counter the influence of radical religious thinking.
(boldface added)

Peter Schneider/The New Berlin Wall/NYT Sunday Magazine/December 4 2005
Andrew Curry, "Riot Control: Why There Were No Riots In Germany", The New Republic, TNR Online | Post date 11.16.05
This article can be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Readings on Islam" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
Mark Landler/German Judge Cites Koran, Stirring Up Cultural Storm/NYT March 23, 2007
Mark Landler/After Lifetime in Germany, Turks Still Alone/NYT March 25, 2007
"Four decades after the first Turks arrived as guest workers, they are reaching retirement in a land that still feels foreign."
Mark Landler and Nicholas Kulish/Arrest of One Turk in Germany Brings New Scrutiny to a Society of 2.7 Million/NYT September 08, 2007
Nicholas Kulish/Turkish Newspapers Vie for Fluency in Two Societies/NYT November 11, 2007
Norbert F. Pötz/Life in a Parallel Society: Muslims in Germany/spiegel.de/international/April 16, 2008

5. Muslims in America
Readings: Spencer Ackerman, "Religious Protection: Why American Muslims Haven't Turned To Terrorism" The New Republic, December 12, 2005.
This article can be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Readings on Islam" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

Nina Bernstein/In American Cities, No Mirror Image of Muslims of Leeds/NYT/July 21 2005

For another perspective on the issue of Muslims in America turning to terrorism see: Andrea Elliott/A Call to Jihad, Answered in America/NYT, Sunday, July 12, 2009.
"The case has forced federal agents and terrorism analysts to rethink some of their most basic assumptions about the vulnerability of Muslim immigrants in the United States to the lure of militant Islam. For years, it seemed that “homegrown” terrorism was largely a problem in European countries like Britain and France, where Muslim immigrants had failed to prosper economically or integrate culturally. By contrast, experts believed that the successful assimilation of foreign-born Muslims in the United States had largely immunized them from the appeal of radical ideologies.

The story of the Twin Cities men does not lend itself to facile categorizations. They make up a minuscule percentage of their Somali-American community, and it is unclear whether their transformation reflects any broader trend. Nor are they especially representative of the wider Muslim immigrant population, which has enjoyed a stable and largely middle-class existence."

See also: From the Midwest to Mogadishu - Does the U.S. really face "homegrown" jihadist threats? (with updates)/Room for Debate.blogs/NYT July 13, 2009.
Radical movements have been a problem in Britain and other European countries. How can the U.S. government prevent such movements here? An article in The Times by Andrea Elliott on Sunday examined the case of more than 20 young Somali-Americans who are now the focus of a major domestic terrorism investigation. Most of the men are refugees who left Minnesota, which has one of the largest Somali communities in the United States, and are suspected of joining Al Shabaab, a militant Islamist group in Somalia. One of the men blew himself up in a suicide attack in Somalia in October. We (NYT editors) asked some experts what dynamics in the Somali community might make it more possible to lure these young men to that group. While “homegrown” jihadism has caused alarm in Britain and other European countries, does the United States face challenges of its own? Can the government detect and prevent such movements from gaining footholds here? (boldface added)
Ken Menkhaus, political scientist
Bruce Hoffman, professor of security studies
Zainab Hassan, The Minneapolis Foundation
Steven Simon, co-author, “The Next Attack”
Thomas Sanderson, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Guido Steinberg, German Institute for International and Security Affairs

Andrea Elliott/The Jihadist Next Door/NYT Sunday Magazine, January 31, 2010
In his small-town Alabama high school, Omar Hammami was among the coolest, most gifted students in his class. How did he grow up to become a leader in an African terror group linked to Al Qaeda?
See also Interactive Timeline w/photos for this article @ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/01/27/magazine/20100127_OMAR_TIMELINE.html. Note: Access with this link requires more recent browsers.

Scott Shane and Squad Mekhennet/Imam's Path From Condemning Terror to Preaching Jihad (w/photos)/NYT Sunday, May 9, 2010
Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born cleric, has become a central figure in the luring of Western Muslims to violent extremism.
"Notably, he was enraptured by the works of Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian whose time in the United States helped make him the father of the modern anti-Western jihadist movement in Islam.

Because of the flowing style of Sayyid I would read between 100 and 150 pages a day, Mr. Awlaki wrote. I would be so immersed with the author I would feel Sayyid was with me in my cell speaking to me directly.”

Andrea Elliott: An Imam In America- 3 Articles (links)/NYT/March 05 through March 07, 2006
Andrea Elliott/A Cleric's Journey Leads to a Suburban Frontier/NYT January 28, 2007
For critical comments on Andrea Elliott's reporting in the above articles, see: Jonathan Tobin/Another Pulitzer Prize Disgrace/jewishworldreview.com April 23, 2007
"The most important was Elliot's failure to mention anything about the role of the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge in the murder of 16-year-old Ari Halberstam in a van filled with Jewish children on the Brooklyn Bridge. Not one of her 11,000 words refers to the fact that it was this same mosque that was the forum for the sermon that inspired one of its congregants, Rashid Baz, to go out and try to murder as many Jews as he could in March of 1994. ... How, you may ask, could one write about any religious institution and ignore the most notorious aspect of its recent history? ... In a subsequent article in The New York Sun, Halberstam's mother, Devorah, related that she called Elliot to ask why she had omitted the story of her son's murder from the feature on the mosque. Elliot replied that she knew nothing about it".
See also: Daniel Freedman/For Ari Halberstam - Opinion Piece/New York Sun March 8, 2007
Gary Shapiro/Pulitzer for Imam Feature Called 'Outrageous'/New York Sun April 20, 2007

