SOCIOLOGY OF POLITICS

Pluralism
Central to pluralist theories of politics are conceptions of a polity marked by
Aristotle’s “unity in diversity” and the early liberals’ competitive and
representative democracy. Not coincidentally does De Tocqueville emerge as the
first renowned modern pluralist political analyst, for in his Democracy in America
he wrote in closely observed empirical detail about the liberal democracy of a
socially diverse people at a time when such political empiricism was rare.Works
that came to be called, or dubbed themselves, pluralist were works about the
political process in such socially diverse liberal democracies: for example, Arthur
F. Bentley’s The Process of Government (1908), David Truman’s The Governmental
Process (1951), and Robert A. Dahl’s Who Governs? (1961). In the terms of Dahl’s
(1971) Polyarchy, pluralist theory developed as a theory of power in liberal
democracies. Dahl (1961) and Polsby (1960) elaborate the “pluralist” perspective
in response to the perceived intellectual closure of the “power structure”
approaches of preceding decades, in particular in response to the work of Hunter
(1953) and his sociological disciples (see Aiken and Mott, 1970).5 In his
exceptionally clear and precise articulation of the pluralist stress on a volatile
plurality of potentially consequential resources, Polsby (1960:13) offers a partial
list of the “many different kinds of resources” that may ground power, “many
more, in fact, than stratification theorists”(Polsby’s elite theorists) “customarily
take into account,” and a flexible view of “the conditions for their relevance.” The
list includes economic resources (e.g., “money and credit,” “control over jobs,”
and “control over the information of others”), status resources (e.g., “social
standing” and “popularity, esteem, charisma”) and authority resources (e.g.,
“legality, constitutionality, officiallity and legitimacy”), along with some less
cleanly classifiable resources (i.e., “knowledge and expertise,” “ethnic solidarity,”
“the right to vote,”)

Neopluralism
To increasing criticism during the politically and ideologically tumultuous 1960s
and 1970s – the era of emergent liberation movements, antiwar and anti-
imperialism movements, and the New Left – pluralism responded with
selftransformation. Indeed, in responding it metamorphosed into what we term
neopluralism.

Marxism
Marx and Engels clearly took a more categorical view as famously expressed in
the The Communist Manifesto: “Political power, properly so called, is merely the
organizing power of one class for suppressing another” (Marx, 1954:56) and
“[t]he executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the
common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie” (1954:18). Until the rise of liberal
democracy and universal suffrage, this general position would seem to have been
tenable enough. And in their comments on some of the cases where the suffrage
was gradually extended during the second half of the nineteenth century, Marx
and Engels made it clear that they did not think democracy and capitalism could
coexist for long (van den Berg, 2003:77–95). But as working class parties grew
more influential without provoking the expected cataclysm or swift transition to
socialism, Marxists were forced to make a difficult choice: either accept that the
reformist “parliamentary road” to socialism was to be considerably slower than
anticipated or insist that parliamentary democracy was really just a cover for
continued bourgeois rule. Most of the debate among Marxists about the true
nature of the “capitalist state,” which raged from the late 1960s to the early
1980s, revolved around alternative answers to this question. One answer, most
clearly formulated Ralph Miliband (1969), was that the capitalist class in effect
controlled government policy. Citing a mass of British empirical data on the social
class origins and sociopolitical values of the top officials in all branches of
government, the judiciary, as well as the educational system and the mass media
and even religion, Miliband concludes that the British capitalist class has a firm
grip on all levels of public power, as well as on the institutions of opinion
formation and legitimation. As a result, Miliband argues, the capitalist class
“exercises a decisive degree of power” (1969:45), enabling it to block any reform
that seriously undermines its long term interests. The state, in other words, is an
instrument of capitalist power, whence the term instrumentalism for this
particular MA number of scholars referring to themselves as “analytical Marxists”
have attempted quite explicitly to provide Marxism with microfoundations based
on rational choice theory (Carver and Thomas, 1995; Elster, 1982, 1985;
Przeworski, 1985a; Roemer, 1986). Interestingly, with respect to political
sociology this brings them very close to power resources theory when explaining
the rise of working-class reformism and the welfare state (Lo, 2002:207–8). The
starting point for analytical Marxism is the assumption that individual workers as
well as their representatives in unions and labor parties will act according to what
they perceive to be their best immediate interests, given the existing balance of
power and the most likely actions and options of their political opponents. From
this they argue that, in the absence of any clear revolutionary alternative, the
labor movement has rationally opted for a reformist strategy that has
subsequently produced welfare states offering a range of social security benefits
and income redistributions, depending on the power of their respective labor
movements (e.g., Przeworski, 1985b, 1991; Przeworski and Sprague, 1988;
Wallerstein, 1999)

