In a networked insurgent movement like al Qaeda, the way that commitment, obedience and cohesion is maintained is through the movement’s shared narrative.This is the crucial difference between the rapidly decentralizing networked terrorists and more traditional urban insurgents and terrorists. In tightly bound and hierarchal groups like the radical leftist terrorists of the 1960s and 1970s, obedience and choeshion was maintained through both implicit and explicit coercive controls. Group loyalty and identity, as well as group participation in atrocities created a barrier against desertion for those who grew disillusioned with a group's aims. One could not back out and disgrace his or her comrades, and participation in atrocities convinced anyone cowardly enough to ignore social ties that they couldn't go back to the outside.
An example of this dynamic can be seen in the videotaping of suicide bombers, many of whom were motivated not by the promise of heaven but the very secular goal of inflicting pain. Fear of death is the most human of emotions and even the most passionate of political convictions does not totally erase it. But after being videotaped reading their final statements, the bomber is already "dead"--and should he or she decide to change their mind at the last minute, the videotape is damning evidence of cowardice.
Additionally, groups like the provisional IRA maintained brutal internal security departments that vigorously pursued traitors and double agents. Internal security also has the side effect of of impressing the power of the group dynamic into wavering agents.
However, such coercive controls can't obviously be employed in a decentralized organization that exists as more of an ideology than a functioning group. There will be no internal security department for a two-man bomber cell or a lone wolf sniper staking out an overpass. Raw and overwhelming ideology must serve as the substitute for coercive control against the fear of imprisonment, death, and injury, as well as natural disgust over the nature of terrorist violence.
7 comments:
Careful w/ the analysis. Social controls are found in many SOCIETIES and more importantly CULTURES. AQ doesn't espose a culture, it's an ideology that seeks to break or subsume other cultures. In plenty of Muslim lands, virtually all since virtually all have tribal foundations, there exists cultural limits and controls on violence. AQ actively seeks to break these, leading to, in an increasingly number of cases, heavy reactions *against* AQ by locals.
I think we may be talking about different things.
I'm talking about internal organizational dynamics---and making the point in that more hierarchal terror groups obedience and cohesion is achieved in part by coercive measures. As Wiggins rightfully points out, ideology must serve as the sole thing that keeps decentralized cells or lone wolves from losing heart and giving up.
I make no claims about whether or not AQ has a specific culture, only that the ideology it does have is powerful enough to act as a means of securing obedience and determination among far-flung cells who are pretty much entirely self-motivated.
That being said, the language in the post is somewhat ambiguous and could be fixed. "Coercive controls" is more precise, considering the subject of obedience and cohesion.
I do think what you're talking about is right--the ideology must be so powerful that it has to override not only human discomfort with the nature and risk of the violence but also the limits on violence in many tribal societies.
Thanks for expanding on this theme, Adam, and thanks to Matt for pointing out an essential distinction.
An interesting nuance of this type of distributed and self-motivated insurgency is how independent actors can modify the group's narrative. Witness the role of Zarqawi in modifying the narrative of al Qaeda. The ideology is not static and the original leadership cannot exercise full control over the ideology's evolution... opening up interesting avenues for attacking this critical element of the insurgency's cohesion.
Yes. Perhaps we should do some posts sometime about the Boydian possibilities of diverting the evolution of a group's ideology?
On second thought, though, it sounds like a job for the boys at D5GW.
Sounds like you ought to be the next "Contributor" on the D5GW rolls... :-)
Actually, I was planning on asking Curtis about that. I'll send him an email today.
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