RMIT University

An Analysis of the Effect of Ideology on the
Life Expectancy of Terrorist Organisations

Anthony J. Wragg

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Engineering (systems engineering).

Department of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
June 2008

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my thesis supervisors Professor John Mo and Dr. Balaram Das for their encouragement and guidance. My sincere thanks go to Dr. Yongshun Xiao for his valuable help and advice.

Abstract

This thesis investigates the effect of ideology on the survival times of 557 terrorist organisations. While there is broad acceptance of the view that the majority of terrorist organisations are short-lived, quantitative studies of the life spans of terrorist organisations are rare. Terrorist organisations go to great lengths to ensure their survival, with many terrorist organisations viewing their continued existence as a victory in itself. Within the broader field of organisational analysis, an organisation′s age is viewed as a key variable in explaining the development of its structures, functions, and, most importantly, its likelihood of continued survival.
The ideology through which a terrorist organisation views the world is thought by many scholars of terrorism to play an important role in its justification for violence, its strategic intentions, the targets it selects, and its survival prospects. While many typologies of terrorist ideologies have been proposed, one of the most common approaches uses four broad categories of ideological orientation: Separatist/nationalist, left-wing, religious, and right-wing. Separatist/nationalist organisations are widely believed to have much greater longevity than organisations that lack a distinct, territorially bounded, ethno-nationalist base.
The non-parametric and semi-parametric statistical analyses of the life spans of 557 terrorist groups presented in this thesis are complemented by a description of various stage-based life cycle models. The concept of an organisational life cycle is used to highlight and explain some of the frequently observed patterns and behaviours of terrorist organisations as they form, grow, peak, fragment, and fail. This provides the contextual background to the quantitative analysis. This thesis emphasises a longitudinal approach to understanding terrorist organisations. The concepts presented are intended to convey an understanding of how the simple

passing of time can radically alter a terrorist organisation′s power structure, operating environment, range of targets, and rationale for using violence.

The data analysed in this thesis were gathered from authoritative online databases, reference books, and peer-reviewed journals. A list of 557 terrorist organisations that had begun their campaigns of violence between the years 1960 and 2003 (inclusive) was compiled. Details of the organisation′s ideology, the year it first claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack, and the year it last claimed responsibility for an attack, were recorded. Organisations that had continued to engage in violence beyond the year 2003 had their life spans censored at 2003, the study′s cut-off date. For the purposes of this study, the length of time, in years, separating a terrorist organisation′s first and last claimed attacks is considered to be its life span.

Non-parametric Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that 53% of the organisations in the sample did not have life spans greater than one year. Kaplan-Meier analysis also showed that of those organisations that survived beyond their first year, approximately 50% had failed by their tenth, a figure that is close to that suggested by earlier research. Semi-parametric Cox proportional hazards regression was used to evaluate the effect of ideological orientation on the life spans of terrorist organisations. Overall, there was a significant association between ideological orientation and survival time (in years) among terrorist organisations, 2(4, N = 557) = 42.8, p < 0.0001. While the data′s limitations made definitive conclusions difficult, the widely-held views among scholars of terrorism of the longer life expectancy of separatist/nationalist organisations, and the high rates of failure among new terrorist organisations, were supported by the results presented in this thesis.

Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION 1
2. LITERATURE REVIEW 13
2.1 The Organisational Life Cycle 13
2.2 The Organisational Life Span 18
3. TERRORISM THROUGH AN OPEN SYSTEMS FRAMEWORK 22
3.1 The Organisation as a Machine 22
3.2 The Organisation as an Organism 24
3.3 General Systems Theory: Organisations as Open Systems 26
3.4 Terrorist Organisations as Open Systems 30
3.5 Open Systems and Organisational Longevity 33
4. TERRORISM AS AN EXTENSION OF POLITICS 36
4.1 Terrorist Organisations as Specialised Political Parties 36
4.2 An Ideological Taxonomy of Terrorist Organisations 39
4.2.1 Separatist/nationalist Terrorist Organisations 40
4.2.2 Left-wing Terrorist Organisations 41
4.2.3 Religious Terrorist Organisations 42
4.2.4 Right-wing Terrorist Organisations 44
4.3 A Structural Taxonomy of Terrorist Organisations 46
4.3.1 Hierarchical Terrorist Organisations 46
4.3.2 Flattening the Hierarchy: Terrorist Networks 50
4.3.3 Hybrids: The Real World of Organisational Structures 54
5. THE LIFE CYCLES OF TERRORIST ORGANISATIONS 58
5.1 Organisational Life Cycles and the Biological Metaphor 58
5.2 Empirical Evidence for Organisational Life Cycles 60
5.3 A Generic Five-Stage Model of an Organisational Life Cycle 62
5.3.1 Start-up 62
5.3.2 Growth 62
5.3.3 Consolidation 62
5.3.4 Diversification 63
5.3.5 Decline 63
5.4 Life Cycle Models of Terrorist Organisations 64
5.4.1 Formation 66
5.4.2 Growth 68
5.4.3 Adapting 69
5.4.4 Decline 72
5.5 Hawks and Doves: An Abridged Life Cycle Model 74
5.6 Organisational Size 76
5.6.1 Organisational Size and Growth 77