Critical and Emancipatory Theory

In the 1920s and 1930s a group of neo-Hegelian Marxists known as the “Frankfurt
School” began to formulate a “Critical Theory” to analyze how the working class’s
“false consciousness” was the result of the triumph of “instrumental reason” over
“substantive reason.” Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and
others loosely associated with their original institute in Frankfurt saw as their
principal task the search for new social and philosophical sources of true reason
with which to counter the manifest unreason of modern capitalism ( Jay, 1973).
J¨urgen Habermas is the leading exponent of the second generation of critical
theorists. Like his erstwhile mentors Habermas has spent an intellectual lifetime
searching for an effective philosophical and social antidote to the relentless
march of “instrumental rationality” characterizing modern capitalism and its
bureaucratized states. Most of Habermas’ work has been concerned with
establishing the philosophical grounds for a critical, emancipatory practice
resisting the spread of instrumental rationality.It is only in The Theory of
Communicative Action (1984, 1987) that Habermas finally clearly attempts to
identify the potential social carriers of critical emancipatory, communicative
reason who will form the progressive forces in the central social conflicts of the
near future. In it, Habermas proposes a “two-level” theory of modern society
pitting the Schutzean “lifeworld” of culture, social norms, and personal identities
against the anonymous commercial and bureaucratic “systems” of modern
capitalist society. The principle of organization of the lifeworld, Habermas
maintains, is interpersonal communication that ultimately rests on the ideal of an
“ideal speech situation” among free and equal participants. Although this ideal
speech situation must always remain an unattained ideal, Habermas claims, there
is nevertheless a historical tendency for the lifeworld in modern societies to
become more and more “rationalized,” that is, more closely approaching an“ideal
speech situation,” relying more and more on “discursive will-formation” rather
than the automatisms of received tradition (Habermas,1987:147).

World systems theory

The main point of world systems theory is to shift our focus from social cleavages
within to those between states and nations. The major cleavage is that between
the core country or countries dominating the capitalistworld system
and the peripheral and semiperipheral countries dominated and exploited by
them through an international division of labor characterized by “unequal
exchange.” Immanuel Wallerstein’s work (1974, 1980, 1989) has focused on
distinct periods indown trends of Kondratieff cycles to help explain changes in the
world economic and political
order. Many others, including Christopher Chase-Dunn (1983) and Terry Boswell
and Albert Bergesen (1987), have contributed to this literature. Daniel Chirot
(1986) and others have provided a non-Marxist alternative to world systems
theory. Many of the debates in and about world systems theory have focused on
whether and to
what extent exploitation of the periphery is necessary for core country prosperity
and dominance, and on the nature, length, and relations between the various
economic and political cycles of the capitalist world system (Hall, 2002).
But political power, and its intimate connection with powerful economic interests,
plays a central role in the dynamics of world systems. In turn, political outcomes
within as well as between countries are explained by world system theorists as
the outcome of the struggle for domination and resistance within the world
system.
Thus, the emergence of strong, formally democratic, somewhat redistributive
states depending heavily on popular legitimacy in the core countries, as well as
the rise and persistence of weak, corrupt, and often brutally coercive
comprador states in the periphery are explained by, but also help explain, the
respective countries’
position within the overall world system. Perhaps the most discussed attempt to
refurbish Marxism by transferring the class struggle to the international arena is
Empire (2000) by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.12 They seek to go beyond
postmodern localism and poststructuralist pessimism to recapture Marxism’s
original promise of the eventual overthrow of capitalism. Their principal claim is
that capitalism has, partly in response to the crises provoked by the various
oppositional movements that emerged since the 1960s, transformed itself
from an imperialism based on sovereign nationstates and Foucauldian disciplinary
power to what they call empire, an entirely new stage characterized by
deterritorialized global control through the internationalization of the capitalist
market, the “informatization” of labor and a seamless web of interconnected
economic, political, and cultural control mechanisms completely permeating the
minds and bodies of the multitudes it brings under its sway across the
globe, amounting to an entirely new form of power: “biopower.”

