Motivating operatives for suicide missions and conventional terrorist attacks

Daniel Arce and Kevin Siqueira

Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2014, vol. 26, issue 4, 677-695

Abstract: We investigate the problem of motivating terrorist operatives for suicide missions and conventional terrorist attacks when operatives have either self-interested or social preferences that are not observable by the terrorist organization. We characterize the screening mechanism for selecting operatives according to their social preferences and determine under what conditions a terrorist group will prefer to utilize suicide versus conventional tactics. For example, when operatives are intrinsically motivated and likely to be represented in the pool of potential recruits, a terrorist organization will be more likely to employ suicide attacks as its sole tactic of choice.

Keywords: Screening; social preferences; suicide missions; terrorism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:26:y:2014:i:4:p:677-695

DOI: 10.1177/0951629813511711

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