ABSTRACT
Despite the large-scale consequences of terrorist activity, terrorism remains low-volume and perpetrated by relatively few individuals and groups. We lack a clear understanding of the relationships between the individuals who engage in terrorist activity, the ideological content from which they draw for constructing legitimacy and sustaining their involvement (and, more especially, where and when that ideological content shapes involvement and engagement), and the bigger social and political events from which the groups and individuals draw meaning. According to Sara Savage: 1 “Mono-causal explanations of a ‘medical model’ kind have pervaded research into both fundamentalism and radicalization: find the cause in order to eradicate the disease” (p. 134). But, she argues, “[F]undamentalism and radicalization have turned out to be flames arising from more complex, shape-shifting wholes, rather than properties of deviant individuals” (p. 135). Whether we broadly refer to the process of involvement in terrorism as “radicalization” or something else, we need always to clarify and test our underlying assumptions about how we imply that process works.
