RT Article
T1 What Makes a Terrorist? Muslims’ and non-Muslims’ Lay Perceptions of Risk Factors and Their Consequences for Counterterrorism Policy Support
JF Terrorism and political violence
VO 35
IS 3
SP 634
OP 657
A1 Kunst, Jonas R.
A2 Obaidi, Milan
A2 Coenen, Ann-Cathrin
A2 Vasseljen, Vilde D.
A2 Gill, Paul
LA English
YR 2023
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1843246856
AB The question of why people become terrorists has preoccupied scholars and policy makers for decades. Yet, very little is known about how lay people perceive individuals at risk of becoming terrorists. In two studies conducted in the U.K., we aimed to fill this gap. Study 1 showed that Muslims and non-Muslims perceived a potential minority-group terrorist in terms of both structural (e.g., life-history, social) and individual risk factors (e.g., personality, psychopathology, ideology). In Study 2, Muslims and non-Muslims perceived a potential right-wing majority-group terrorist as having more individual predispositions to terrorism than a potential left-wing majority-group terrorist. Importantly, in both studies, individualist perceptions such as psychopathology were positively associated with support for stricter law enforcement, whereas structuralist perceptions such as adverse childhood experiences were positively associated with support for social interventions. Lay people seem to have multifactorial understandings of individuals at risk of becoming terrorists, which influence their counterterrorism policy support.
K1 Terrorism
K1 social interventions
K1 policy support
K1 Psychopathology
K1 Law Enforcement
DO 10.1080/09546553.2021.1967149