caa a22 4500 606167870 CHVBK 20210128100704.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20150701xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s11127-015-0261-z doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s11127-015-0261-z Al Qaeda at the bar: coordinating ideologues and mercenaries in terrorist organizations [Elektronische Daten] [Kjell Hausken, Sheheryar Banuri, Dipak Gupta, Klaus Abbink] Most terrorist groups have limited lifespans. A number of scholars and casual observers have noted that terrorist organizations often are comprised of two types of participants: ideologues or "true believers” dedicated to the group's cause, and mercenaries, who are adept at raising money through illegal means. The latter are interested primarily in their personal gains and have relatively little ideological commitment. Terrorist groups need both participants in order to function effectively. The purpose of the study is to understand the impact of communication on the compositions of terrorist groups. Three experimental treatments consider a coordination problem, and focus on the behavior of the mercenaries. Participants choose whether or not to participate in a terrorist attack. Payoffs are U-shaped in the number of participants, and increase with the number of successful attacks. The treatments allow communication between a leader and frontline fighters ("leader” treatment) or among the frontline fighters themselves ("communication” treatment). In the first treatment, a group leader can post messages to the members, which has a 19% coordination success rate. For the communication treatment, all participants can post messages anonymously to each other, which yields a 27% coordination success rate. By contrast, the baseline ("no communication” treatment) shows a success rate of 11%. We conclude from our experimental evidence that disrupting communications among the frontline fighters is more effective in terminating terrorist organizations. Springer Science+Business Media New York, 2015 Terrorism nationallicence Terrorist organizations nationallicence Ideologues nationallicence Mercenaries nationallicence Laboratory experiment nationallicence Coordination nationallicence Hausken Kjell Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stavanger, 4036, Stavanger, Norway aut Banuri Sheheryar School of Economics, University of East Anglia, NR4 7TJ, Norwich, UK aut Gupta Dipak Department of Political Science, San Diego State University, 92129, San Diego, CA, USA aut Abbink Klaus Department of Economics, Monash University, 3800, Melbourne, VIC, Australia aut Public Choice Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 164/1-2(2015-07-01), 57-73 0048-5829 164:1-2<57 2015 164 11127 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-015-0261-z text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-015-0261-z text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Hausken Kjell Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stavanger, 4036, Stavanger, Norway aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Banuri Sheheryar School of Economics, University of East Anglia, NR4 7TJ, Norwich, UK aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Gupta Dipak Department of Political Science, San Diego State University, 92129, San Diego, CA, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Abbink Klaus Department of Economics, Monash University, 3800, Melbourne, VIC, Australia aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Public Choice Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 164/1-2(2015-07-01), 57-73 0048-5829 164:1-2<57 2015 164 11127