 What Explains the Flow of Foreign Fighters to ISIS?Efraim Benmelech and Esteban F. Klor Terrorism and Political Violence, 2020, vol. 32, issue 7, 1458-1481 Abstract: This paper provides the first systematic analysis of the link between countries’ economic, political, and social conditions and the global phenomenon of ISIS foreign fighters. We find that poor economic conditions do not drive participation in ISIS. In contrast, the number of ISIS foreign fighters is positively correlated with a country’s GDP per capita and Human Development Index (HDI). Many foreign fighters originate from countries with high levels of economic development, low income inequality, and highly developed political institutions. Other factors that explain the number of ISIS foreign fighters are the size of a country’s Muslim population and its ethnic homogeneity. Although we cannot directly determine why people join ISIS, our results suggest that the flow of foreign fighters to ISIS is not driven by economic or political conditions but rather by ideology and the difficulty of assimilation into homogenous Western countries. These conclusions are consistent with those of the related qualitative literature that relies on the personal profiles of ISIS foreign fighters. Date: 2020 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ftpvxx:v:32:y:2020:i:7:p:1458-1481 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2018.1482214 Access Statistics for this article Terrorism and Political Violence is currently edited by James Forest More articles in Terrorism and Political Violence from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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