What makes a terrorist?

Why would a wealthy and educated young man like Umar Farouk Abdulmatallab, the underpants bomber, want to become a terrorist? [hat tip: Caroline]

Former CIA case officer Marc Sageman has made one of the most thorough analyses of al-Qaeda networks ever conducted. He assembled more than 500 profiles of individual terrorists, their personal characteristics and motivations, how they were recruited and how they are organised.

What he discovers is that terrorists are most likely to be motivated not by disadvantage but by a sense of moral disgust.

He sets out four stages by which this radicalisation normally happens.

It is sparked when the individual reacts to stories of Muslim suffering around the world with moral outrage. Some of those who feel outraged will progress to the second stage, in which they interpret that suffering in the context of a wider Manichaean war between Islam and the West.

Of those who take that view, a minority will progress to the third stage, in which their smouldering resentment will be fuelled by bad personal experiences in western countries, such as discrimination, inequality or just an inability to get on despite good qualifications.

Of those who undergo these three stages, fewer undergo the fourth, in which the individual joins a circle of friends which becomes like a family closed to the outside world, which shuts out the critical thinking which might challenge the radical worldview. They read, listen to and watch only material which stokes their view of the world and prepares them for action and, in some cases, the murder of innocents.

Why does all this matter? It matters because we cannot beat the radicalisation which leads to terrorism unless we first understand it. [Kennedy School of Government, Harvard]