Pape (2003, 2005), Rogers (2206), and Silke (2006), “have repeatedly concluded that religion is rarely the root cause” for a violent action like suicide terrorism. Though it may appear religion plays an “elevated role” because of terrorist rhetoric, the key factors motivating suicide bombers to act are “low selfesteem combined with concrete grievances.” In a psychological analysis of the fundamentalist mindset, Strozier, Terman, Jones, and Boyd compare Islamist extremist fundamentalism to past violence of the French Revolution, Nazi Germany, and post-Partition Hindu religious practices, finding, “a radical dualism, in which all aspects of life are bluntly categorized as either good or evil; a destructive inclination to interpret authoritative texts, laws, and teachings in the most literal of terms; an extreme and totalized conversion experience; paranoid thinking; and an apocalyptic world view” contribute to the radicalization of all fundamentalists “in a variety of human institutions, including religion but by no means restricted to it…”. What, then, causes an individual to become radicalized to commit terrorism in the name of violent Islamist extremism, and where does
Islam fit in to that explanation? Some scholars do find radical interpretations of Islam to blame. These are largely incorrect However, it is useful to touch on these misunderstandings because they are prevalent in the West and create prejudices that only lead to more conflict. Th ere is no “right” radicalization model, with Aly and Striegher finding that, “It is imperative to consider that evidence confirms that there is no single pathway to radicalization and no distinct pattern to profile an individual throughout any of the stages of radicalization.” Dalgaard-Nielsen suggests that different models or explanations for radicalization “should not necessarily be seen as competing, but rather as complementary as they concentrate on different levels of analysis and different aspects of the phenomenon of radicalization,” making it “quite conceivable that the different identified background factors reinforce rather than contradict each other.” In using empirical evidence through case studies to perform that assessment, some models will prove to be more appropriate than others. Additionally, only individual radicalization models will be examined, as I am focusing on the
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