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Why Fight?: Examining Self-Interested Versus Communally-Oriented Motivations in Palestinian Resistance and Rebellion

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 18; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09636410903368920

1556-1852

Nichole Argo,

Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies

Abstract Why do individuals participate in weak-against-strong resistance, terror, or insurgency? Drawing on rational choice theory, many claim that individuals join insurgent organizations for self-interested reasons, seeking status, money, protection, or rewards in the afterlife. Another line of research, largely ethnographic and social-network based, suggests that prospective fighters are driven by social identity—they join out of an allegiance to communal values, norms of reciprocity, and an orientation toward process rather than outcome. This article tests these two lines of argument against each other by directly linking values orientations in a refugee camp to professed willingness to participate in resistance or rebellion in two different contexts. Professed willingness to participate in resistance, and especially in violent rebellion, is positively correlated with communal orientation and negatively correlated with self-enhancement values. The strength of correlation grows—negatively for self-enhancement and positively for communal orientations—as anticipated sacrifice increases. Results are discussed. Nichole Argo is currently pursuing a doctorate in Psychology at the New School for Social Research. After obtaining an fr MA. in International Policy Studies at Stanford, she lived and worked for several years as a journalist and field researcher in Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and England. She also holds an MS in Political Science from fr MIT. I would like to thank Amal, Hassan, Nakaa, and Hala—in the West Bank—for their help interpreting and implementing the survey; Scott Atran, Khalil Shikaki, Shalom Schwartz, Stephen Ansolabehere, and Chappell Lawson for feedback on the survey instrument; Bob Pape, Roger Petersen, Ken Oye, Chaim Kaufman, Byron Bland, Betsy Paluck, Janet Lewis, Assaf Moghadam, and the 2007 Fellows at the Olin Institute for their valuable comments; and the anonymous reviewers at Security Studies. Funding for this survey was made possible by fr MIT's Center for International Studies and the Jebsen Center for Counterterrorism at Tufts University. Notes 1 David Bukay, "The Religious Foundations of Suicide Bombings: Islamist Ideology," Middle East Quarterly 13, no. 4 (Fall 2006): 27–36. 2 Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, fr MA: Harvard University Press, 1965). 3 In a footnote, Olson adds "erotic incentives, psychological incentives, moral incentives, and so on." However, for decades this footnote was virtually ignored, and at the time, he still seemed to conceive of emotional incentives as personal or self-oriented needs. Ibid., 61. 4 Benefit is a relative term that can include escape from anticipated risks and costs. Thus, "benefit" refers to relative benefit, meaning the most optimal anticipated outcome of two or more scenarios. 5 Gerald Marwell and Pamela Oliver, The Critical Mass in Collective Action: A Micro-Social Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 8. 6 This tension between individual and social identity is not at all new to comparative politics; its implications for rationality have been considered across subdisciplines, often in domains far more settled than conflict zones. For example, in James March and Johan Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics (New York: Free Press, 1989), they dropped the assumption of rationality, instead arguing that people tend to operate out of a "logic of appropriateness." Similarly, sociological institutionalists Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio see individuals as so imbedded within their cultural and historical frameworks that they cannot attempt to make the theoretical separation between universal tendencies for instrumental rationality and culturally informed notions of preferences and preferred strategies. See Powell and DiMaggio, The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). Mark Ross argues that culture not only provides meaning and interpretation to actors, but also the basis of social and political identity that affects how people group themselves. See Mark Ross, "Culture and Identity in Comparative Political Analysis," in Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture and Structure, eds., Mark Lichbach and Alan Zuckerman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 