Webers conflict theory

Although Weber’s emphasis on legitimacy points to the fact that political rule
depends for its stability to some extent on its cultural justification, he was far
from a consensus theorist. To the contrary, his detailed discussions of the various
historical subtypes of legitimate rule all revolve around the perpetual struggles
between rulers and ruled, and especially between rulers and their lieutenants and
officials, yielding never-ending cycles of concentration and fragmentation,
usurpation and legitimation (1978:Part I, chapter III; Bendix, 1960:285–
468). In fact, Weber treated the underlying values, and the religious beliefs on
which they were based, themselves as outcomes of struggles between a variety of
groups with clashing ideal and material interests (1978:Part II, chapter VI; Bendix,
1960:83–281).Even when considering culture and politics, is quite clear from his
wellknown passage on “Class, Status, Party” (Weber, 1978:926–40). This passage
was intended as a conceptual introductory statement on “The Distribution of
Power Within the Political Community.” In other words, Weber was trying to
systematize the multiplicity of interests around which citizens can get mobilized
to try and affect the distribution and use of political power in their own favor. Of
course, the passage was also quite deliberately meant to counter the
unidimensional Marxist idea that all major struggles were at bottom class
struggles. First, he defines class position as determined by similarity of “market
situation,” that is, similarity in the extent to which one has access to valuable
goods and services as determined by one’s ability to trade one’s assets on labor
and commodity markets. This is a broader definition of class than the Marxist
definition of (lack of ) control over the means of production, which is only one
kind of class in Weber’s scheme. As Marxists have often pointed out,Weber’s
definition of class focuses on inequality of consumption opportunities, as opposed
to the production side and its relations of “exploitation” (e.g.,
Wright, 2002).13 The second, and more important way in which Weber departs
from Marx is that he argues that class, however defined, is neither the only nor
even the historically most important basis for “communal action.” Classes are
not, according to Weber, natural communities. It takes a great deal of effort and
favorable conditions for large numbers of people in comparable class situations to
actually get mobilized as a class (Weber, 1978:928–32). Conversely, status groups,
that is, groups of individuals who share positive or negative social estimation of
honor based on some shared characteristic, “are normally groups” (1978:932).
The characteristic in question may be “any quality shared by a plurality,” including
race, ethnicity, gender, religion, language, occupation, and so on (1978:932). Any
one of these may be a source of status in a given community and, as such, a
source of conflict and struggle for power. Status groups often involve a distinctive
lifestyle as well as restrictions on interactions with “outsiders.” Given that they
are, almost by definition, already self-conscious groups, status groups are
relatively easily mobilized and hence at least as likely to play an important role in
the perennial struggle for power as classes are, according to Weber (1978:932–8).
Moreover, status distinctions can cut across and even run counter
to class distinctions in a variety of ways.

Bordieu’s field theory

For Bourdieu, the social world can be viewed as a series of partially overlapping
but relatively autonomous domains that are in effect battlefields in which
individuals and groups compete for social advantage. Each of these social fields
has its own type of reward or distinction, its own rules of engagement, and its
own dominant class or elite. The nature of the reward as well as the rules
governing the process of its acquisition are themselves subject to struggle as well.
The struggle is fought through the deployment and conversion of various forms of
capital, a term Bourdieu uses in a peculiarly broad sense: there is social capital,
otherwise known as reputation and social connections, cultural capital or
cultural/educational advantage, symbolic capital or legitimation, as well as
economic and political capital. The one essay in which Bourdieu proposes some
“elements for a theory of the political field” (Bourdieu, 1991:chapter 8) deals
primarily with the professionalization of politics and the resulting problems of
accountable political representation, particularly by politicians and parties of the
left claiming to represent those most deprived of economic and cultural capital.

State economic and social policy in global capitalization

Economic internationalization can be broken down into four dimensions:
increasing integration of markets for goods and for capital, growing
internationalization of production, and growing strength of supranational bodies.
Both trade and capital market openness can be indexed by the flows of capital or
goods and services and by the barriers to flows . For capital markets, we have
data on both controls and flows. The data on tariff and nontariff barriers are
spotty for the earlier period so we have not included them. This is unfortunate
because variations in trade volume across countries are not very good indicators
of trade barriers, as size of the domestic market is such an important determinant
of volume of trade. Due to economies of scale, small countries cannot produce a
full range of goods for domestic producers and consumers andmust import goods
to satisfy these needs. Thus, small countries may have very high trade barriers
and nonetheless have high trade flows. For instance, in the 1970s Jamaica had
very high tariffs, nontariffs barriers, and quantitative restrictions on trade, yet
exports and imports were still over 70 percent of GDP, far higher than most
European countries in the 1990s when trade barriers there were quite low
(Stephens and Stephens, 1986).

Sociology of law
Weber’s approach

As an example of the methodology of ideal-types, Weber differentiated

four types of human interaction: (1) traditional action is carried
out under the influence of custom or habit; (2) affective action is guided
by an emotion; (3) value-rational action is guided by a belief in the
intrinsic value of a particular mode of conduct irrespective of its
consequences; and (4) purposive-rational action is based on a conscious
calculation of means towards a given end. In specifying this idealtypical
construction of human action, Weber sought to demonstrate the
rationality of a variety of types of conduct, none of which stands above
any other. More important for the development of Weber’s theory of
society, his ideal-typical construction of action also forms the foundation
of an important observation on the course of modern society, by
showing that modern societies are marked by an increasing influence
of purposive-rational action and a relative loss of traditional action.
The rationalization of society: economy, politics,
and bureaucracy
Weber argues that modern societies are most essentially marked by
a high degree of purposive rationalization. The purposive type of
rationalization is also referred to as formal rationalization because the
mode or form of conduct at the level of means is more important than
the substance or goal of action. In other words, it matters less what
is done than how it is done. In more and more spheres of social life,
efficient calculations are made to reach certain ends. Weber’s theory
applies to many important societal institutions, including science,
politics, culture, and law, but it is useful to expand on his idea with
reference to free market capitalism, which Weber developed in his
famous study on the Protestant ethic (Weber 1920). According to
Weber, an elective affinity exists between the ethic of Calvinism and
the mode of capitalist conduct to use the most efficient means to accumulate
wealth. In the context of modern societies in the West, Weber applied the
rationalization model to many other dimensions of society. Weber’s
discussions on the rationalization of politics deserve special consideration
in this book because they form a bridge into his sociology of
law. At the most general level, Weber ideal-typically distinguishes
three kinds of political power on the basis of the kind of legitimacy it
enjoys: (1) traditional authority is based on the belief in a traditional
source of power; (2) charismatic authority is based on the belief in
the extraordinary qualities of a political leader; and (3) rational-legal
domination is based on a system of laws and is the typical form of
legitimacy in the context of the modern state. Among the most discussed themes
has been the Weberian conception of the relationship between formally
rationalized law and the development of capitalism. In general, Weber argued
against a Marxist interpretation of law (as an instrument of capitalism),
but rather than defending a straightforward idealist anti-Marxian
theory, Weber suggested, in line with his multidimensional approach
of elective affinity, that the formal rationalization of law, because of
its reliance on calculability, was a contributing factor to the rise of
capitalism

