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The Study of New Religious Movements and the Radicalization of Home-Grown Terrorists: Opening a Dialogue

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 22; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09546550903409163

1556-1836

Lorne L. Dawson,

Religion, Society, and Development

Abstract This article examines: (1) the obvious reasons for, and curious absence of, a dialogue between scholars studying new religious movements (NRMs), particularly those responsible for acts of mass violence, and those studying processes of radicalization in home-grown terrorist groups; (2) the substantial parallels between established understandings of who joins NRMs, how, and why and recent findings about who joins terrorist groups in a Western context, how, and why; and (3) the ways in which explanations of the causes of violent behaviour in NRMs are pertinent to securing a more systematic and complete grasp of the process of radicalization in terrorist cells. The latter discussion focuses on the role of apocalyptic belief systems and charismatic forms of authority, highlighting the behavioural consequences of this dangerous combination and their possible strategic significance. Recommendations are made for further research, integrating insights from the two fields of study. Keywords: radicalizationreligious violenceterrorism Notes Roger O'Toole, “‘Underground’ Traditions in the Study of Sectarianism: Non-religious Uses of the Concept of ‘Sect,’” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 15, no. 2 (1974): 145–156; Michael Barkun, Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1994); Jeffrey Kaplan, Radical Religion in America: Millenarian Movements from the Far Right to the Children of Noah (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997); Stephen Kent, From Slogans to Mantras: Social Protest and Religious Conversion in the Late Vietnam War Era (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2001); Massiomo Introvigne, “Of ‘Cultists’ and ‘Martyrs’: The Study of New Religious Movements and Suicide Terrorism in Conversation,” in Madawi Al-Rasheed and Marat Shterin, eds., Dying for the Faith: Religiously Motivated Violence in the Contemporary World (London: I.B. Tauris, 2009), 43–48. I am not implying that radicalization entails violent behaviour, but rather just accepting in this context the association of this term with the turn to violence in the discussion of extremist Islamist groups in the West. Ann-Sophie Hemmingsen and Stephanie Jeaneret Andreasen, Radicalization in Europe: A Post 9/11 Perspective. Conference Proceedings, Danish Institute for International Studies, 2007, 20, available at: (http://www.diis.dk/graphics/Publications/Reports%202007/RAD%20 Europe_pdf), retrieved February 20, 2009. Jean-François Mayer, “Cults, Violence, and Religious Terrorism: An International Perspective,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 24, no. 5 (2001): 361–376; Introvigne (see note 1 above); Eileen Barker, “In God's Name: Practising Unconditional Love to Death,” in Madawi Al-Rasheed and Marat Shterin, eds., Dying for Faith: Religiously Motivated Violence in the Contemporary World (London: I.B. Tauris, 2009), 49–58. Some initial efforts were made, see for example the special issue of Terrorism and Political Violence dedicated to “Millennialism and Violence” (vol. 14, no. 1, 2002). Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt, Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat, New York City Police Department, available at: (www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/public_information/NYPD_Report-Radicalization_in_the_West.pdf), retrieved December 8, 2008. Charles Y. Glock, “The Role of Deprivation in the Origin and Evolution of Religious Groups,” in Robert Lee and Martin Marty, eds., Religion and Social Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), 24–36; Ted Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970). Lorne L. Dawson, Comprehending Cults: The Sociology of New Religious Movements (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2006), 73. Silber and Bhatt (see note 6 above), 6. Ibid., 76. Alan B. Krueger, What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 89. Silber and Bhatt (see note 6 above); Aidan Kirby, “The London Bombers as ‘Self-Starters’: A Case Study of Indigenous Radicalization and the Emergence of Autonomous Cliques,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 30, no. 5 (2007): 415–428; Brendan O'Duddy, “Radical Atmosphere: Explaining Jihadist Radicalization in the UK,” PSOnline (January, 2008): 37–42, www.apsanet.org For example, John Lofland and Rodney Stark, “Becoming a World-Saver: A Theory of Conversion to a Deviant Perspective,” American Sociological Review 30, no. 6 (1965): 863–874; Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge, “Networks of Faith: Interpersonal Bonds and Recruitment to Cults and Sects,” American Journal of Sociology 85, no. 6 (1980): 1375–1395. James T. Richardson, “Active vs. Passive Convert: Paradigm Conflict in Conversion/Recruitment Research,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 24, no. 2 (1985): 163–179. Studies suggest they are equally crucial to explaining why people leave NRMs; see David G. Bromley, “Leaving the Fold: Disaffiliation from New Religious Movements,” in James R. Lewis, ed., The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 298–314. Marc Sageman, Understanding Terrorist Networks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko, “Mechanisms of Political Radicalization: Pathways Toward Terrorism,” Terrorism and Political Violence 20, no. 3 (2008): 415–433, see 421–22. Ibid., 421. Silber and Bhatt (see note 6 above), 9. For example, Eileen Barker, The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984); Saul V. Levine, Radical Departure: Desperate Detours to Growing Up (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984). Len Oakes, Prophetic Charisma: The Psychology of Revolutionary Religious Personalities (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997); Lorne L. Dawson, “Crises in Charismatic Legitimacy and Violent Behaviour in New Religious Movements,” in David G. Bromley and J. Gordon Melton, eds., Cults, Religion, and Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 80–101; Lorne L. Dawson, “Pychopathologies and the Attribution of Charisma: A Critical Introduction to the Psychology of Charisma and the Explanation of Violence in New Religious Movements,” Nova Religio 10, no. 2 (2006): 3–28; Janja Lalich, Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004). Silber and Bhatt (see note 6 above), 30. Barker (see note 20 above) and Levine (see note 20 above). Charles Selegnut, “American