Critical perspective: reading
The quality of terror
Links between poverty, eductaion and terrorism
Authors:
E. Bueno de Mescuita
Publisher:
Washington University in St. Louis , 2005
This article examines the links between education, poverty and terrorism. It argues that even though individuals with low ability or little education are most likely to volunteer to join the terrorist organisation, terrorist organisations nevertheless choose the best and the brightest.
The author presents a model that maps interaction between a government, a terrorist organization, and a population of terrorist sympathisers. In the model, those with low ability or little education (and consequently few economic opportunities) and anti-government dispositions are more likely to volunteer to become terrorists. The terrorists, looking for high-skilled operatives, choose the best of this pool. However, the majority within this pool are poor and uneducated.
The model also suggests that government counterterrorist efforts may aid mobilisation efforts of terrorist organisations
The model offers some reason to believe that policies that improve the economic situation of potential terrorists are expected to decrease mobilisation and thereby undermine the ability of the terrorist organization to recruit high quality operatives. This has the additional positive effect of decreasing the terrorist organisation’s incentive to invest scarce resources in violence.
