Poverty and Wealth Still Matter in Counterterrorism Policy Just because there is no direct line to draw between poverty and terrorism doesn't mean that we can simply throw out poverty, development and globalization issues as irrelevant to counterterrorism policy. Material environment matters; so does how that environment is perceived by would be terrorists.
There are some analysts who would like to eliminate these considerations altogether as terrorism factors. They see extremist ideologies, psychology and various cultural factors as the primary, or sole, cause of terrorism. Ideology and psychology are important. But thinking of these factors as completely independent from the world that produces them is neither honest nor productive. Thinking in terms of ideology alone makes it too easy to simply say that terrorists exist in the grip of the irrational—that they are driven by religious or cultural beliefs that are wholly beyond human comprehension. Terrorists are not driven entirely by idiosyncratic ideology, any more than they are entirely by economics.
Is there a profile, however, that would admit the complexity of both ideology and environment to explain terrorists? Kreuger and Mileckova take a step toward a nuanced portrait of terrorism's causes with their hypothesis that:
…In most cases terrorism is less like property crime [which is correlated to poverty] and more like a violent form of political engagement. More-educated people from privileged backgrounds are more likely to participate in politics, probably in part because political involvement requires some minimum level of interest, expertise, commitment to issues, and effort, all of which are more likely if people are educated enough and prosperous enough to concern themselves with more than economic subsistence.
A sense of deprivation helps fuel terrorism Terrorism may be considered a politics of extreme frustration, which is the feeling that one wants to change a situation, but has no power to do so. Frustration is a useful concept because it resonates both with individuals' feelings about their own circumstances and opportunities, and on a socio-political plane. Frustration may be a response to material deprivation, but it may also be an answer to the long term deprivation of a group or society from what it perceives to be rightfully its own.
Terrorists may be powerfully motivated by existential frustration, the feeling of being unrecognized. For terrorist groups, the achievement of recognition is often their raison d'etre. National liberation movements, such as the Irish Republican Army or the National Liberation Front, a group that used terrorist tactics on behalf of Algerian independence from France in the mid-1950s, seek international recognition of the existence of a people.
Individuals who join terrorist or paramilitary organizations may not have empty bank accounts, but they are likely to perceive the political and societal status quo as unfulfilling. Terrorist tactics are posed as a reasonable, and necessary, response to an situation that is perceived to be unreasonable. Or even a history that is perceived as unreasonable: Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden repeatedly remarks on the historical injustice done to Muslims in his speeches.
The question to answer is not whether or not there has been that injustice – there will be as many answers to that question as there are people. The question is, how are multiple viewpoints going to co-exist in a terror free world? A first step is to take a longer view of history, as well as the short span of each potential suicide bomber's life, in order to understand how individuals who aren't poor, in material terms, may so powerfully feel impoverished.
