Friction ─ How Radicalization Happens to Them and Us

Since 9/11, we have heard a refrain from analysts and policy makers that equates terrorism with Islam, and focuses on the cultural clash between the traditional Muslim and modern Western culture. This view of terrorism is cripplingly narrow. Terrorism is widespread, both historically and geopolitically, and has strikingly different incarnations in different times and places. Terrorism, which is an extreme form of radicalization, cannot be explained by religious fanaticism or political disagreements between the West and Muslim world.

Friction: How Radicalization Happens to Them and Us identifies the 12 mechanisms of political radicalization that move individuals, groups, and mass publics to increased sympathy and support for political violence. It addresses urgent questions: What makes someone become a lone-wolf terrorist? How does martyrdom mobilize new sympathizers and supporters? When do terrorists count on government over-reaction to raise support for terrorism? Is there a 'conveyor belt' from legal activism to illegal political action and terrorism? Is radical Islam the 'center of gravity' of current jihadist threats? Written by two psychologists who are acknowledged radicalization experts and consultants to the Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies, Friction draws on a pattern of terrorism that played out over a century ago in imperial Russia to illustrate the 12 mechanisms of radicalization and illuminate the strikingly similar patterns of group and individual behavior unfolding today. Taken together, the case histories from the past and present eras show how unexceptional people are moved to exceptional violence in the conflict between states and non-state groups. This sweeping, absorbing narrative provides the context, depth, and insight needed to recognize the psychology behind radicalization, with hope for those working towards peace.

Clark McCauley is Rachel C. Hale Professor of Sciences and Mathematics and Co-Director of the Solomon Asch Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Bryn Mawr College. He received his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1970. With Dan Chirot he co-authored Why Not Kill Them All? The Logic and Prevention of Mass Political Murder, published by Princeton University Press in 2006. He is founding editor of the journal Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict: Pathways toward Terrorism and Genocide.

Sophia Moskalenko is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (NC-START) and a consultant with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. She received her Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2004. Her research and publications have focused on group identification, political activism, radicalization, and terrorism.