Emile Durkeim on law and social solidarity

The coercive force of social facts, according to Durkheim, allows
for their identification and study, especially in the case of ideal representations
such as social norms, because observable sanctions function
as the indicators of social facts. Because social facts are external to
individuals, they cannot be reduced to their individual manifestations,
which are always partly social and partly unique to the individual.
Social facts are also not shared by each and every member of a society
in the same degree. Thus, Durkheim argues, social facts can have only
society as such as its substratum, and it is society, as a reality sui
generis (of its own kind), that is the object of sociology. Because
society cannot be reduced to individual-level ways of acting, sociology
cannot be reduced to psychology.
In terms of its methodology, Durkheim’s sociology is based on
the maxim that social facts must be considered as things. This basic
principle implies that the sociologist must discard all preconceptions
about society. Ethics and law, which are the subject matter of determinate social
sciences, are essentially questions of opinion. Without bothering about knowing
whether a legal or ethical system exists which is valid for all men, a metaphysical
question which has no place here; it is absolutely certain that at every moment of
history, the sole moral and juridical percepts that have been brought into practice
by men are those that the public consciousness, namely public opinion, has
recognized as such.- The sociological method
The central
purpose of Durkheim’s work is to construct a science of society as
a moral order and to discover empirically how social solidarity is
maintained in modern society despite the growing autonomy of the
individual that has resulted from the division of labor. To Durkheim,
importantly, the division of labor is not only and not even primarily
an economic reality but a much broader societal phenomenon.
Durkheim therefore speaks of the social rather than the economic
division of labor. Durkheim argues that the division of labor is a result of a more
encompassing evolution from mechanical to organic societies. Mechanical
societies are composed of similar replicated parts, such as families,
hordes, and clans. Within such societies, the conscience collective
or collective consciousness,2 defined as “the totality of beliefs and sentiments
common to the average members of a society” (Durkheim 1893b: 38–39), reflects
a type of solidarity that is achieved through similarity, for the collective practices
and beliefs of groups in mechanical societies are shared by all of their members.
Because the common belief systems are strong and there is virtually no individual
differentiation, any offense against the collective consciousness, even when it
pertains only to one member of the group, is perceived as a threat to the entire
social order. In organic societies, there is a differentiation of restitutive and
repressive law. Because individuals are more and more differentiated
from one another, legal regulations are more abstract and general
so they can apply universally to all individuals while not leveling the
differences that exist among them. The elaboration of contract law,
for instance, allows for a specification of relations among individuals,
whereby the state only acts to oversee mutual obligations. In organic
societies, law is secularized and highly codified. The sanctions that
are applied to violations of restitutive law are oriented at a restoration
of social relations among individuals, as in the case of monetary
compensation, or between individual and society, as in the case of
prison sentences that allow for release back into society. In organic
societies, criminal law still serves repressive functions, but the growth
of civil law indicates most clearly the rise of restitutive law. As in De la Division du
Travail Social (1893a), Durkheim turns to
the study of moral and juridical facts as the observable expressions of
morals and rights. Durkheim starts from the viewpoint that homicide
and theft are the supremely immoral acts, graver than violations of
professional and civic morals, because the rules concerning crimes
against the person and against property are so general that they
extend beyond the boundaries of any particular society. Historically,
this was not always the case, as crimes against the group as a whole,
such as religious crimes, were traditionally punished more severely.
However, in contemporary (organic) society, crimes against the person
and against personal property arouse the greatest resentment and
receive the harshest sanction because they violate a morality that
places the qualities of the individual above all else.

