Engineers of Jihad: The Curious Connection between Violent Extremism and Education Paperback – November 28, 2017

This is a fascinating book. It is thought provoking, analytical rigorous, and carefully argued. It does not demystify terrorism in all of its aspects, but it certainly sheds interesting light on the problem in helpful ways.

Many Islamic radicals are better educated than their peers, and a good proportion attended college - with many becoming engineers (Mohammad Atta, Osama bin Laden). The strange part about the latter is that it is a profession we would not naturally associated with a religious movement. Not surprisingly, the authors immediately jump into providing an informal list of such individuals - over a period of decades and a wide geographic area in the Middle East.Then, taking a more scientific and structured approach, they compile a list of 404 members of violent Islamist groups from 30 nationalities. Of that group, they found biographical information for 326 cases and educational information for 284. Of those, 26 had less than a secondary education, 62 completed secondary education (including madrasas), and 196 had higher education (at least 37 studied in Western countries). The share with higher education worked out to 69%. In 1986-87, when many of the individuals were studied, tertiary enrollment rates in the Arab world averaged 12.2%, leaving little doubt that violent Islamist radicals overall were vastly more educated than their compatriots.The authors were also able to find the subject of study for 178 of the 196 cases engaged in higher education at some point. The second most numerous group was comprised of 34 individuals who pursued Islamic studies - not surprising. However, the group that came first was engineers - 78 out of the 178, followed by 14 in medicine, 12 in economics and business, and 7 in natural sciences. Overall, the individuals who studied for engineering, medicine, and science represented 56.7%. Among the 42 of the 78 cases for whom they could find the precise discipline, electrical, civil, and computer-related studies predominated.The preceding pattern generalized except for Saudi Arabia (lower proportion of engineers) and Singapore/Indonesia (higher proportion). (Much less information was available regarding jihadists born/raised in the West. Again, however, engineering was overrepresented - to an even higher degree.)

Very informative and enlightening on the science behind political extremism and I believe a key book in understanding the link between political ideology and our psychological profiles.

La sociologia del jihad, sia quello nato in Europa che quello esploso in Medio Oriente. L'identikit del nuovo terrorista islamista, nato da una lunga ricerca del professor Diego Gambetta, uno dei tanti italiani che hanno fatto scuola all'estero e sono sconosciuti in patria, è il contrario del luogo comune. L'analisi, su centinaia di casi, delle radici sociali e culturali dell'estremismo, porta a rivelazioni sorprendenti - per esempio, quasi la metà dei terroristi aveva studiato ingegneria, vedi il titolo - e permette di avere chiavi di lettura illuminanti, che disinnescano le paure alimentate da razzismo e guerre di religione. Un testo che dovrebbe essere letto da chi cerca di fermare il terrorismo, dai poliziotti ai politici.

This is an excellent scholarly book. It is a slow read, but it is interesting and quite compelling.Thank you.

Diego Gambetta et Steffen Hertog ont collecté beaucoup d'informations biographiques sur toutes sortes d'extrémistes de droite ou de gauche, ainsi que sur un grand nombre de terroristes islamistes. Le fait peu connu qui ressort de ces données, c'est que les ingénieurs sont massivement sur-représentés parmi les extrémistes islamistes ou d'extrême-droite (néo-nazis, suprémacistes aryens, etc.), par rapport à leur fréquence dans la population normale. Leur efficacité s'exprime pleinement dans le massacre à grande échelle. Au contraire, les groupuscules d'extrême gauche des années 1970-80, qui se spécialisaient dans les assassinats ciblés, étaient surtout constitués de gens ayant une formation classique ou en sciences sociales, et presque jamais des ingénieurs. Les auteurs réfutent rapidement l'idée que ce biais serait dû aux préférences des organisations extrêmistes qui sélectionneraient en priorité des ingénieurs pour leur efficacité. En fait, ils sont souvent les fondateurs ou les leaders de ces organisations. Est-ce la formation d'ingénieur qui expliquerait ce penchant pour la violence politique islamiste ou d'extrême droite? Les auteurs répondent par la négative en s'appuyant sur les traits de personnalité identifiés par les psychologues à propos de ces gens-là. Ils trouvent que ce sont les jeunes hommes à tendance autoritariste et conformiste qui s'auto-sélectionnent dans les études d'ingénieur, et les plus pur-et-durs d'entre eux risquent de dériver vers l'extrêmisme politique violent. Peu de femmes sont attirées par ces études d'ingénieur et cette violence politique à grande échelle. Ces résultats sont troublants, et éveillent probablement chez chacun de nous des souvenirs d'expériences déplaisantes d'interaction avec des ingénieurs hautains et cassants dans nos vies professionnelles. En fait, ces données ne concernent qu'une petite minorité d'entre eux qui dérivent vers l'extrêmisme politique, bien qu'elles signalent un tropisme beaucoup plus marqué dans ce sens chez les ingénieurs que dans toute autre formation intellectuelle.

The appeal of Islamic extremism to secular minded engineering graduates is an interesting topic but this book ultimately fails to go beyond the academic surface level of statistical analysis and broad sweeping comparisons with completely different ideologies (nazism, anarcho-terrorism, communism).There are some great glimpses of specific developmental and political issues in the Middle East that would explain why the well educated meritocracy would also feel the most deprived and marginalized in times of crony capitalism.But instead of going deeper into case studies, history and politics the authors go broader, throwing more and more random numbers and hypothesis testing with other completely unrelated movements.The book isn't very long either, and overall feels like an academic paper stretched way too thin. Disappointing.