42–80. Lastly, social movement scholar Doug McAdam argues that the problem with many rational choice theorists is that they place the individual before the group, when the group in fact comes before the individual. See Doug McAdam, John McCarthy, and Mayer Zald, Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 7 Michael Taylor, "Rationality and Revolutionary Collective Action," in Rationality and Revolution, ed. Michael Taylor (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 63–97. See also Roger Petersen, Resistance and Rebellion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 8 Marwell and Oliver distinguish between social obligations and acceptance, and the feeling of moral self-satisfaction that comes from doing the right thing. They label the first solidary incentives, and the latter moral/purposive incentives. Marwell and Oliver, The Critical Mass in Collective Action, 7. 9 Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans. Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1946), 56. Ashutosh Varshney revived the concept in Varshney, "Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Rationality," Perspectives on Politics 1, no. 1 (2004). 10 Joshua Greene, Brian Sommerville, Leigh Nystrom, John Darley, and Jonathan Cohen, "An f mri Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment," Science 293, no. 5537 (September 2001): 2,105–8; and Jonathan Haidt, "The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail: A Social-Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment," Psychological Review 108, no. 4 (2001): 814–34. 11 Greene et al., "An f mri Investigation of Emotional Engagement." There is actually no such thing as "pure" cognition. Affect appears to play a role at various levels of brain processing. The term is used here for simplicity's sake. 12 This review focuses solely on motivation from the perspective of an individual embedded in social and structural context and incorporates organizational or societal factors when directly relevant. That said, some important works that model motivation at multiple levels of analysis are omitted here. These include, but are not limited to, Ethan Bueno de Mesquita and Eric S. Dickson, "Propaganda of the Deed: Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Mobilization," American Journal of Political Science 51, no. 2 (April 2007): 364–81; Assaf Moghadam, "Palestinian Suicide Terrorism in the Second Intifada: Motivations and Organizational Aspects," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 26, no. 2 (2003): 65–92; and Mohammed Hafez, "Rationality, Culture, and Structure in the Making of Suicide Bombers: A Preliminary Theoretical Synthesis and Illustrative Case Study," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 29, no. 2 (2006): 165–86. 13 Stathis Kalyvas and Matthew Kocher, "How Free is Free-Riding in Civil Wars: Violence, Insurgency and the Collective Action Problem," World Politics 59, no. 2 (2007): 177–216. See also Robert Pape, Dying to Win (New York: Random House, 2005). 14 Jeremy Weinstein, On the Brink: Weak States and u.s. National Security (Washington, fr DC: The Center for Global Development, 2004). 15 Zafar Abbas, "Pakistan's Schisms Spill Into Present," fi BBC, 7 October 2004. 16 This is the mechanism offered by Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova in Krueger and Maleckova, "Education, Poverty, Violence and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?" Journal of Economic Perspectives 17, no. 4 (Autumn 2003). Also available at www.nber.org/papers/w9074. 17 Revenge is often cited as a motivation for terror recruits, as discussed in the cases of Chechnya, Sri Lanka, and Palestine in Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004). 18 See Scott Atran, "The Genesis of Suicide Terrorism," Science Magazine, no. 299 (March 2003): 1,534–9. 19 See Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). Max Abrahms similarly concludes that terrorists are motivated by social goals in contrast to purely strategic ones. See Max Abrahms, "What Terrorists Really Want," International Security 32, no. 4 (Spring 2008): 78–105. See also Nichole Argo, "Report of the Workshop on Transnational Violence," Workshop on Transnational Violence, April 2006, Center for International Studies, fr MIT, available at http://web.mit.edu/cis/pdf/PGI%20Transnational%20Violence%20April%2006.pdf. 20 Nichole Argo, "A Palestinian Martyrdom Complex," (paper presented to the International Studies Association, Montreal, March 2004). 21 Mark Van Vugt and Claire M. Hart, "Social Identity as Social Flue: The Origins of Group Loyalty," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 86, no. 4 (2006): 585–98. 