THE THEORETICAL MOVE TOWARD LAW

Petrazycki was like no other European scholar of the time engaged
in the systematization of a scientific, more specifically a psychological lrealistic,
theory of law. Petrazycki would thereby also contribute,
especially via the works of some of his students, to the development
of a more distinctly sociological tradition. Petrazycki’s theory starts
from the basic premise that theories of law need to be grounded on
either a normative or a realistic perspective. According to Petrazycki
([1905–1907] 1955: 9), a normative theory of norms is always a
theory of ideals, of “phantasms” or “phantoms,” and it can therefore
not be scientific. Adopting a realistic perspective, Petrazycki considers
the reality of law to be found in the factual experiences of law on the
part of human beings. Legal phenomena, thus considered, are
“psychic processes” (1955: 8). Psychic or mental processes include
the categories of the active will, passive cognition, passive emotions,
and bilateral impulsions. Impulsions are bilateral because they refer to
a passive experience of something to which an urge actively responds.
Impulsions induce behavior, especially when they are strong.
Within the category of positive law, Petrazycki pays special attention to those
impulsions encompassing images of lawmaking that are officially protected and
enforced by state officials. Referred to as official positive
law, this category of legal impulsions is more uniform across society, while the
intuitive laws of individuals and social sub-groups may differ widely among one
another and, furthermore, differ from official positive law. The discrepancies
between intuitive law and officially positive law is one of the core problems
associated with law in society. As people experience intuitive law to be very
different from the positive law that is officially sanctioned, they experience the
legal and social order as unjust. Groups within society may try to change positive
law to be brought into accord with their sense of intuitive law. As other powerful
groups resist any changes to positive law, the strength of intuitive law on the part
of deprived groups may grow to the point
where a revolution can ensue. On the other hand, Timasheff’s theoretical
perspective of the sociology of law proceeds to discuss ethics and power as two
central types of action coordination before analyzing law at the intersection of
both. Timasheff conceives of ethics and power as social forces that contribute to
the social order as does law. All three institutional spheres are considered in
terms of the manner in which they contribute to the creation of social
uniformities in behavior at a societal level. Parting from Petrazycki’s psychological
theory, Timasheff focuses on the social level of standardized behavioral
tendencies or habits that correspond to ethics, power, and law. In the case of law,
Timasheff argues that legal rules contribute to the equilibrium of the social order
by being both recognized and obeyed by the members of society while
simultaneously also being recognized and supported by the rulers of a centralized
authority. Behavior that does not conform to legal expectations falls outside the
social order: by definition, coordinated behavior is normal behavior. Norms that
are not recognized by the state are not law but form part of custom and morality.

Sociology of terrorism

The personalities of terrorists may be as diverse as

the personalities of people in any lawful profession. There do not appear to be
any visibly detectable personality traits that would allow authorities to identify a
terrorist.
Another finding is that the terrorist is not diagnosably psychopathic or mentally
sick. Contrary to the stereotype that the terrorist is a psychopath or otherwise
mentally disturbed, the terrorist is actually quite sane, although deluded by an
ideological or religious way of viewing the world. The only notable exceptions
encountered in this study were the German anarchist terrorists, such as the
Baader-Meinhof Gang and their affiliated groups. The German terrorists seem to
be a special case, however, because of their inability to come to terms
psychologically and emotionally with the shame of having parents who were
either passive or active supporters of Hitler.
The highly selective terrorist recruitment process explains why most terrorist
groups have only a few pathological members. Candidates who exhibit signs of
psychopathy or other mental illness are deselected in the interest of group
survival. Terrorist groups need members whose behavior appears to be normal
and who would not arouse suspicion. A member who exhibits traits of
psychopathy or any noticeable degree of mental illness would only be a liability
for the group, whatever his or her skills. That individual could not be depended
on to carry out the assigned mission. On the contrary, such an individual would
be more likely to sabotage the group by, for example, botching an operation or
revealing group secrets if captured. Nor would a psychotic member be likely to
enhance group solidarity. A former PKK spokesman has even stated publicly that
the PKK’s policy was to exclude psychopaths.
This is not to deny, however, that certain psychological types of people may be
attracted to terrorism. In his examination of autobiographies, court records, and
rare interviews, Jerrold M. Post (1990:27) found that “people with particular
personality traits and tendencies are drawn disproportionately to terrorist
careers.” Authors such as Walter Laqueur, Post notes, “have characterized
terrorists as action-oriented, aggressive people who are stimulus-hungry and
seek excitement.” Even if Post and some other psychologists are correct that
individuals with narcissistic personalities and low self-esteem are attracted to
terrorism, the early psychological development of individuals in their pre-terrorist
lives does not necessarily mean that terrorists are mentally disturbed and can be
identified by any particular traits associated with their early psychological
backgrounds. Many people in other high-risk professions, including law
enforcement, could also be described as “action-oriented, aggressive people who
are stimulus-hungry and seek excitement.”
.Although terrorist groups are highly selective in whom they recruit, it is not
inconceivable that a psychopathic individual can be a top leader or the top leader
of the terrorist group. In fact, the actions and behavior of the ANO’s Abu Nidal,
the PKK’s Abdullah Ocalan, the LTTE’s Velupillai Prabhakaran, the FARC’s Jorge
Briceño Suárez, and Aum Shinrikyo’s Shoko Asahara might lead some to believe
that they all share psychopathic or sociopathic symptoms. If the founder
of a terrorist group or cult is a psychopath, there is little that the membership
could do to remove him, without suffering retaliation. Thus, that leader may
never have to be subjected to the group’s standards of membership or
leadership.