Neil MacFarquhar/Iraq's Shadow Widens Sunni-Shiite Split in U.S./NYT February 04, 2007

Michael Moss and Souad Mekhennet/An Internet Jihad Aims at U.S. Viewers/NYT October 15, 2007

Neil MacFarquhar/For Muslim Students (in U.S.), A Debate on Inclusion (with photos)/NYT February 21, 2008

Neil MacFarquhar/To Muslim girls in U.S., Girl Scouts offer a chance to fit in NYT November 28, 2007

VIII. Islam in Russia: 19th Century Empire, Soviet and Modern Eras

For an informative and insightful analysis of the pre Soviet Russian empire's relations with its large Muslim populations that may offer a comparative perspective on the allegiance of Muslim populations in modern Western states, see the review essay by Orlando Figes, "Islam: The Russian Solution", The New York Review of Books, December 21, 2006, Vol. LIII, No. 20, pp. 74-77. The review essay is on two books: Robert D. Crews/For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia (Harvard University Press 2006) and Shireen T. Hunter/Islam in Russia: The Politics of Identity and Security (M. E. Sharpe 2004). Sections 1 and 2, pp. 74-76, of this essay focusing on Robert Crews' book are especially useful.
"For Prophet and Tsar is an original and revelatory book. Clearly written and well researched, it sheds new light on the complex interplay between the imperial state and its Muslim subjects in a way that may illuminate contemporary debates about how to secure the allegiances of Muslim populations in modern Western states. Crews's analysis of the imperial politics of religion presents a cogent and persuasive explanation of the Russian empire's relative stability in its Muslim territories during the long nineteenth century. It is refreshing to see the question posed this way, not with a view to discovering the social forces that undermined the empire in the longer run, but with a view to understanding the sources of the empire's durability. For what strikes one about the Russian empire is not that it collapsed, as all empires do, but rather that it managed to survive so long (and resurrect itself in the Soviet era) in such a vast and backward landmass as Eurasia, where the Russians were themselves no more than a large minority. The first national census of 1897 showed that Russians made up only 44 percent of the empire's population, and that they were one of the slowest-growing ethnic groups. The Muslim population, with its high birth rate, was the fastest-growing ethnic group in the empire". (boldface added)
Read the first 38 pages of the Introduction to Robert D. Crews' book here.

This review essay by Orlando Figes can be accessed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to the section on "Readings on Islam" and look for "Figes: Islam:The Russian Solution". This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

See also: Leon Aron, "Jihadi Murat"- a review essay on Robert D. Crews/For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia (Harvard University Press, 2006) and Gordon M. Hahan/Russia's Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007), The New Republic, November 5, 2007, Vol. 237, No. 4, 824, pp. 42-49. This review essay is directly accessible @ this location. This Leon Aron essay in The New Republic is also accessible @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library with a valid Texas StateUniversity User Name and password.

Return To Beginning Of Syllabus

IX. Defeating Terrorism: Terrorist Organization, Intelligence, Interrogation, & Moral Dimensions
1. Terrorist Organization & Strategy
Readings:
Max Boot, The Evolution of Irregular War: Insurgents and Guerrillas From Akkadia to Afghanistan, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2013, Vol. 92, No. 2, pp. 100-114.
Texas State University Library permalink. A valid ID and password are required for access to this article.
Brad McCallister, "Al Qaeda & the Innovative Firm: Demythologizing the Network", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, July-August 2004, Vol. 27, Issue 4.
This article by McCallister can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

Bruce Hoffman, "The Changing Face of al Qaeda & the Global War on Terrorism", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, November-December 2004, Vol. 27, Issue 6.
This Hoffman article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
Bruce Hoffman, "The Myth of Grass-Roots Terrorism", Foreign Affairs, May-June, 2008. A review essay on Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century by Marc Sageman (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008).
Summary: Marc Sageman claims that al Qaeda's leadership is finished and today's terrorist threat comes primarily from below. But the terrorist elites are alive and well, and ignoring the threat they pose will have disastrous consequences.
This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
See also: Elaine Sciolino and Eric Schmitt/A Not Very Private Feud Over Terrorism/NYT Week in Review, Sunday, June 8, 2008
Two theorists (Marc Sageman & Bruce Hoffman) see the threat differently, setting the scene for new turf fights in Washington.
See: Marc Sageman - Bruce Hoffman Exchange - Does Osama Still Call the Shots?: Debating the Containment of al Qaeda's Leadership, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2008.
This exchange btween Hoffman and Sageman is accessible at the following two Texas State University permalinks. A valid Texas State University user name and password are required.
Bruce Hoffman: http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=32556556&site=ehost-live
Marc Sageman: http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=32556580&site=ehost-live

See also: Bruce Hoffman/Al-Qaeda has a new strategy. Obama needs one, too./Washington Post January 10, 2010.
"First, al-Qaeda is increasingly focused on overwhelming, distracting and exhausting us. To this end, it seeks to flood our already information-overloaded national intelligence systems with myriad threats and background noise. Al-Qaeda hopes we will be so distracted and consumed by all this data that we will overlook key clues, such as those before Christmas that linked Abdulmutallab to an al-Qaeda airline-bombing plot.

