 Religious Orthodoxy and TerrorismSatya P. Das
Chapter Chapter 14 in Economics of Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism Measures, 2022, pp 525-548 from Springer Abstract: Abstract This chapter begins with an introduction to the modern economic theory of religion a la Lawrence Iannaccone. It is shown that the practice of religious orthodoxy in the form of various prohibitions and one-time sacrifices can improve welfare. Hence, these practices are not just some irrational or weird idiosyncrasies. Prohibitions and one-time sacrifices, respectively, solve moral hazard and adverse selection problems in the participation of organized religion as a private club activity. These attributes imply that a religiously orthodox organization becomes a close-knit collection of homogeneous and dedicated individuals. The same attributes are also conducive to executing successful terror attacks, which are risky and require team effort. Some terrorist leaders may succeed in swaying members of orthodox groups to embrace terrorism and violence. This explains why “some” religiously orthodox groups have turned to terrorism. Terror groups practice orthodoxy or fundamentalism and carry out terrorist attacks by exploiting economies of scope in “producing” these two activities. Date: 2022 There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-96577-8_14 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-96577-8_14 Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Springer Books from Springer |
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