Mindset profiling
According to Rex. A Hudson: This review of the academic literature on terrorism
suggests that the psychological approach by itself is insufficient in understanding
what motivates terrorists, and that an interdisciplinary approach is needed to
more adequately understand terrorist motivation. Terrorists are motivated not
only by psychological factors but also very real political, social, religious, and
economic factors, among others. These factors vary widely. Accordingly, the
motivations, goals, and ideologies of ethnic separatist, anarchist, social
revolutionary, religious fundamentalist, and new religious terrorist groups differ
significantly. Therefore, each terrorist group must be examined within its own
cultural, economic, political, and social context in order to better understand the
motivations of its individual members and leaders and their particular ideologies.

Approaches

Multicausal Approach
For Paul Wilkinson (1977), the causes of revolution and political violence in
general are also the causes of terrorism. These include ethnic conflicts, religious
and ideological conflicts, poverty, modernization stresses, political inequities, lack
of peaceful communications channels, traditions of violence, the existence of a
revolutionary group, governmental weakness and ineptness, erosions of
confidence in a regime, and deep divisions within governing elites and leadership
groups.
The Political Approach
The alternative to the hypothesis that a terrorist is born with certain personality
traits that destine him or her to become a terrorist is that the root causes of
terrorism can be found in influences emanating from environmental factors.
Environments conducive to the rise of terrorism include international and
national
environments, as well as subnational ones such as universities, where many
terrorists first become familiar with Marxist-Leninist ideology or other
revolutionary ideas and get involved with radical groups. Russell and Miller
identify universities as the major recruiting ground for terrorists.
Having identified one or more of these or other environments, analysts may
distinguish between precipitants that started the outbreak of violence, on the one
hand, and preconditions that allowed the precipitants to instigate the action, on
the other hand. Political scientists Chalmers Johnson (1978) and Martha
Crenshaw (1981) have further subdivided preconditions into permissive factors,
which engender a terrorist strategy and make it attractive to political dissidents,
and direct situational factors, which motivate terrorists. Permissive causes
include urbanization, the transportation system (for example, by allowing a
terrorist to quickly escape to another country by taking a flight), communications
media, weapons availability, and the absence of security measures.

The Organizational Approach

Some analysts, such as Crenshaw (1990: 250), take an organization approach to
terrorism and see terrorism as a rational strategic course of action decided on by
a group. In her view, terrorism is not committed by an individual. Rather, she
contends that “Acts of terrorism are committed by groups who reach collective
decisions based on commonly held beliefs, although the level of individual
commitment to the group and its beliefs varies.”
The diffusion of terrorism from one place to another received scholarly attention
in the early 1980s. David G. Hubbard (1983) takes a physiological approach to
analyzing the causes of terrorism. He discusses three substances produced in the
body under stress: norepinephrine, a compound produced by the adrenal gland
and sympathetic nerve endings and associated with the “fight or flight” (see
Glossary) physiological response of individuals in stressful situations;
acetylcholine, which is produced by the parasympathetic nerve endings and acts
to dampen the accelerated norepinephrine response; and endorphins, which
develop in the brain as a response to stress and “narcotize” the brain, being 100
times more powerful than morphine. Because these substances occur in the
terrorist, Hubbard concludes that much terrorist violence is rooted not in the
psychology but in the physiology of the terrorist, partly the result of “stereotyped,
agitated tissue response” to stress. Hubbard’s conclusion suggests a possible
explanation for the spread of terrorism, the so-called contagion effect.

Hypothesis

Frustration aggression hypothesis

According to Franco Ferracuti (1982), a University of Rome professor, a better
approach than these and other hypotheses, including the Marxist theory, would
be a subcultural theory, which takes into account that terrorists live in their own
subculture, with their own value systems. Similarly, political scientist Paul
Wilkinson (1974: 127) faults the frustration-aggression hypothesis for having
“very little to say about the social psychology of prejudice and hatred...” and
fanaticisms that “play a major role in encouraging extreme violence.” He believes
that “Political terrorism cannot be understood outside the context of the
development of terroristic, or potentially terroristic, ideologies, beliefs and
lifestyles
(133).”

Negative Identity Hypothesis

Using Erikson’s theory of identity formation, particularly his concept of negative
identity, the late political psychologist Jeanne N. Knutson (1981) suggests that
the political terrorist consciously assumes a negative identity. One of her
examples is a Croatian terrorist who, as a member of an oppressed ethnic
minority, was disappointed by the failure of his aspiration to attain a university
education, and as a result assumed a negative identity by becoming a terrorist.
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

In addition to the split between psychology and sociology, there has been a less
pronounced difference in emphasis between the American social psychologists
and European social psychologists. As a broad generalization, amercian
researchers focus more on individualism whereas Europeans have paid more
attention to group level phenomena.
The discipline of social psychology began in the United States at the dawn of the
20th century. The first published study was an experiment in 1898 by Norman
Triplett on the phenomenon of social facilitation. During WW2 social
psychologists studied persuasion and propaganda for the US military. Social
psychology matured during the 80s and 90s.