22 See Stephan Sturner and Bernd Simon, "Collective Action: Towards a Dual-Pathway Model," European Review of Social Psychology 15 (2004): 59–99. 23 Elizabeth Wood, Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 236. 24 Ibid., 233. 25 Varshney, "Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Rationality," 86. 26 Jeremy Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 107. 27 Petersen, Resistance and Rebellion. 28 Donatella Della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence and the State: A Comparative Analysis of Italy and Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 29 Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks, 2004; Argo, Report on the Workshop on Transnational Violence; and Ami Pedahzur and Ari Perliger, "The Changing Nature of Suicide Attacks: A Social Network Perspective," Social Forces 86, no. 4 (June 2006). 30 For example, see Macartan Humphreys and Jeremy Weinstein, "What the Fighters Say," fr CGSD Working Paper No. 20, August 2004, accessed at http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/cgsd/documents/humphreys_combatantsurvey.pdf, 13 September 2009. 31 Jeremy Ginges and Scott Atran, "What Motivates Participation in Violent Political Action: Selective Incentives or Parochial Altruism?" Values, Empathy, and Fairness across Social Barriers, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1167 (June 2009): 115–23. 32 Brian Barber, "Political Violence, Social Integration, and Youth Functioning: Palestinian Youth from the Intifada," Journal of Community Psychology 29, no.3 (2001): 259–80. 33 Christoph Schult, "Life Insurance for the Families of Suicide Bombers," Spiegel, 9 February 2007. 34 Interviews were conducted in confidentiality, and the full names of interviewees are withheld by mutual agreement. Interviews by Nichole Argo, 2003–2005. Moad, age 21, interview by Nichole Argo, 2004. Moad's mission was on behalf of Islamic Jihad, but he did not join the organization—he was a member of Fatah. 35 Ibid. 36 Khalil, age 37, interview by Nichole Argo, 2004. 37 Hassan, age 18, interview by Nichole Argo, 2004. 38 Moad, age 21, interview by Nichole Argo, about Israeli actions in Jenin. 39 Palestinian Center for Policy and Social Research surveys, 2000–2005, available at http://www.pcpsr.org/index.html 40 Khalil, age 37, interview by Nichole Argo. 41 Jeremy Ginges, Scott Atran, Doug Medin, and Khalil Shikaki, "Sacred Bounds on the Rational Resolution of Violent Political Conflict," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103, no. 18 (May 2007): 7,357–60. 42 Taken from Schwartz, S. H. (2006) "Les valeurs de base de la personne: théorie, mesures et applications," [Basic human values: theory, measurement, and applications] Revue Française de Sociologie, Vol. 47, pp. 249–288. 43 See Marina F. Barnea and Shalom H. Schwartz, "Values and Voting," Political Psychology 19 (1998): 17–40. 44 Bas Verplanken and Rob W. Holland, "Motivated Decision Making: The Effect of Activation and Self-centrality of Values on Choices and Behavior," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 82, no. 3 (March 2002): 434–47. 45 See Shalom Schwartz and L. Sagiv, "Identifying Cultural Specifics in the Content and Structure of Values," Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 26 (1995): 92–116. 46 Thierry DeVos, Dario Spini, and Shalom H. Schwartz, "Conflicts Among Human Values and Trust in Institutions," British Journal of Social Psychology 41 (2003): 481–94. 47 Individuals and groups differ in their use of the response scale, so scores needed to be corrected. Calculations were therefore made as follows: (a) Scores for each value were computed by taking the mean of the questionnaire items that indexed it—in the case of self-enhancement and communal orientation, the individual values that constitute the composites were added and averaged. (Internal reliabilities were then checked for these scores); (b) Each individual's mean score across all questionnaire items was computed. This became mrat; and (c) Scores of each of the values for an individual (computed in A) were then centered around that individual's mrat (that is, subtract mrat from each of the value scores). 48 These are questions 4, 10, 16, 24, and 26 on Appendix B. 49 These are questions 7, 15, 20, and 28 on Appendix B. 50 These are questions 5, 11, 22, and 27 on Appendix B. 51 These are questions 1, 12, and 29 on Appendix B. 52 These are questions 3, 9, 17, and 19 on Appendix B. 53 Barber, "Political Violence, Social Integration and Youth Functioning." 