Vicious Cycles: Endogenous Political Extremism and Political Violence

Why do terrorists terrorize? In this paper, we advance an explanation for terrorist (and anti-terrorist) behavior in societies with deep cleavages that might promote terrorism—for example, in Northern Ireland, Israel, Sri Lanka, the Middle East, and the Balkans. In particular we develop a model of strategic interaction between groups in society as a way of examining the political conditions under which certain explanatory factors will result in patterns of violence. The theory therefore achieves two things: first, it helps define conditions under which particular patterns of violence and terrorism—partly identified by competing explanations—prevail; and second, it provides predictions about the type and character of interactions between terrorists and the majorities they seek to terrorize. Many explanations have been posited for the motivations behind parties engaged in terrorism and the potentially resultant suppression of terrorists. A common view, particularly in the popular press, is that terrorism and terrorists are irrational. A recent New York Times editorial attributed the violence experienced in Northern Ireland to ‘hard-bitten loyalties and single minded devotion’ which ‘attracts psychopathic people’ (New York Times, August 18, 1998: A23). Livingston (1978: 224-239) concurs that terrorists suffer from irrationalities and