Second, in the wake of the global financial crisis, al-Qaeda has stepped up a strategy of economic warfare. "We will bury you," Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev promised Americans 50 years ago. Today, al-Qaeda threatens: "We will bankrupt you." Over the past year, the group has issued statements, videos, audio messages and letters online trumpeting its actions against Western financial systems, even taking credit for the economic crisis. However divorced from reality these claims may be, propaganda doesn't have to be true to be believed, and the assertions resonate with al-Qaeda's target audiences.

Heightened security measures after the Christmas Day plot, coupled with the likely development of ever more sophisticated passenger-screening and intelligence technologies, stand to cost a lot of money, while the war in Afghanistan constitutes a massive drain on American resources. Given the economic instability here and abroad, al-Qaeda seems to think that a strategy of financial attrition will pay outsize dividends.

Third, al-Qaeda is still trying to create divisions within the global alliance arrayed against it by targeting key coalition partners. Terrorist attacks on mass-transit systems in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005 were intended to punish Spain and Britain for participating in the war in Iraq and in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, and al-Qaeda continues this approach today. During the past two years, serious terrorist plots orchestrated by al-Qaeda's allies in Pakistan, meant to punish Spain and the Netherlands for participating in the war on terrorism, were thwarted in Barcelona and Amsterdam.
...
Fourth, al-Qaeda is aggressively seeking out, destabilizing and exploiting failed states and other areas of lawlessness. While the United States remains preoccupied with trying to secure yesterday's failed state -- Afghanistan -- al-Qaeda is busy staking out new terrain. The terrorist network sees failing states as providing opportunities to extend its reach, and it conducts local campaigns of subversion to hasten their decline. Over the past year, it has increased its activities in places such as Pakistan, Algeria, the Sahel, Somalia and, in particular, Yemen.

Once al-Qaeda has located or helped create a region of lawlessness, it guides allies and related terrorist groups in that area, boosting their local, regional and -- as the Northwest Airlines plot demonstrated -- international attack capabilities. Although the exact number of al-Qaeda personnel in each of these areas varies, and in some cases may include no more than a few hard-core terrorists, they perform a critical force-multiplying function. Their help to indigenous terrorist groups includes support for attacks -- by providing weapons, training and intelligence -- and, equally critical, assistance in disseminating propaganda, such as by building Web sites and launching online magazines modeled on al-Qaeda's.

Fifth and finally, al-Qaeda is covetously seeking recruits from non-Muslim countries who can be easily deployed for attacks in the West. The group's leaders see people like these -- especially converts to Islam whose appearances and names would not arouse the same scrutiny that persons from Islamic countries might -- as the ultimate fifth column. Citizens of countries that participate in the U.S. visa-waiver program are especially prized because they can move freely between Western countries and blend easily into these societies."

For a different view of Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-first Century by Marc Sageman and remarks on several other books concerning terrorism and Islam, see this review essay: Malise Ruthven/ The Rise of the Muslim Terrorists/New York Review of Books May 29, 2008, Vol. 55, No. 9.
See also Cass Sunstein's review and analysis of Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-first Century by Marc Sageman.
Cass R. Sunstein, "Misery and Company", The New Republic, October 22, 2008.
Does Religion Have Anything To Do With Terrorism?
This article by Cass Sunstein is accessible @ http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=3893.
"Sageman's distinctive contribution lies in his emphasis on social interactions among like-minded people, and in particular the effects of enclaves of young Muslims.
...Sageman's database and method do not permit him to compare those who became terrorists with those who did not; and for all their plausibility, his claims about the causal force of networks have not been shown to count as social science. So the core narrative of his book has not been adequately corroborated by his own evidence."
See also: Nicholas Schmidle/The Saharan Conundrum/NYT Sunday Magazine February 15, 2009.
"Are legions of these 'free agent' jihadis, operating loosely in the name of Al Qaeda, more worrying or less worrying than a centralized Al Qaeda? Western intelligence agencies no longer agree on the nature of the threat.
... But political and religious violence in the Sahel usually had nothing to do with militias fighting for Shariah or bidding to join Al Qaeda. More often than not, the fighting involved long-running territorial disputes; ethnic, clan or tribal quibbles like those constantly plaguing Chad; and Muslims fighting Muslims, seen most vividly in Darfur. It is difficult to isolate and identify the extent to which Islam does or doesn’t play into each instance of violence in the Muslim world."

