Publication

Feb 2016

This paper focuses on what compels young people to search for meaning in war. It compares the individual profiles of foreign fighters currently in Syria to those who fought in the Spanish Civil War, and then analyzes the recruitment patterns that enticed them to fight in the first place. As a result of his analysis, the paper's author concludes that the most promising way to address the foreign fighter problem is to work at the structural level. While groups of cognitively or behaviorally radicalized youth have emerged continuously throughout history, foreign fighters appear in large numbers only when the ideological and organizational structures are in place to facilitate their mobilization for war.

Download English (PDF, 19 pages, 405 KB)
Author Dietrich Jung
Series IAI Documents and Working Papers
Publisher Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI)
Copyright © 2016 Istituto Affari Internazionali
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