INTERPERSONAL PHENOMENA

Attitudes: In social psychology, attitudes are learned, global evaluations of a

personal object, place or issue that influence thought and action. Since people are
influenced by the situation; general attitudes aren’t good predictors of specific
behavior

Conformity
“But are we, in fact, nonconforming creatures? Are the decisions we make
always based on what we think, or do we use other people’s behavior to help
us decide what to do? In spite of Apple’s advertising telling customers to “think
different,” take a careful look around the lecture hall next time you’re in class and
count how many glowing Apple logos stare back at you from the laptops of your
fellow students. The computer of the nonconformist is now everywhere.’’ – Elliot
aronson, Social psychology
In the following experiment by Muzafer Sherif (1936). In the first phase of the
study, you are seated alone in a dark room and asked to focus your attention on a
dot of light 15 feet away. The experimenter asks you to estimate
in inches how far the light moves. You stare earnestly at the light, and, yes, it
seemsto move a little. You say, “about 2 inches,” though it is not easy to tell
exactly. The light disappears and then comes back; you are asked
to judge again. The light seems to move a little more this time, and you say, “4
inches.” After several of these trials, the light seems to move about the same
amount each time—somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 to 4 inches. The light
was not actually moving at all. It looked as if it was because of a visual illusion
called the autokinetic effect: If you stare at a bright light in a uniformly dark
environment (e.g., a star on a dark night), the light will appear to waver a bit back
and forth. This occurs because you have no stable visual reference point with
which to anchor the position of the light. The distance that the light appears to
move varies from person to person but becomes relatively consistent for each
person over time. In Sherif’s experiment, all the subjects arrived at their own
stable estimate during the first phase of the study, but these estimates differed
across people. Some thought the light was moving only an inch or so; others
thought it was moving as much as 10 inches. Sherif chose the autokinetic effect
because he wanted a situation that would be ambiguous—where the correct
definition of the situation would be unclear to his participants. In the second
phase of the experiment, a few days later, the participants were paired with two
other people, each of whom had had the same prior experience alone with the
light. Now the situation became a truly social one, as all three made their
judgments out loud. Over the course of several trials as a group, people
converged on a common estimate, and each member of the group tended to
conform to that estimate. These results indicate that people were using each
other as a source of information, coming to believe that the group estimate was
the correct one An important feature of informational social influence is that it
can lead to private acceptance, when people conform to the behavior of others
because they genuinely believe that these other people are right. It might seem
equally plausible that people publicly conformed to the group but privately
maintained the belief that the light was moving only a small amount. For
example, maybe someone privately believed that the light was moving 10 inches
but announced that it had moved 3 inches, the group consensus, to avoid
standing out from the crowd or looking foolish. This would be a case of public
compliance, conforming publicly without necessarily believing in what the group
is doing. Sherif cast doubt on this interpretation of his study, however, by asking
people to judge the lights one more time, this time back on their own. Even
though they no longer had to worry about looking silly in front of other
participants, they continued to give the answer the group had given earlier.
Ambiguity is the most crucial variable
for determining how much people use each other as a source of information.
When you are unsure of the correct response, the appropriate behavior, or the
right idea, you will be most open to influence from others. The more uncertain
you are, the more you will rely on others (Allen, 1965; Renfrow & Gosling, 2006;
Tesser, Campbell, & Mickler, 1983; Walther et al., 2002).
Crisis often occurs simultaneously with ambiguity. In a crisis situation, we usually
do not have time to stop and think about exactly which course of action we
should take. We need to act—immediately. If we feel scared and panicky and are
uncertain what to do, it is only natural for us to see how other people are
responding and to do likewise. Unfortunately, the people we imitate may also feel
scared and panicky and not be behaving rationally. Soldiers, for example, are
undoubtedly on edge during their tours of duty. Further, in many wars, it is not
easy to tell who the enemy is.
Normative social influence Stanley Schachter (1951) demonstrated how the
group responds to an individualwho ignores normative influence. He asked groups
of college students to read and discuss a case history of “Johnny Rocco,” a
juvenile delinquent. Most of the students took a middle-of-the-road position
about the case, believing that Rocco should receive a judicious mixture of love
and discipline. Unbeknownst to the participants, however, Schachter had planted
an accomplice in the group who was instructed to disagree with the group’s
recommendations. The accomplice consistently argued that Rocco
should receive the harshest amount of punishment, regardless of what the other
group members argued. The deviant became the target of the most comments
and questions from the real participants throughout most of the discussion, and
then, near the end, communication with him dropped sharply. The other group
members had tried to convince the deviant to agree with them; when it appeared
that it wouldn’t work, they started to ignore him altogether. In addition, they
punished him. After the discussion, they were asked to fill out questionnaires that
supposedly pertained to future discussion meetings of their group. The
participants were asked to nominate one group member who should be
eliminated from further discussions if the group size had to be reduced. They
nominated the deviant.
SELF CONCEPT
Self concept according to Hazel Markus (1977), is made up of cognitive molecules
called self schema; which is belief that people have about themselves which
guides the processing of slef reliant information. Eg. People who regard their
bodies as overweight or underweight might be considered to see to their self
conept are schematics with respect to weight. Furthermore a cognitive inquiry
might be one of how people build themselves and uphold a sense of identity; a
behavioral inquiry would be how people regulate themselves and their own
actions according to interpersonal demands.
“But as I looked into the mirror, I screamed, and my heart shuddered: for I saw not
myself but the mocking, leering, face of a devil.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus spoke Zarasthura