Thomas Rid, "Cracks in the Jihad", Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2010, Vol. 34, Issue 1, pp. 40-47.
Permalink direct access @ Texas State University Library: http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=47570680&site=ehost-live. A valid Texas State University user name and password are required.
"Al Qaeda is no longer a collective political actor. It is no longer an adversary that can articulate a will, capitulate, and be defeated. But the jihad’s new weakness is also its new strength: Because of its transformation, Islamist militancy is politically impaired yet fitter to survive its present crisis.
...
In the years since late 2001, when U.S. and coalition forces toppled the Taliban regime and all but destroyed Al Qaeda’s core organization in Afghanistan, the bin Laden brand has been bleeding popularity across the Muslim world. The global jihad, as a result, has been torn by mounting internal tensions. Today, the holy war is set to slip into three distinct ideological and organizational niches. The U.S. surge in Afghanistan, whether successful or not, is likely to affect this development only marginally.

The first niche is occupied by local Islamist insurgencies, fueled by grievances against “apostate” regimes that are authoritarian, corrupt, or backed by “infidel” outside powers (or any combination of the three). Filling the second niche is terrorism-cum–organized crime, most visible in Afghanistan and Indonesia but also seen in Europe, fueled by narcotics, extortion, and other ordinary illicit activities. In the final niche are people who barely qualify as a group: young second- and third-generation Muslims in the diaspora who are engaged in a more amateurish but persistent holy war, fueled by their own complex personal discontents. Al Qaeda’s challenge is to encompass the jihadis who drift to the criminal and eccentric fringe while keeping alive its appeal to the Muslim mainstream and a rhetoric of high aspiration and promise."

Benjamin Popper/Build-a-Bomber:Why do so many terrorists have engineering degrees? (with links to papers referenced)/slate.com/Dec. 29, 2009

Jakub Grygiel/The Power of Statelessness: The withering appeal of governing/Policy Review April & May 2009
"The state is no longer the be-all and end-all, and many modern groups prefer to disrupt rather than control political and administrative activities.
... Statelessness is a form of power."

Scott Atran/To Beat Al Qaeda, Look to the East/NYT Week in Review, December 14, 2009
The key in the Afghan-Pakistani area, as in Southeast Asia, is to use local customs and networks to our advantage.

For a critique of Scot Atran's view, see: Max Boot, "Atran's Silly Thesis", December 13, 2009, posted @ http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/boot/195022.
"Atran doesn’t seem to realize this. Instead he comforts himself with foolish fairytales about how supposedly benign the Taliban would be if only we left them alone. He adopts the “accidental guerrilla” thesis propounded by Dave Kilcullen, which holds that it is American military action that is driving the Pashtuns into the Taliban’s hands. This flagrantly ignores the historical record which shows that the Taliban were far more powerful back in the 1990s when there was not a single American soldier on the ground in Afghanistan. In those days, too, the Taliban cemented a close alliance with al-Qaeda, which they have never renounced even though it would have been to their advantage to do so. This suggests rather strongly that if we followed Atran’s advice and left Afghanistan to its own devices, it would soon be taken over by jihadists bent on attacking not only Pakistan but also Europe and the United States."

Robert F. Worth/Hezbollah Seeks to Marshall the Piety of the Young (w/photos)/NYT November 21, 2008

Shmuel Bar/Deterring Terrorists: What Israel has learned/Policy Review, June-July, 2008
Claude Berrebi and Esteban F. Klor, "Are Voters Sensitive to Terrorism? Direct Evidence from the Israeli Electorate", American Political Science Review, Vol. 102, No. 3, August 2008, pp. 279-301. This article is accessible in pdf @ http://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR477-1/.
Abstract:
This paper relies on the variation of terror attacks across time and space as an instrument to identify the causal effects of terrorism on the preferences of the Israeli electorate. We find that the occurrence of a terror attack within three months of the elections is associated with a 1.35 percentage points increase on the local support for the right bloc of political parties out of the two blocs vote. This effect is of a significant political magnitude given the level of terrorism in Israel and the fact that its electorate is closely split between the right and left blocs. Moreover, a terror fatality has important electoral effects beyond the locality where the attack is perpetrated, and their electoral impact is stronger the closer to the elections they occur. Interestingly, the observed political effects are not affected by the identity of the party holding office. These results provide empirical support for the hypothesis that the electorate shows a highly sensitive reaction to terrorism, and substantiate the claim that terror organizations especially target democratic regimes because these regimes are more prone to make territorial concessions. (boldface added)

