Engineers of Jihad

The Curious Connection between Violent Extremism and Education

Diego Gambetta, Steffen Hertog (Autoren)

Buch | Softcover

208 Seiten

2017 | Revised edition
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-17850-9 (ISBN)

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The violent actions of a few extremists can alter the course of history, yet there persists a yawning gap between the potential impact of these individuals and what we understand about them. In Engineers of Jihad, Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog uncover two unexpected facts, which they imaginatively leverage to narrow that gap: they find that a disproportionate share of Islamist radicals come from an engineering background, and that Islamist and right-wing extremism have more in common than either does with left-wing extremism, in which engineers are absent while social scientists and humanities students are prominent. Searching for an explanation, they tackle four general questions about extremism: Under which socioeconomic conditions do people join extremist groups? Does the profile of extremists reflect how they self-select into extremism or how groups recruit them? Does ideology matter in sorting who joins which group? Lastly, is there a mindset susceptible to certain types of extremism?
Using rigorous methods and several new datasets, they explain the link between educational discipline and type of radicalism by looking at two key factors: the social mobility (or lack thereof) for engineers in the Muslim world, and a particular mindset seeking order and hierarchy that is found more frequently among engineers. Engineers' presence in some extremist groups and not others, the authors argue, is a proxy for individual traits that may account for the much larger question of selective recruitment to radical activism. Opening up markedly new perspectives on the motivations of political violence, Engineers of Jihad yields unexpected answers about the nature and emergence of extremism.

Diego Gambetta is professor of social theory at the European University Institute, Florence, and official fellow of Nuffield College at the University of Oxford. His books include The Sicilian Mafia and Codes of the Underworld (Princeton). Steffen Hertog is associate professor of comparative politics at the London School of Economics. He is the author of Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats.

Preface vii

1. The Education of Islamist Extremists 1

At the Origins 3

A Systematic Test 6

The Saudi Exception 19

Selection Effects 21

Conclusions 32

2. Relative Deprivation in the Islamic World 34

Frustrated Ambitions and Relative Deprivation 34

Beyond Egypt 38

Are Engineers Especially Deprived? 42

The Saudi Exception Again 52

Conclusions, and Facts That Do Not Fit 54

3. Relative Deprivation Probed 60

Western-Based Jihadis 60

Violent vs. Nonviolent Opposition 72

Religious vs. Secular Militants 76

Die-hard Militants vs. Defectors 80

Conclusions 83

4. The Ideology of Islamist Extremism Compared 85

Historical Links 86

Shared Values 88

Shared Tastes and Beliefs 90

Radical Ideologies Compared 94

Conclusions 98

5. The Education of Other Extremists 100

Left-wing Extremists 101

Right-wing Extremists 106

Are the Dividing Lines Robust? 113

Extremists Compared: Islamists, Leftists, and Rightists 120

Conclusions and Summary So Far 125

6. Mind-sets for Extremists 128

Traits for Types of Extremists 129

The Three Traits among Graduates 134

Enter Women 141

One More Trait: "Simplism" 146

Traits and Disciplines 150

Conclusions 154

7. Conclusions 159

Bibliography 167

Index 185

Erscheinungsdatum	09.01.2018
Vorwort	Diego Gambetta, Steffen Hertog
Zusatzinfo	44 b/w illus., 16 tables
Verlagsort	New Jersey
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 235 mm
Gewicht	340 g
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Systeme
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Theorie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	0-691-17850-X / 069117850X
ISBN-13	978-0-691-17850-9 / 9780691178509
Zustand	Neuware