Jewish Converts to New Religious Movements,” The Jewish Journal of Sociology 30, no. 2 (1988): 95–109. Hemmingsen and Andreason (see note 3 above), 8. Marc Sageman, “Radicalization of Global Islamist Terrorists,” United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, June 27, available at: (http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/062707/Sageman.pdf), retrieved February 20, 2009. Aan Travis, “The Making of an Extremist” and “MI5 Report Challenges Views on Terrorism in Britain,” available at: (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/aug/20/uksecurity.terrorism), retrieved February 20, 2009. As Sageman's comments stress and the MI5 study reflects, conditions are notably different for young Muslims in Europe and North America, and between these contexts and the Middle East. European Muslims experience levels and types of systemic discrimination and deprivation not encountered by their American and Canadian counterparts. This is even more the case in parts of the Middle East. Traditional deprivation arguments carry more weight in those contexts, rendering the moral outrage of the jihadist groups a compensatory focal point for other real grievances. In North America I suspect the moral anger is more straightforwardly a prime motivator. For a sampling of the literature see: David Chidester, Salvation and Suicide: An Interpretation of Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988); Mary McCormich Maaga, Hearing the Voices of Jonestown (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1998); James D. Tabor and Eugene Gallegher, Why Waco? (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995); Kenneth C. G. Newport, The Branch Davidians of Waco: The History and Beliefs of an Apocalyptic Sect (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); James R. Lewis, ed., The Order of the Solar Temple: Temple of Death (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006); Lalich (see note 21 above); Robert Jay Lifton, Destroying the World in Order to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism (New York: Henry Holt, 1999); Ian Reader, Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan: The Case of Aum Shinrikyo (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000); John R. Hall, with Philip D. Schuyler and Sylvaine Trinh, Apocalypse Observed: Religious Movements, the Social Order, and Violence in North America, Europe, and Japan (New York: Routledge, 2000); Catherine Wessinger, How the Millennium Comes Violently (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2000); David G. Bromley and J. Gordon Melton, eds., Cults, Religions, and Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Dawson, Comprehending Cults (see note 8 above), 145–46. Ibid., 162–68. Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970); Guenter Lewy, Religion and Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974). Thomas Robbins and Dick Anthony, “Sects and Violence: Factors Enhancing the Volatility of Marginal Religious Movements,” in Stuart Wright, ed., Armageddon In Waco (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 249. Hall (see note 29 above); James T. Richardson, “Minority Religions and the Context of Violence: A Conflict/Interationist Perspective,” Terrorism and Political Violence 13, no. 1 (2001): 103–33; David G. Bromely, “Dramatic Denouement,” in Bromley and Melton (see note 29 above), 11–41. Lonnie D. Kleiver, “Meeting God in Garland: A Model of Religious Tolerance,” Nova Religio 3, no. 1 (1999): 45–53; Catherine Wessinger, “Religious Studies Scholars, FBI Agents, and the Montana Freeman Standoff,” Nova Religio 3, no. 1 (1999): 36–44; Adam Szubin, C. J. Jensen III, R. Gress, “Interacting with Cults: A Policing Model,” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin 69 (2000): 16–25. Dawson, Comprehending Cults (see note 8 above). Lifton (see note 29 above); Reader (see note 29 above); Newport (see note 29 above). Lalich (see note 21 above). Silber and Bhatt (see note 6 above), 16. Newport (see note 29 above); Reader (see note 29 above). Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000). Roy Wallis, The Elementary Forms of New Religious Life (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984). Lewy (see note 32 above); Catherine Wessinger, Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000). William Sims Bainbridge and Rodney Stark, “Cult Formation: Three Compatible Models,” Sociological Analysis 40, no. 4 (1979): 283–95; Janet Liebman Jacobs, “The Economy of Love in Religious Commitment: The Deconversion of Women from Nontraditional Religions,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 23, no. 2 (1984): 155–71. A partial overview of research is provided in Dawson, “Psychopathologies and the Attribution of Charisma” (see note 20 above) and Lorne L. Dawson, “Charismatic Leadership in Millennialist Movements,” in Catherine Wessinger, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. and trans. by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), 245–52; Max Weber, The Theory of Economic and Social Organizations, ed. and trans. by A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons (New York: Free Press, 1964), 358–73, 386–93; Bryan R. Wilson, The Noble Savages: The Primitive Origins of Charisma and Its Contemporary Survival (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1975). Ann Ruth Willner, The Spellbinders: Charismatic Political Leadership (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984). Dawson, “Charismatic Leadership in Millennialist Movements” (see note 45 above). Jessica Stern, Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill (New York: HarperCollins, 2003). Siber and Bhatt (see note 6 above), 9–10, 50. Dawson, “Crises of Charismatic Legitimacy” (see note 20 above). McCauley and Moskalenko, “Mechanisms of Political Radicalization” (see note 17 above); Mechanisms 3–10 of their theory, dealing with individual and group radicalization, deal with issues I have addressed from the perspective of the vicissitudes of charismatic leadership in NRMs (see, e.g., Dawson, “Crises of Charismatic Legitimacy” and “Charismatic Leadership in Millennialist Movements,” both note 20 above). Stern (see note 49 above), 281. For example, see Barker, Making of a Moonie (see note 20 above); Maaga, Hearing the Voices of Jonestown (see note 29 above); Reader, Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan (see note 29 above). Additional informationNotes on contributorsLorne L. Dawson Lorne L. Dawson is a professor of Sociology and Religious Studies with expertise in the sociology of religion, particularly the study of new religious movements. He has written two books, edited three, and published sixty academic articles and book chapters.