Frank Hairgrove; Douglas M. Mcleod, "Circles Drawing Toward High Risk Activism: The Use of Usroh and Halaqa in Islamist Radical Movements", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 31, Issue 5, May 2008, pages 399 - 411. (revisited)
Abstract:
Kurzman (2004) argued that social movements research and Islamic studies “followed parallel trajectories, with few glances across the chasm that have separated them.” This article will illuminate one influential process that has relevance to both these areas, the use of small groups for the purpose or radical mobilization. Specifically, it examines the impact of the use of small Islamic study groups (usroh and halaqa) for fundamental and radical Islamic movements. Although small-group mobilization is not unique to Islam, the strategic use of these study groups empowered by the Islamic belief system has yielded significant returns in capacity building for high-risk activism.
The full text of this article by can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
Alan Cullison/Inside Al-Qaeda's Hard Drive/The Atlantic Monthly/September 2004
The complete text of Cullison's article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
Alison Leigh Cowan, Alain Delaquérière, Souad Mekhennet, Michael Powell, William K. Rashbaum (reporters) & written by Michael Powell/U.S. Recruit Reveals How Qaeda Trains Foreigners/NYT July 23, 2009
The testimony of Bryant Neal Vinas offered a rare window into the life and training of Al Qaeda recruits.
Eric Schmitt and Tom Shanker/U.S. Adapts Cold-War Idea to Fight Terrorists/NYT March 18, 2008
Recommended Book: Marc Sageman/Understanding Terror Networks (University of Pennsylvania Press 2004)
For a critical view of the sophistication of radical Islamists' use of the Web, see:
Daniel Kimmage/Fight Terror With You Tube/NYT, June 26, 2008
"When it comes to user-generated content and interactivity, Al Qaeda is now behind the curve. And the United States can help to keep it there by encouraging the growth of freer, more empowered online communities, especially in the Arab-Islamic world.
... In July 2007, for example, Al Qaeda released more than 450 statements, books, articles, magazines, audio recordings, short videos of attacks and longer films. These products reach the world through a network of quasi-official online production and distribution entities, like Al Sahab, which releases statements by Osama bin Laden.
... But the Qaeda media nexus, as advanced as it is, is old hat. If Web 1.0 was about creating the snazziest official Web resources and Web 2.0 is about letting users run wild with self-created content and interactivity, Al Qaeda and its affiliates are stuck in 1.0." (boldface added)
See also: Daniel Kimmage/The Al-Qaeda Media Nexus/An RFE/RL Special Report, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, March 2008 (pdf)

Max Abrahms/Why Terrorism Does Not Work/International Security, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Fall 2006), pp. 42-78. (pdf)

2. Intelligence, Interrogation/Torture, Drone Warfare, & Moral Dimensions
Readings:
Elshtain, Chapter 4, "Is The War Against Terrorism Just?" [At Reserve Desk Texas State University Library]
Laqueur, Chapters 6, 8 (recommended).
Berman, Chapters VI., VII.

*Michael V. Hayden, "To Keep America Safe, Embrace Drone Warfare", NYT Sunday Review (Opinion), February 21, 2016
@ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/opinion/sunday/drone-warfare-precise-effective-imperfect.html.
*(Michael V. Hayden, a retired Air Force four-star general, was director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006 to 2009.)
From this opinion piece:
"... the United States needs not only to maintain this (drone warfare) capacity, but also to be willing to use it. Radical Islamism thrives in many corners of the world — Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Mali, the list goes on — where governments cannot or will not act. In some of these instances, the United States must.
... unmanned aerial vehicles carrying precision weapons and guided by powerful intelligence offer a proportional and discriminating response when response is necessary. Civilians have died, but in my firm opinion, the death toll from terrorist attacks would have been much higher if we had not taken action."

Bruce Hoffman/A Nasty Business (Torture & Intelligence Gathering Against Terrorists-Should We Care?)/The Atlantic Monthly/January 2002
Mark Bowden/The Dark Art Of Interrogation/The Atlantic Monthly/October 2. 2003
"The most effective way to gather intelligence and thwart terrorism can also be a direct route into morally repugnant terrain. A survey of the landscape of persuasion."
The complete texts of the Hoffman & Bowden articles can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
Charles Krauthammer/The Truth about Torture/The Weekly Standard/December 5 2005, Vol. 011 Issue 12
Andrew Sullivan, "The Abolition of Torture", The New Republic, December 19, 2005 - A critique of Krauthammer's position on torture.
This article can be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
Edward Rothstein/Reconsidering the Role of the Warrior in our Post-Enlightenment World/NYT August 06, 2007 (revisited)

Benjamin Weiser/How to Keep an Ex-Terrorist Calm and Talking/NYT December 9, 2007
Michael Moss & Souad Mekhennet/Jail Protests by Militants Win Privileges and Visits by Wives/NYT December 31, 2007
Scott Shane/Inside the Interrogation of a 9/11 Mastermind (w/multimedia & photos)/NYT Sunday, June 22, 2008
Katherine Zoepf/Deprogramming Jihadists (w/photo)/NYT Sunday Magazine November 9, 2008
The Saudi government is trying to rehabilitate violent Islamists by addressing their psychological needs. Could therapy be the best sort of counterterrorism?

"Though the exact nature of the role that religious belief plays in the recruitment of jihadists is the subject of much debate among scholars of terrorism, a growing number contend that ideology is far less important than family and group dynamics, psychological and emotional needs. 'We’re finding that they don’t generally join for religious reasons,' John Horgan told me. A political psychologist who directs the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at Penn State, Horgan has interviewed dozens of former terrorists. 'Terrorist movements seem to provide a sense of adventure, excitement, vision, purpose, camaraderie,' he went on, 'and involvement with them has an allure that can be difficult to resist. But the ideology is usually something you acquire once you’re involved.'

