Abstract
It is a fact that terrorist organizations come and go. This empirical fact tends to draw attention to the demise of the terrorist organization and distracts from the dynamics of the terrorist organization’s life cycle. In this respect, the extant literature suffers from a serious weakness that is symptomatic of the absence from the literature of a rigorous theoretical explanation for the life cycle of terrorist organizations. This paper aims to address this by developing a theoretical explanation for the life cycle of terrorist organizations that is centered on competition for grassroots or popular support between the terrorist organization and the government. The decline and demise of a particular terrorist organization is not certain ex ante and a terrorist organization may be expected to be most dangerous not in its death throes, but during its early years as it competes with the government for grassroots support. These appear to be different conclusions to those that characterise some parts of the literature on this subject. The theoretical explanation developed herein also predicts a cyclical oscillation of conflict.
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Notes
This presumption is problematic because it tends to obscure the fact that many terrorist organizations are very long lived. Even if every terrorist organization must eventually decline and cease to exist, governments and their security agencies (and citizens) require analysis that incorporates the empirical fact that terrorist organizations come and go and the discrepancies in the life spans of different terrorist organizations. Even if we know that Terrorist Organization A will eventually decline and fail like all those before it, we also need to know if and why this may take a very long time or a very short time. If it is a very long time, governments might be best advised to not treat the terrorist organization as finitely lived at all.
The pertinent analysis is contained in the appendix to Farrell and Shapiro (1988).
In this manner the theoretical explanation provided here incorporates all of those factors that might be responsible for declining grassroots support. For example, Cronin (2006, pp.27–28) lists apathy, disinterest and revulsion with the terrorist organization.
We do not literally interpret this as 50% of the populace supporting one side or the other. At most, it can be interpreted as 50% of the politicized populace. We prefer to treat ½ as a point of neutrality or no advantage-disadvantage to either side.
See Assumption 4 (above).
This need not be on absolute terms. For example, a government may be able but unwilling to devote resources towards goods and services designed to win grassroots support. The resources that it does devote may be equal, less than, or greater than the terrorist organization.
The specification is not important. As explained previously, grassroots supporters may simply become fatigued with the struggle or disinterested in the terrorists’ cause. Life presents many possible alternatives to politics as outlets for energy and attention.
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Phillips, P.J. The Life Cycle of Terrorist Organizations. Int Adv Econ Res 17, 369–385 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11294-011-9314-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11294-011-9314-3