Root Causes of Violent Radicalization: Terror Contagion Hypothesis

33 Pages Posted: 18 Nov 2021 Last revised: 16 May 2022

See all articles by Timothy Clancy

Timothy Clancy

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)

B. Addison

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)

Oleg V. Pavlov

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)

Khalid Saeed

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)

Date Written: November 6, 2021

Abstract

We propose a novel hypothesis that violent radicalization leading to terrorism operates as a system of social contagion. A terror contagion exploits existing grievances and moral outrage well suited for radicalizing within a population already at-risk of committing predatory mass violence. After a terrorist incident, media broadcasts of cultural scripts convey both a violent ideology and a modus operandi for mass violence. Radicalization can result when at-risk people receive these cultural scripts and share self-similarity and notoriety bias with the perpetrator. Radicalization activates a human adaptation to predatory violence by following the modus operandi. Subsequently, completed terror incidents create their own media broadcasts, perpetuating the contagion. We arrived at this hypothesis through systems science and complex systems causal analysis. We propose several experiments and testable predictions to build confidence in the terror contagion hypothesis.

Suggested Citation

Clancy, Timothy and Addison, B. and Pavlov, Oleg V. and Saeed, Khalid, Root Causes of Violent Radicalization: Terror Contagion Hypothesis (November 6, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3957919 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3957919

Timothy Clancy (Contact Author)

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) ( email )

100 Institute Road
Worcester, MA 01609
United States

B. Addison

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) ( email )

100 Institute Road
Worcester, MA 01609
United States

Oleg V. Pavlov

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) ( email )

100 Institute Road
Worcester, MA 01609
United States

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.wpi.edu/people/faculty/opavlov

Khalid Saeed

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) ( email )

100 Institute Road
Worcester, MA 01609
United States

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