Other scholars emphatically disagree, stressing the significance of political belief and grievance. But if the Saudi program is succeeding, it may be because it treats jihadists not as religious fanatics or enemies of the state but as alienated young men in need of rehabilitation. (boldface added)
...
In Saudi Arabia, psychological disorders are often understood as the results of a person finding himself somehow outside the traditional circle of family and community. Most of the counseling that the inmates receive is focused on helping them to develop more healthful family relationships. “We use Western psychiatric techniques together with Islamic techniques,” T. M. Otayan, the center’s staff psychologist, says, referring to the intensive religion classes. A number of the inmates have received diagnoses of antisocial personality disorder, he adds, but he claims serious mental illness among the former jihadists is rare.
...
How and why violent extremists come to leave their organizations are a fairly new focus in academic studies of terrorism. Horgan’s findings — that simple fear and disillusionment can play a major role in an individual’s decision to disengage from his group — seem to be echoed by a recent RAND Corporation report on the demise of terrorist groups, which found that efforts by police and intelligence agents to create intense internal pressure within terrorist groups are more successful at fighting extremism than military actions."

Eric Lipton, Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti/Review of Jet Bomb Plot Shows More Missed Clues (w/links to related materials & graphic for unconnected threads)/NYT January 18, 2010

Films/Videos: Battle Of Algiers (1967) (Revisited)
Readings Related To This Film:
Jenkins, "The Battle Of Algiers", pp. 72-79; Jenkins, "Terrorism And Politics", pp. 79-83.
[The Jenkins materials cited here are available at the Reserve Desk Texas State University Library]; Hoffman, pp. 57, 60-64.
Alan A. Stone/Reel Terrorism: Reconsidering The Battle Of Algiers/Boston Review/February-March 2003 (Revisited)
Richard Vinen, "Electric Koran" (Use & Ramifications Of Torture In The Algerian War 1954-1962), London Review Of Books, Vol. 23 No. June 2001.
The Vinen article can be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to the section on the "Arab-Israeli Conflict" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

X. The Future of Extremism and Terrorism

Note On Course & Syllabus Materials: Students may find books, articles, links, websites, and other materials provided in this syllabus useful and of interest. Their listing in this syllabus, including those which are required and recommended, does not necessarily indicate endorsement of or agreement with any views or positions on any issues found in these materials, websites, or on other sites to which they may provide links.

Readings:
Laqueur, Chapters 9, 10, and Conclusion (recommended); Hoffman, Chapter 9.

Bruce Hoffman, "The Challenges of Effective Counterterrorism in the 2020's", Lawfare, June 21, 2020
@https://www.lawfareblog.com/challenges-effective-counterterrorism-intelligence-2020s

Bruce Hoffman, "The Changing Landscape of Domestic Terrorism", Council on Foreign Relations podcast 31:48 minutes, June 16, 2020
@https://www.cfr.org/podcasts/changing-landscape-domestic-terrorism-bruce-hoffman

Matthew Rosenberg and Ainara Tiefenthaler, "Decoding the Far-Right Symbols at the Capitol Riot", The New York Times, January 13, 2021

Laura E. Adkins and Emily Burack, "A Guide to the hate symbols and signs on display at the US Capitol riots", The Times Of Israel, January 8, 2021
@ https://www.timesofisrael.com/a-guide-to-the-hate-symbols-and-signs-on-display-at-the-us-capitol-riots/

Vanessa Friedman, "Why Rioters Wear Costumes", The New York Times, January 7, 2021

Rick Paulas, "Why Antifa Dresses Like Antifa - A brief history of Antifa fashion", The New York Times, November 29, 2017
This article is accessible in pdf (portable document format) in the Files section of the Texas State University CANVAS site for Political Science 4344/The Politics of Extremism.

Stanley G. Payne, "Antifascism Without Fascism", First Things, January 2021
@ https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/01/antifascism-without-fascism
This article is accessible in pdf (portable document format) in the Files section of the Texas State University CANVAS site for Political Science 4344/The Politics of Extremism.

Michael Kenney aand Colin Clarke, "What Antifa Is, What It Isn't, And Why It Matters", War On The Rocks, June 23, 2020
@ https://warontherocks.com/2020/06/what-antifa-is-what-it-isnt-and-why-it-matters/

Seth G. Jones, "Who Are Antifa, and Are They a Threat?", Center For Strategic & International Studies, June 4, 2020
@ https://www.csis.org/analysis/who-are-antifa-and-are-they-threat

Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware, "Are We Entering A New Era of Far-Right Terrorism?", War On The Rocks, November 27, 2019
@ https://warontherocks.com/2019/11/are-we-entering-a-new-era-of-far-right-terrorism/

Ben Sales, "QAnon an old form of anti-Semitism in a new package, say experts", The Times Of Israel, September 20, 2020
@https://www.timesofisrael.com/qanon-is-an-old-form-of-anti-semitism-in-a-new-package-say-experts/

Katrin Bennhold, "QAnon Is Thriving in Germany. The Extreme Right Is Delighted", The New York Times October 11, 2020
@ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/11/world/europe/qanon-is-thriving-in-germany-the-extreme-right-is-delighted.html?referringSource=articleShare

Alex Newhouse and Nate Gunesch, "The Boogaloo Movement Wants To Be Seen as Anti-Racist, But It Has a White Supremacist Fringe",
Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, May 30, 2020
@ https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/ctec-publications-0/boogaloo-movement-wants-be-seen-anti-racist

Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham, "How White Evangelicals Fused With Trump Extremism", The New York Times, January 11, 2021
@https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/us/how-white-evangelical-christians-fused-with-trump-extremism.html?referringSource=articleShare

Owen Bennet Jones, "Bunches of Guys", London Review of Books, Vol. 35, No. 24, 19 December 2013 @ http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/owen-bennett-jones/bunches-of-guys
A review essay on Decoding al-Qaida’s Strategy: The Deep Battle against America by Michael Ryan(Columbia, 368 pp, September 2013) and The Terrorist’s Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organisations by Jacob Shapiro (Princeton, 352 pp, July 2013).

