actors themselves. They are complex representations of the subjective realities that motivate people to engage in certain behavior, rather than representations of an external selection of certain factors and not others. Cognitive mapping thus contributes to methods that are based on external categories assigned by the researcher, and which focus more on the direct relations between particular variables and behavior, rather than on the complex microlevel mechanisms underlying this behavior.
As mentioned in the Introduction, cognitive mapping also offers to synthesize and put into perspective the literature on particular behaviors. Specifically, the belief systems represented by cognitive maps consist of beliefs about various types of factors, which are usually addressed by different theories. For example, related to violence, one can hold beliefs about religious norms like God forbids killing of innocent people (cf. cultural-psychological theories of violence); about economic conditions like poverty (cf. environmental-psychological theories of violence); or about interacting with violent groups like meeting members of al-Qaeda (cf. group theories of violence). In applying cognitive mapping, I first construct cognitive maps from interviews with violent individuals (Chapter 4). Second, I analyze the maps to identify chains of beliefs that are antecedent to decisions to engage in political violence (Chapter 5). Third, I intervene on the cognitive maps to model counterfactuals and explore alternative worlds in which the individuals would not have decided to take up arms (Chapter 6).
This application involves various methods. Specifically, my construction of cognitive maps draws on the textual analysis of my interviews and applies Spradley’s theme analysis to abstract the individuals’ beliefs into comparable categories. The analysis of the cognitive maps and the counterfactual analysis draw on a computational model developed for this study. The model formalizes cognitive maps into DAGs, a formalization presented in the second part of this chapter.
Numerous studies, mostly in the field of foreign policy, have applied the cognitive mapping approach. Some examples are Alastair Iain Johnston’s analysis of Chinese strategic culture (1995), Matthew Bonham, Victor Sergeev, and Pavel Parshin’s examination of international negotiations (1997), Jonathan Klein’s and Dale Cooper’s analysis of military officers (1982), or Tuomas Tapio’s doctoral thesis about cooperation in foreign economic policy (2003). But most political scientists have nevertheless abandoned cognitive mapping because of the maps’ complexity.
Figure 2. Excerpt from the cognitive map of a Muslim Brother.
By contrast, cognitive mapping has been applied by researchers from various other disciplines. Indeed, as Elpiniki Papageorgiou and Jose Salmeron note in their review of fuzzy cognitive mapping over the past decade, the approach has “gained considerable research interest” (2013: 66; my italics). Examples range from economics (Lee et al. 2012; Zhang, Shen, and Jin 2011; Krüger, Salomon, and Heydebreck 2011), to engineering (Mendonca et al. 2013; Zarandi et al. 2012; Bhatia and Kapoor 2011), to medical studies (Georgopoulos and Stylios 2013; Giabbanelli, Torsney-Weir, and Mago 2012; Papageorgiou 2011), geography (Soler et al. 2012), and biology (Wills et al. 2010; Wehner and Menzel 1990). Indeed, cognitive maps have become a subject of research themselves (Peng, Wu, and Yang 2011; Miao 2010; Eden 2004; Montello 2002; Nadkarni and Shenoy 2001; Brotons 1999; Chaib-Draa and Desharnais 1998; Young 1996).
What Is New About the Application of Cognitive Mapping in This Book
What all applications of the cognitive mapping approach have in common is that they investigate behavior by focusing on the actors’ belief systems. This makes cognitive mapping a powerful tool to investigate human behavior, bridging the gap between actors and external structures, and allowing study of the mechanisms underlying human behavior. What is new about this book is the application of cognitive mapping to the study of violent individuals. It is extremely difficult to identify and locate violent individuals, and to convince them to consent to be interviewed. Therefore, violent individuals who agree to be interviewed add a group of particular interest to the existing literature on political violence. Several researchers have conducted interviews with violent individuals, but to my knowledge none of them has applied the cognitive mapping approach to analyze these interviews.
Moreover, my construction of cognitive maps from ethnographic interviews adds to the more general cognitive mapping literature, which often uses policy transcripts or public speeches. The individuals who participated in these interviews not only include individuals who engaged in violence, but also individuals who engaged in nonviolent activism, both Muslims and non-Muslims. This diversity adds analytical rigor to the cognitive maps by involving control groups that often remain absent from the study of political violence.
What is also new about the application of the cognitive mapping approach in this book is the formalization of cognitive maps into DAGs. As described, this formalization copes with the complexity of cognitive maps that has led to the abandonment of the approach in political science. Based on recent literature in graph theory and computer science (see Pearl 2000; Koller and Friedman 2009), this formalization cannot only be used to rigorously compare the cognitive maps of different individuals but also to model alternative worlds in which individuals would not have decided to engage in certain behavior.
Part 1: Main Elements and Structure of Cognitive Maps
Beliefs
Beliefs are a major component of cognitive maps. Specifically, beliefs identify the factors motivating human behavior. In this study, beliefs identify the factors motivating individuals to take up arms, or to refrain from doing so (see Chapters 4–6).
Beliefs are usually defined as mental states.4 More specifically, beliefs are “a person’s subjective probability that an object has a particular characteristic (for example, how sure the person feels that ‘This book is interesting’ …)” (Fishbein and Ajzen in Oskamp and Schultz 2005: 11). Since they are held by individuals, beliefs are by nature subjective. However, beliefs may be inter-subjective or shared (it is possible to say “we believe in X”; cf. Bar-Tal 2000). This is possible because many beliefs address observations that are accessible to anybody. As Nilsson writes, “I believe I exist on a planet that we call Earth and that I share it with billions of other people” (2014: 1). Such beliefs are called true beliefs or knowledge. Since they address observations, true beliefs are verifiable by a perspective external to the subject who holds them. Beliefs can also address other factors, which may not be observable. For example, they can address abstract ideas, such as today is Monday; moral rules, such as it is forbidden to kill somebody; religious beliefs, such as God exists; feelings like I am happy; social encounters like I am visiting my brother; or even assumptions that contradict observations in the world, such as all swans are black. Table 4 gives an overview.
Table 4: Subjective, Intersubjective, and True Beliefs
| Subjective beliefs | A subject believing something to have a particular characteristic |
| Intersubjective beliefs | Several subjects believing something to have a particular characteristic |
| True beliefs | Are believed to have a particular characteristic (verifiable from an external perspective) |
When theorizing about political behavior, it is important whether the beliefs
