Muslim Converts as Foreign Fighters and Threats to Homeland Security: A Scientific Control-Group Study
Abstract
Project Summary/Abstract Muslim Converts as Foreign Fighters and Threats to Homeland Security: A scientific control-group study This research develops an interdisciplinary theoretical framework to test a model of Muslim convert radicalization using a control-group approach. It delivers a deep empirical understanding of Islamic conversion and the factors that contribute to convert radicalization to produce analytical tools and policies to respond to a unique threat. Topic Number and Title: Belief Formation and Movements for Change; 1-C Movements for Change Principal Investigator: Professor John Horgan, University of Massachusetts Lowell (UMass Lowell) Co-Principal Investigator: Dr. Scott Flower, University of Melbourne (Visiting Professor, UMass Lowell) Key Investigators: Dr. David Malet, University of Melbourne; Dr. Gentry White, Queensland University of Technology Other Investigators: Mr. Scott Kleinmann and Mr. Shandon Harris-Hogan and two Masters level assistants RESEARCH PROBLEMS: Muslim converts play a disproportionate role in Islamist terrorism internationally yet we know very little about them. Converts are statistically over represented in Islamist extremist violence and are in fact seven times more likely to radicalise than people ‘born Muslim’. Converts in the West are increasingly engaged in ‘homegrown’ domestic terrorism and attacks overseas as Foreign Fighters with implications for US national security. The project investigates the following questions regarding Islamic conversion and converts radicalization in the US: • How can we understand and predict what leads some converts to radicalise? This requires the comparison of the religious conversion experiences of converts who do, and converts who DO NOT radicalize; • Do the radicalization processes of Muslim converts differ from those who are born Muslim and if so how?; • What types of roles do Muslim converts play as domestic ‘homegrown’ threats and as Foreign Fighters?; • With what types of strategic and tactical threat scenarios might converts be involved?; • Can quantifying large-N qualitative data on Muslim converts enable the development of robust statistical tools to provide an empirical and theoretically sound way to understand and predict convert radicalization, and for intervention and policy? METHODS: • Undertake extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the US with non-radicalized and radicalized Muslim Converts to understand the range of causes and processes of Islamic conversion and convert radicalization; • Establish new large-N qualitative and quantitative convert datasets (using surveys and ethnographies); • Apply a range of analytical approaches to interrogate the convert datasets (statistical, qualitative, SNA etc.); • Compare and contrast radicalized and non-radicalized converts and compare and contrast these findings with the radicalization processes of those who are ‘born Muslims’; • Develop and test the Conversion-Radicalization Continuum (CRC), an interdisciplinary theoretical framework and rigorous scientific method for understanding factors that contribute to convert radicalization; • Use evidence-based scenario development to evaluate the range and nature of security challenges converts represent.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 12, 2016
- Source ID
- N000141512215
Entities
People
- John Horgan
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Massachusetts