Excerpts from this review essay by Owen Bennet Jones:
"There has also been a long debate about hierarchy and the extent to which al-Qaida should be a hierarchical organisation. Many Western writers have tried to describe al-Qaida’s structure. The central leadership is often likened to the board of a multinational company overseeing local franchises. The franchisees have to stick to at least some al-Qaida policies and in return can use the brand name. In another parallel from the business world, al-Qaida is said to have affiliates rather than fully-owned and controlled subsidiaries.
...
The phenomenon of excess violence is structural. Many of the junior ranks of terrorist organisations are so highly motivated that they want to use more violence than the leadership thinks wise. And there is another inherent problem. Some volunteers sign up not as a result of genuine political commitment but rather for the sense of empowerment that comes with carrying out violent missions. Zealous recruits of this kind have a tendency to filch the organisation’s funds."

Chapter One (pdf) of How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns by Audrey Kurth Cronin (Princeton 2009).
Audrey Kurth Cronin/How al-Qaida Ends: The Decline and Demise of Terrorist Groups/International Security Summer 2006, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 7-48.
Abstract:
Al-Qaida will end. The fear that a small terrorist organization with a loose network has transformed itself into a protracted global ideological struggle without an end in sight is misguided. There are centuries of experience with modern terrorist movements, many bearing important parallels with al-Qaida; yet the lessons arising from the demise of these groups are little studied. Unfortunately, terrorist organizations in their final stages are often at their most dangerous. The outcomes can range from implosion of a group and its cause to transition to astonishing acts of violence and interstate war. Comparing al-Qaida's differences and similarities with those of earlier terrorist organizations, and applying relevant lessons to this case, can provide insights into al-Qaida's likely demise. It can also inform thinking about how to manage and hasten al-Qaida's end.
Note: Older browsers may not work for access to periodicals at the Texas State University Library. New or recent browsers are best. On some browsers, it may be necessary or more convenient to save the article to desktop as pdf with the extension .pdf following the title of the article. A valid Texas State University User Name and password are required.

PETER BERGEN AND BRUCE HOFFMAN , "ASSESSING THE TERRORIST THREAT: A REPORT OF THE BIPARTISAN POLICY CENTER’S NATIONAL SECURITY PREPAREDNESS GROUP", SEPTEMBER 10, 2010 @ http://www.ict.org.il/SearchResults/tabid/37/Default.aspx?Search=PETER+BERGEN+AND+BRUCE+HOFFMAN
Summary:
Al-Qaeda and allied groups continue to pose a threat to the United States. Although it is less severe than the catastrophic proportions of a 9/11-like attack, the threat today is more complex and more diverse than at any time over the past nine years. Al-Qaeda or its allies continue to have the capacity to kill dozens, or even hundreds, of Americans in a single attack. A key shift in the past couple of years is the increasingly prominent role in planning and operations that U.S. citizens and residents have played in the leadership of al-Qaeda and aligned groups, and the higher numbers of Americans attaching themselves to these groups. Another development is the increasing diversification of the types of U.S.-based jihadist militants, and the groups with which those militants have affiliated. Indeed, these jihadists do not fit any particular ethnic, economic, educational, or social profile.

Al-Qaeda’s ideological influence on other jihadist groups is on the rise in South Asia and has continued to extend into countries like Yemen and Somalia; al-Qaeda’s top leaders are still at large, and American overreactions to even unsuccessful terrorist attacks arguably have played, however inadvertently, into the hands of the jihadists. Working against al-Qaeda and allied groups are the ramped-up campaign of drone attacks in Pakistan, increasingly negative Pakistani attitudes and actions against the militants based on their territory, which are mirrored by increasingly hostile attitudes toward al-Qaeda and allied groups in the Muslim world in general, and the fact that erstwhile militant allies have now also turned against al-Qaeda.

This report is based on interviews with a wide range of senior U.S. counterterrorism officials at both the federal and local levels, and embracing the policy, intelligence, and law enforcement communities, supplemented by the authors’ own research.

Scott Shane/Rethinking Which Terror Groups to Fear/NYT Week In Review Sunday, September 27, 2009
The terrorism news is mixed: Charges of fresh plots amid signs that Al Qaeda’s appeal is on the slide among Muslims.

