Dawson (2021a), ‘Bringing Religiosity Back In (Part I).’
Citation: Dawson, Lorne L. (2021a), ‘Bringing Religiosity Back In: Critical Reflection on the Explanation of Western Homegrown Religious Terrorism (Part I),’ Perspectives on Terrorism, 15:1, pp. 2-16.
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Dawson (2021a:2): Claims that the dominant paradigm in terrorism studies is to “discount the significance of religion as a motivator for religious terrorism,” occasionally explicitly, but more often by downplaying religious claims as “nothing more than propaganda.” Instead, social, economic and political drivers of terrorism are prioritised.
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Abstract: An unusual feature of the social scientific study of religious terrorism is the erasure of religiosity as a significant motivational factor. This article systematically delineates and criticizes the presence of this peculiar interpretive preference, demonstrating that it is methodologically suspect and theoretically and empirically unhelpful. There are two parts to the critique. Part I (this article), discusses three foundational aspects of the argument: (1) it delineates ten conditions of the critique, to avoid predictable misunderstandings; (2) it specifies three methodological reasons for considering the motivational claims of religious terrorists as potentially important and valid data; and (3) it surveys the history of the study of religious terrorism to identify some extra-methodological influences that may have truncated the analysis of the religious motivations for religious terrorism. Part II (the next article), examines three types of arguments commonly used to minimize the role of religiosity in motivating religious terrorism. Identifying the arguments by the primary interpretive errors they rely on, some arguments (1) mistakenly treat the religious background and knowledge of homegrown jihadists as a sound indicator of their religiosity; others (2) inappropriately apply a modern Western normative conception of religion to homegrown jihadists; and some arguments (3) rely on an overly dichotomized conception of the relationship of social processes and ideology in the process of radicalization. The critique ends with consideration of alternative perspectives, offering a more refined conception of the role of ideology, and more specifically religiosity, in the determination of the actions of religious terrorists.
Notes:
Dawson (2021a:3): As evidence of the bias against taking religious claims seriously, cites a widely reported MI5 study based on interviews with hundreds of Islamist extremists in the UK. According to media reports, the study found that “‘a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalization,’ and that a ‘large number’ of the extremists studied ‘were discovered to be little more than religious novices.’” Argues that there was little evidence, “in principle and empirically,” to support these claims [arguably, these offer support to the idea that identity is important to ideology: jihadist ideology is attractive to people who are going through some kind of identity transformation and actively seeking new meanings, rather than people who have set identities already.] Argues that the evidence actually supports the opposite: if pre-existing identities act as a barrier against radicalisation, then (2021a:11) “clearly beliefs and ideas matter. One cannot have it both ways, choosing, on some unstated basis, when they matter and when they do not. Similarly, it is common to observe that ex-jihadists rarely abandon their religious beliefs and commitments altogether, even when they disengage. It is also common to argue that countering violent extremism programs should aim to achieve disengagement rather than full deradicalization, since it is so hard to change the ideology of participants. How, then, is it logical to assume that these same religious commitments played no significant role in motivating their actions?”