AFFECTIVE FORECASTING: is the process of prediction of how one would feel in

response to future emotional events. Studies done by Timothy Wilson and Daniel
Gilbert (2003) have shown that people overestimate their strength or reaction to
positive or negative life events. Other affectively
based attitudes can result from a sensory reaction, such as liking the taste of
chocolate (despite its number of calories), or an aesthetic reaction, such as
admiring a painting or the shape and color of a car. Still others can be the result of
conditioning (Hofmann et al., 2010).Classical conditioning works this way: A
stimulus that elicits an emotional response is accompanied by a neutral,
nonemotional stimulus until eventually the neutral stimulus elicits the emotional
response by itself. For example, suppose that when you were a child you
experienced feelings of warmth and love when you visited your grandmother.
Suppose also that her house always smelled faintly of mothballs. Eventually,
the smell of mothballs alone will trigger the emotions you experienced during
your visits, through the process of classical conditioning (De Houwer, 2011;
Walther & Langer, 2010) In operant conditioning, behaviors we freely choose to
perform become more or less frequent, depending on whether they are followed
by a reward (positive reinforcement) or punishment. Although affectively based
attitudes come from many sources, we can group them into one family because
they (1) do not result from a rational examination of the issues, (2) are not
governed by logic, and (3) are often linked to people’s values, so that efforts to
change them challenge those values (Katz, 1960; Smith, Bruner, & White, 1956)
Daryl Bem’s self perception theory claims that when internal cues are difficult to
interpret, people gain self insight by observing their own behavior . This is
exaggerated by the self awareness theory; Sometimes our thoughts naturally turn
inward, and we think about ourselves. At
other times this happens because of external circumstances, such as seeing
ourselves in a mirror or in a video that a friend just took of us on her smartphone.
When this happens, we are in a state of self-awareness. According to self-
awareness theory, when this happens, we evaluate and compare our current
behavior to our internal standards and values (Carver, 2003; Duval & Silvia, 2002;
Duval & Wicklund, 1972; Morin, 2011; Phillips & Silva, 2005). In short, we become
self-conscious in the sense that we become objective, judgmental observers of
ourselves, seeing ourselves as an outside observer would.

SOCIAL INFLUENCE:
Social Roles Most groups have a number of well-defined social roles, which are
shared expectations in a group about how particular people are supposed to
behave (Ellemers & Jetten, 2013; Hare, 2003). Whereas norms specify how all
group members should act, roles specify how people who occupy certain
positions in the group should behave. In a business, a boss and an employee
occupy different roles and are expected to act in different ways in that setting.
Like social norms, roles can be very helpful because people know what to expect
from each other. When members of a group follow a set of clearly defined roles,
they tend to be satisfied and perform well (Barley & Bechky, 1994; Bettencourt &
Sheldon, 2001).
Social Norms social norms are a powerful determinant of our behavior (Hogg,
2010; Kameda, Takezawa, & Hastie, 2005; Sanfey, Stallen, & Chang, 2014). All
societies have norms about which behaviors are acceptable, some of which all
members are expected to obey (e.g., we should be quiet in libraries) and some
of which vary from group to group (e.g., what is appropriate to wear to weddings
and funerals). If you belong to a fraternity or sorority, you can probably think of
social norms that govern behavior in your group, such as whether alcoholic
beverages are consumed and how you are supposed to feel about rival
fraternities or sororities
Group cohesiveness refers to the qualities of a group that bind
members together and promote mutual liking (Dion, 2000; Hogg, 1993; Holtz,
2004;
Rosh, Offermann, & Van Diest, 2012). If a group has formed primarily for social
reasons, such as a group of friends who like to go to the movies together on
weekends,
then the more cohesive the group is, the better. This is pretty obvious; would
you rather spend your free time with a bunch of people who don’t care much for
each other or a tight-knit bunch of people who feel committed to you and other
group members? As you would expect, the more cohesive a group is, the more its
members are likely to stay in the group, take part in group activities, and try to
recruit new likeminded members (Levine & Moreland, 1998; Pickett, Silver, &
Brewer, 2002; Spink, Ulvick, Crozier, & Wilson, 2014).