New Report Highlights the Links between Poverty, Marginalisation and Terrorism

New Report Highlights the Links between Poverty, Marginalisation and Terrorism

A new report on the causes of terrorism has been released by the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment. The report provides a critical survey of the relevant academic literature and demonstrates the link between marginalisation and levels of political violence and terrorism. 

The study focuses primarily on theories that seek to explain why some societies are more exposed to terrorism than others, i.e. theories on a national or societal level of analysis. It also examines theoretical frameworks for explaining terrorism on an international or world system level of analysis. The report underscores the importance of understanding terrorism in its political and societal contexts. 

The report concludes: 

The fact that terrorists themselves are often well-educated and even wealthy does not disprove any correlation between terrorism and poverty at a country-wide level. Furthermore, the recruitment of operatives and suicide bombers by a terrorist organisation involves a careful selection and screening process, which most likely favours well-educated middle class youth. This does not disprove widespread support for the same organisations among the poor. More importantly, ideologies embraced by terrorist organisations exhort the individual to act on behalf of the workers, the masses, the Islamic umma, the ethnic community in question, etc. Hence, societal ills and injustices suffered by the community, ranging from political oppression and humiliation to poverty and dispossession, become the driving forces for terrorist groups, even if the members themselves may be relatively prosperous within their own societies.

The full report, Causes of Terrorism: An Expanded and Updated Review of the Literature can be accessed here.