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Unemployment and Violent Extremism: Evidence from Daesh Foreign Recruits

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  • Mohamed Abdel Jelil

    (World Bank)

  • Kartika Bhatia
  • Anne Brockmeyer
  • Quy-Toan Do
  • Cl´ement Joubert

Abstract

Transnational terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State (also known as Daesh) have shown an ability to attract radicalized individuals from many countries to join their ranks, and perpetrate attacks around the world. Using a novel data set that reports countries of residence and educational levels of a large sample of Daesh’s foreign recruits, we find that a lack of economic opportunities – measured by unemployment rates disaggregated by country and education level – explains foreign enrollment in the terrorist organization, especially for countries that are geographically closer to Syria.

Suggested Citation

  • Mohamed Abdel Jelil & Kartika Bhatia & Anne Brockmeyer & Quy-Toan Do & Cl´ement Joubert, 2019. "Unemployment and Violent Extremism: Evidence from Daesh Foreign Recruits," Working Papers 1293, Economic Research Forum, revised 2019.
    • Handle: RePEc:erg:wpaper:1293
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    Cited by:

    1. Nabin, Munirul H. & Chowdhury, Mohammad Tarequl H. & Bhattacharya, Sukanto & Sgro, Pasquale M., 2022. "Terrorism and uneven economic development," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    2. Muhammad Qasim & Zahid Pervaiz & Amatul Razzaq Chaudhary, 2020. "Do Poverty and Income Inequality Mediate the Association Between Agricultural Land Inequality and Human Development?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 151(1), pages 115-134, August.
    3. Nicola, Brugali & Paolo, Buonanno & Mario, Gilli, 2018. "Political Regimes and the Determinants of Terrorism and Counter-terrorism," Working Papers 384, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised 13 Jul 2018.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F51 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Conflicts; Negotiations; Sanctions
    • E26 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Informal Economy; Underground Economy
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

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