I find that the beliefs violent individuals hold about their groups do not matter to their decisions to take up arms. Moreover, I find that, surprisingly, nonviolent individuals may hold the same beliefs about violent groups. In particular, the nonviolent individuals I interviewed also hold beliefs that they interacted with members of violent groups. This indicates that they also had group access, but as opposed to what is expected from group theories, this did not motivate them to take up arms.
Psychopathological Theories
Although psychopathological theories have been widely discarded, they deserve attention because they continue to be quoted by numerous analysts of political violence and by the news. Specifically, psychopathological theories have been dedicated to searching for a “terrorist personality.” They have also argued that violent individuals suffer from mental illness. This implies that violent individuals are motivated by beliefs that do not correspond to reality (mental illnesses) or beliefs related to their personality (“terrorist personality”).
Theodor Adorno et al.’s The Authoritarian Personality, written in the aftermath of World War II, presents one of the first contributions to this field. Focusing on “the potentially fascistic individual,” the book explores the hypothesis “that the political, economic, and social convictions of an individual often form a broad and coherent pattern, as if bound together by a ‘mentality’ or ‘spirit,’ and that this pattern is an expression of deep-lying trends in his personality” (1950: 1). Lloyd Etheredge’s “Hardball Politics: A Model” (1979) builds on Adorno’s theory and has inspired numerous additional works.2 Specifically, Etheredge explores “the syndrome” of “hardball politics” where “tough, ambitious, shrewdly calculating men vie for power and status behind a public veneer of civilization and idealistic concern” (3). Treating political behavior as the result of personality structures, Etheredge presents “hardball politics as a subculture … constructed and sustained by a particular personality type, men with what is known clinically as a narcissistic personality disorder” (1979: 3, my italics).
In spite of their contribution and publicity, psychopathological theories have been widely discarded. As Crenshaw (1981: 390) notes, “the outstanding common characteristic of terrorists is their normality.” Moreover, Post has observed that “research on the psychology of terrorists does not reveal major psychopathology” (2004: 128). And Silke has pointed out that “the findings supporting the pathology model are rare and generally of poor quality” (1998: 51).
This book offers new evidence that violent individuals do not suffer from mental illness and that there appears to be no “terrorist personality.” Specifically, my study of the beliefs of violent individuals does not identify any beliefs that do not correspond to the external world, which would indicate that they suffer from illnesses, such as hallucinations. My study also identifies very few beliefs about the individuals’ personality, and it finds that these do not matter to decisions to take up arms. These findings point to the limits of psychopathological theories, which continue to enjoy much publicity.
Analytical Framework
Analyzing the beliefs of violent individuals provides an inside perspective that identifies the limits of existing theories on political violence that focus on external factors such as poverty, or access to violent groups, or on particular beliefs related to Islam or mental illness. Specifically, it shows that violent individuals are not motivated by the main factors that are assumed to explain violence by these theories. Rather, the analysis shows that violent individuals primarily act in response to beliefs about aggressive state behavior. It also suggests that the motivations of violent and nonviolent individuals are surprisingly similar, and that violent individuals engage in reasoning processes that strongly resemble those underlying mainstream political behavior. These findings indicate that analyzing the beliefs of political actors can contribute indepth knowledge that is not available from analyses of external research categories.
By adopting the CMA, this book promises to synthesize the existing literature. Specifically, belief systems represented by cognitive maps consist of beliefs about various types of factors, which are usually addressed by different theories. For example, one can hold beliefs about religious norms like God forbids the killing of innocent people (cultural-psychological theories); about economic conditions like poverty (environmental-psychological theories); or about interacting with violent groups like meeting members of al-Qaeda (group theories).
Cognitive maps can moreover investigate the mechanisms3 by which these factors encourage individuals to take up arms or to engage in nonviolent activism instead. As I explain in Chapter 1, it can do so because beliefs are by nature connected in a systematic way. Because of this, the CMA promises to provide new knowledge about the complex interrelationships between different types of factors connected to violence, adding to other methods such as statistical analyses that focus more on the direct relationships between particular variables and behavior.
Exploring various types of factors, the CMA can shed light on the relevance of existing theories. The following study is guided by an analytical framework of four hypotheses about the main factors addressed by these theories, formulated as beliefs. To formulate the hypotheses, I revisited the theories discussed above and focused on the main factors addressed by each of them. I then related those factors to the beliefs of violent and nonviolent individuals. Table 1 gives an overview.
These hypotheses serve as an analytical framework to guide the following study. Specifically, they allow me to evaluate the importance of the main types of factors that have been found related to political violence by existing research. This serves to reassess the relevance of existing theories on political violence. More specifically, it shows whether, as assumed by cultural-psychological theories, violent individuals are motivated by Islam; whether, as assumed by environmental-psychological theories, violent individuals are motivated by environmental conditions; whether, as assumed by group theories, violent individuals are motivated by access to violent groups; or whether, as assumed by psychological theories, violent individuals are motivated by mental illness or personality.
Table 1: Analytical Framework
Defining Political Violence and Nonviolent Activism
Political Violence
Defining political violence is subject to various challenges. From an empirical perspective, there is “a vast array of types of violence” (Collins 2008: 1), and from a theoretical perspective violence can be considered “a conceptual minefield” (Kalyvas 2013: 19).4 To gain clarity, I identify four features of political violence agreed on by most analysts.
First, the most significant characteristic is that political violence involves “physical force” (della Porta 1995: 2; Tilly 1978: 176). While Gurr (2001) mentions “the use or threat” of force, the majority of works presented above deal with the application of physical force, connected with the occurrence of physical harm. The harm addressed by the literature is mostly death, but it can in principle also include nonlethal physical injuries or the destruction or damaging of objects.
Based on these considerations, I treat political violence as behavior that applies physical force and that is connected with the occurrence of physical harm. As Tilly observes, such a focus establishes a relatively “narrow” definition of political violence and ensures “at least a chance to sort out the regularities in the appearance” of it (1978: 174). By contrast, a broader definition of political violence that goes beyond the application of physical force “to include all violations of human rights not only requires agreement