54 In the instructions, we emphasized that the response did not indicate that they would act in such a way, only that the situation would make them feel like doing so. 55 Gary King and Jonathan Wand, "Comparing Incomparable Survey Responses: New Tools for Anchoring Vignettes," Political Analysis 15, no. 1 (Winter 2007): 46–66. 56 They were coded as "personally knowing" victims if the victim was a friend, family member, or neighbor. 57 Coding was completed in Palestine on 15 April 2007. 58 All figures from fr UNRWA, accessed at http://www.un.org/unrwa/publications/index.html, 13 September 2009. 59 A stronger case could be made if actual arrest and participation figures from Balata matched these figures, but I was unable to get these from Israeli military or political officials. 60 This inability to forecast future feelings and situations afflicts humans generally, no matter the stakes. See Rose McDermott, "The Feeling of Rationality: The Meaning of Neuroscientific Advances for Political Science," Perspectives on Politics 2, no. 4 (2004): 691–706. 61 It would be ideal to compare the numbers of respondents who say they would be involved in "defense" to the actual number of wanted or arrested individuals from the Balata area. I was unable to access this data. 62 See Mark Beissinger, Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviety State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). See also Wood, Insurgent Collective Action. 63 Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1957). 64 The Balata survey was a pilot project. 65 Jennifer Lerner and Dacher Keltner, "Fear, Anger and Risk," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81, no. 1 (July 2001): 146–59, accessed at http://hss.cmu.edu/departments/sds/BDRauthors/fear.pdf, 5 August 2009. 66 J. Averill, Anger and Aggression: An Essay on Emotion (New York: Springer, 1982). 67 Brian Lickel, Norman Miller, Douglas Stenstrom, Thomas Denson, and Toni Schmader, "Vicarious Retribution: The Role of Collective Blame in Intergroup Aggression," Personality and Social Psychology Review 10 (2006): 371–90. See also, Diane M. Mackie, Thierry Devos, and Eliot Smith, "Intergroup Emotions: Explaining Offensive Action Tendencies in an Intergroup Context," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79 (2002): 602–16. 68 Tom Pyszczynski, Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror (Washington, fr DC: American Psychological Association, 2002). 69 See Nicholas Sambanis and Annalisa Zinn, "From Protest to Violence: An Analysis of Conflict Escalation with an Application to Self-Determination," (unpublished manuscript, 2005), available at http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/6/4/5/9/p64594_index.html. 70 Length of occupation is a variable used to predict rebellion and stability. See Carmela Lutmar, "Military Occupations and Regime Changes: an Empirical Examination 1914–2004," (paper presented at the Annual meeting of the International Studies Association, 2008). 71 Mark Juergensmeyer theorizes about how this future orientation changes decision calculi. See Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003). Importantly, the British occupied the West Bank before the Israelis. Amongst Palestinian elders, this is still remembered. I once interviewed the very old mother of a suicide bomber who mentioned that the Israelis did many covert things to destabilize their lives, in addition to the violence that was reported. When I asked, "Can you give examples?" she replied, "They switch our sugar with our salt." At this point, her husband interrupted, saying, "No, that was the British. She is confusing the occupations." 72 Sambanis and Zinn, "From Protest to Violence." 73 Philip Tetlock, Orie Kristel, S. Beth Elson, Melanie C. Green, and Jennifer Lerner, "The Psychology of the Unthinkable: Taboo Trade-offs, Forbidden Base Rates, and Heretical Counterfactuals," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, no. 5 (May 2000): 853–70. 74 Ginges et al., "Sacred Bounds on the Rational Resolution of Violent Conflict." 75 Pyszczynski, Solomon, and Greenberg, In the Wake of 9/11. 76 Lickel et al., "Vicarious Retribution." 77 Ann Swidler, "Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies," American Sociological Review 51, no. 2 (April 1986): 273–86. 78 See Michael Bacharach, Beyond Individual Choice: Teams and Frames in Game Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006); and Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr, ed., Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life (Cambridge, fr MA: fr MIT Press, 2005). 79 Lisa Wedeen, "Conceptualizing Culture: Possibilities for Political Science," American Political Science Review 96, no. 4 (December 2002): 713–28. 80 Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (California: University of California Press, 1995).