I am grateful to Paul Staniland for the generous review of my book. His sharp analysis raises some important questions.
Staniland is right that causal complexity can be both a strength and a weakness. My goal was to challenge the bifurcated study of radicalization and de-radicalization and explain tactical shifts over time. Therefore, it seemed important to show how background conditions may affect outcomes in the long run or alter the impact of repression. The result is an account that can at times become admittedly complicated. To add clarity, I differentiate between the determinants of ideological versus behavioral adjustments. For instance, grievances and repression have a stronger effect on ideological than on behavioral escalation, whereas fragmentation and organizational weakness have a stronger impact on behavioral changes than ideological shifts. Public opinion and norms of resistance do not directly affect either ideological or behavioral escalation or de-escalation, but they are important background conditions. Evaluating the cost of violent and nonviolent tactics is the most powerful causal mechanism underlying tactical shifts.
The main “big picture” claim that I put forward is that tactical changes are a form of principled and strategic adjustment to intraorganizational developments and the sociopolitical context. In arguing that Islamist groups are simultaneously principled and strategic, I not only suggest that ideology and pragmatic considerations both matter, but also that it is not always possible to neatly untangle their causal effects. Tactical decisions are usually the result of pragmatic considerations and have less to do with religious principles, but it would be a mistake to consider such pragmatism void of ideology. Convictions inform activism. Even when pursuing what may seem to be purely organizational interests, groups believe they are righteous actors. When faith in the group starts to falter or a group experiences ideological decay, we see disillusionment, dissent, or defections. In response, pragmatic leaders may adjust their tactics to save the organization and continue pursuing their ideologically driven mission. Such tactical adjustments can influence ideology. Drawing on Seliger, I differentiate between fundamental principles, which define a group’s doctrine, and operative ideology, which justifies daily actions. Groups may find it necessary to adjust their repertoire of contention, altering their operative ideology. Over time, changes to the operative ideology can lead to changes in the fundamental principles.
Given this argument, it is understandable that Staniland asks whether the focus on Islamist groups was a theoretical choice or a research design strategy. For me, it was a question of research design. Perhaps the ambiguity that emerges throughout the book reflects the changes in my own understanding of the role of ideology. At the outset of the research, I embodied the rationalist bias that pervades both terrorism studies and works on Islamist movements. However, the more interviews I conducted, the more tenuous my attachments to rationalist assumptions became. Although I still do not believe that questions of violence or nonviolence are primarily about ideology, I am now also convinced that we cannot fully understand social actors without taking their ideas seriously, whether they are Islamists, Marxists, or ethnic separatists.
In this regard, Staniland and I may have different understandings of how ideology and tactical incentives interact, but our works complement each other in calling on scholars of political violence to take both seriously and to study both violent and nonviolent mobilization among armed actors.
