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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Radical, Religious, and Violent: The New Economics of Terrorism

Radical, Religious, and Violent: The New Economics of Terrorism

Berman, Eli

Paperback

EconomicsGeneral Political ScienceInternational Relations

ISBN10: 0262516675
ISBN13: 9780262516679
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: Sep 23 2011
Pages: 316
Weight: 0.90
Height: 0.82 Width: 5.85 Depth: 8.71
Language: English
Applying fresh tools from economics to explain puzzling behaviors of religious radicals: Muslim, Christian, and Jewish; violent and benign.

How do radical religious sects run such deadly terrorist organizations? Hezbollah, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Taliban all began as religious groups dedicated to piety and charity. Yet once they turned to violence, they became horribly potent, executing campaigns of terrorism deadlier than those of their secular rivals. In Radical, Religious, and Violent, Eli Berman approaches the question using the economics of organizations. He first dispels some myths: radical religious terrorists are not generally motivated by the promise of rewards in the afterlife (including the infamous seventy-two virgins) or even by religious ideas in general. He argues that these terrorists (even suicide terrorists) are best understood as rational altruists seeking to help their own communities. Yet despite the vast pool of potential recruits--young altruists who feel their communities are repressed or endangered--there are less than a dozen highly lethal terrorist organizations in the world capable of sustained and coordinated violence that threatens governments and makes hundreds of millions of civilians hesitate before boarding an airplane. What's special about these organizations, and why are most of their followers religious radicals?

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