Thomas Rid, Marc Hecker/The Terror Fringe: The deterritorialized tail of jihad/Policy Review December 2009 & January 2010
"The afghan-pakistan border region is widely identified as a haven for jihadi extremists. But the joint between local insurgencies and global terrorism has been dislocated. A combination of new technologies and new ideologies has changed the role of popular support: In local insurgencies the population may still be the “terrain” on which resistance is thriving — and counterinsurgency, by creating security for the people, may still succeed locally. But Islamic violent extremism in its global and ambitious form is attractive only for groups at the outer edge, the flat end of a popular support curve. Jihad failed to muster mass support, but it is stable at the margin of society. Neither the West nor its enemies can win — or lose — a war on terror. "

Jessica Stern/The Protean Enemy (al Qaeda)/Foreign Affairs/July-August 2003 [This link provides access to a preview of the article.]
The entire Stern article can be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Readings on Islam" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

BruceHoffman, "Al-Qaeda,Trends In Terrorism & Future Potentialities:An Assesssment" Studies In Conflict & Terrrorism, Vol. 26:429-442 November 2003.
The Stern and Hoffman articles can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
This Hoffman article can also be accessed @ BruceHoffman/AlQaeda,TrendsInTerrorismAndFuturePotentialities:AnAssesssment/rand.org/publications/P/P8078/P8078.pdf.

James Fallows, "Declaring Victory: A New Stategy For The Fight Against Terror", The Atlantic Monthly, September 2006.
This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

Mark Landler & John Markoff/Digital Fears Emerge After Data Siege in Estonia/NYT May 29, 2007
"... what some here describe as the first war in cyberspace (boldface added), a monthlong campaign that has forced Estonian authorities to defend their pint-size Baltic nation from a data flood ... The bulk of the cyberassaults used a technique known as a distributed denial-of-service attack. By bombarding the country’s Web sites with data, attackers can clog not only the country’s servers, but also its routers and switches, the specialized devices that direct traffic on the network. ... To magnify the assault, the hackers infiltrated computers around the world with software known as bots, and banded them together in networks to perform these incursions. The computers become unwitting foot soldiers, or zombies, in a cyberattack. ... In one case, the attackers sent a single huge burst of data to measure the capacity of the network. Then, hours later, data from multiple sources flowed into the system, rapidly reaching the upper limit of the routers and switches. ... Because of the murkiness of the Internet — where attackers can mask their identities by using the Internet addresses of others, or remotely program distant computers to send data without their owners even knowing it — several experts said that the attackers would probably never be caught. American government officials said that the nature of the attacks suggested they were initiated by “hacktivists,” technical experts who act independently from governments. ... Mr. Evron, an executive at an Internet security firm called Beyond Security, is a veteran of this kind of warfare. He set up the Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT, in Israel. Web sites in Israel are regularly subjected to attacks by Palestinians or others sympathetic to their cause. ... 'Whenever there is political tension, there is a cyber aftermath,' Mr. Evron said, noting that sites in Denmark became targets after a newspaper there published satirical cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad".

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Learning and teaching take place best in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom and openness. All members of the academic community are responsible for supporting freedom and openness through rigorous personal standards of honesty and fairness. Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty undermine the very purpose of the university and diminish the value of an education.

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Students who have committed academic dishonesty, which includes cheating on an examination or other academic work to be submitted, plagiarism, collusion, or abuse of resource materials, are subject to disciplinary action.
a. Academic work means the preparation of an essay, thesis, report, problem assignments, or other projects which are to be submitted for purposes of grade determination.
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5. Substituting for another student—or permitting another person to substitute for oneself in taking an exam or preparing academic work.
6. Bribing another person to obtain an unadministered test or information about an unadministered test.
c. Plagiarism means the appropriation of another’s work and the unacknowledged incorporation of that work in one’s own written work offered for credit. (Underline Added)
d. Collusion means the unauthorized collaboration with another person in preparing written work offered for credit.
e. Abuse of resource materials means the mutilation, destruction, concealment, theft or alteration of materials provided to assist students in the mastery of course materials.
Penalties for Academic Dishonesty
Students who have committeed academic dishonesty may be subject to:
a. Academic penalty including one or more of the following when not inconsistent:
1. A requirement to perform additional academic work not required of other students in the course;
2. Required to withdraw from the course with a grade of “F.” (Underline Added)
3. A reduction to any level grade in the course, or on the exam or other academic work affected by the academic dishonesty.
b. Disciplinary penalty including any penalty which may be imposed in a student disciplinary hearing pursuant to this Code of Conduct. ****************************************************************************************************

Civility in the classroom is very important for the educational process and it is everyone’s responsibility. If you have questions about appropriate behavior in a particular class, please address them with your instructor first. Disciplinary procedures may be implemented for refusing to follow.

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B.A. in POLITICAL SCIENCE - LEARNING OUTCOMES:
1.   Students will demonstrate the ability to ask relevant questions pertaining to Political Science.
2.   Students will demonstrate the ability to recognize and evaluate assumptions and implications.
3.   Students will demonstrate the ability to examine and evaluate different sides of an issue.
4.   Students will demonstrate the ability to state and defend a thesis that is clear, direct, logical, and substantive in the area of Political Science.
5.   Students will demonstrate the ability to find and use a variety of appropriately cited sources.
6.   Students will demonstrate substantive knowledge of concepts and facts relevant to Political Science.

For students in Public Administration:
BPA – PROGRAM LEARNING OUTCOMES:
1.   Students will demonstrate critical thinking and problem solving skills.
2.   Students will demonstrate the ability to communicate effectively in writing.
3.   Students will demonstrate effective oral communication skills.
4.   Students will demonstrate a fundamental understanding of key public administration and management concepts related to their internship experience or applied research project.
5.   Students will demonstrate an understanding of ethical issues in public administration.
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