Title: Determining the ideological orientation of terrorist organisations: the effects of government repression and organised crime

Authors: Kjell Hausken; Dipak K. Gupta

Addresses: Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stavanger, 4036 Stavanger, Norway ' Department of Political Science, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92129, USA

Abstract: The paper develops a model about the coalition between terrorism and crime. An organisation can get funded by a benefactor which enables focusing on terrorist objectives, or funded by criminal mercenaries which decrease the terrorist organisation's ideological purity. We show how a balance is struck between these two concerns. We support empirically the two hypotheses that terrorist organisations' ideological orientation depends positively on steady funding by a benefactor and on the government's ability to impose sanctions on their activities. Otherwise terrorist organisations transform into criminal organisations. A terrorist organisation altruistically provides public goods for the community. A criminal organisation, however, provides private goods for itself. We offer examples of organisations retaining their terrorist ideology, and organisations transforming into criminal organisations.

Keywords: terrorist organisations; organised crime; terrorism theory; terrorist motivation; ideologues; criminal mercenaries; capital funding; ideological orientation; government repression; benefactor funding; ideological purity; terrorist ideology; criminal organisations; government sanctions.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPP.2016.075229

International Journal of Public Policy, 2016 Vol.12 No.1/2, pp.71 - 97

Received: 07 Aug 2014
Accepted: 14 Aug 2015
Published online: 08 Mar 2016 *

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