5.6.2 Separating the Effects of Organisational Age and Size 79

5.6.3 Size and Growth in Terrorist Organisations 80

5.7 Connecting Qualitative Life Cycles to Quantitative Life Spans 82

6. MEASURING THE LIFE SPANS OF TERRORIST ORGANISATIONS 86

6.1 Methods for Survival Analysis 86

6.1.1 The Survival Function 86

6.1.2 The Hazard Function 87

6.2 Research Design 91

6.3 Non-parametric Analysis of Survival: The Kaplan-Meier Estimate 95

6.4 Semi-Parametric Analysis: Proportional Hazards Regression 100

6.5 Model Fitting Using Cox Regression 102

6.5.1 Cox-Snell Residual Analysis 108

6.5.2 Score Residuals 110

6.5.3 Deviance Residuals 112

6.5.4 Schoenfeld Residuals 113

6.6 Data Limitations 116

7. FUTURE RESEARCH 120

8. CONCLUSION 122

9. REFERENCES 124

APPENDIX A: DISTRIBUTION OF IDEOLOGY 135

APPENDIX B: DISTRIBUTION OF FIRST ATTACKS 136

1. Introduction

While the life spans of well-known terrorist organisations such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Shining Path, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), and Hezbollah can be measured in decades, the majority of terrorist organisations do not survive for more than a year. Al Qaeda′s current diffuse form is often cited as evidence in support of the view that modern terrorist organisations are complex adaptive systems. Yet the high failure rates of newly-formed terrorist organisations indicate that many of them are neither particularly complex nor adaptive. The vast majority of terrorist organisations are small, short-lived, and fail to achieve their stated strategic objectives.

Quantitative studies of the life spans of terrorist organisations are rare. This is a reflection of the difficulty in obtaining reliable longitudinal data on a large number of clandestine organisations, not a dismissal of the importance of studying the factors that influence mortality among terrorist organisations. One of the most widely-cited statistics concerning the life spans of terrorist organisations is David Rapoport′s (1992) suggestion that perhaps as many as 90% of terrorist organisations do not survive beyond their first year of operation. According to Rapoport (1992), of the few terrorist organisations that survived their first year of operation, fewer than 50% would survive until the age of 10. These figures, while approximate, convey the high failure rates experienced by terrorist organisations as they struggle to establish themselves. The high failure rates observed among terrorist organisations parallel the high failure rates seen among new business firms and voluntary organisations.

Many factors influence the life expectancy of a terrorist organisation. The availability of a large pool of potential recruits, external financial support, and safe

1

havens in nearby countries can greatly enhance the survival prospects of a terrorist organisation. The ideology through which a terrorist organisation views the world is also thought to have an important influence on its life span (Cronin, 2006). Gurr (1979), Wilkinson (1979), Crenshaw (1991), and Rapoport (1992) drew attention to the longer life expectancies of terrorist organisations that use separatist/nationalist appeals to mobilise support and justify their violence. The distinct ethno-nationalist base available to a separatist/nationalist organisation confers considerable benefits in terms of its long-term viability.

The effect of ideology on a terrorist organisation′s life expectancy can be felt through the types of targets it attacks. The wrong choice of target can be fatal to a terrorist organisation (Bell, 1998). Egregious and indiscriminate attacks can result in the rapid withdrawal of crucial resources and support from the organisation′s repulsed constituents. Mistakes and disagreements over whom or what to target can cause irreconcilable internal schisms within terrorist organisations. Left-wing terrorist organisations are believed to exercise more care in the selection of targets in order to avoid harming members of the proletariat they claim to represent (Karber & Mengel, 1983; Fine, 2008). The disinclination to indiscriminate attacks among many left-wing terrorist organisations might enhance their survival prospects, as indiscriminate attacks often result in a loss of support from sympathisers and moderate members. While analysing the characteristics of a non-random sample of 77 terrorist organisations, Crenshaw (1991) noticed that left-wing and separatist/nationalist organisations appeared to be similarly well-represented among the 47 organisations that had survived for at least 10 years. Terrorist organisations mobilised around a religious ideology are believed to be much less discriminating in their targeting than secular organisations (Fine, 2008), a factor which, prima facie, has the potential to lead to rapid losses of support among their constituents and, as a result, higher rates of organisational failure.

2

A terrorist organisation′s political goals and ideological imperatives are more likely to play a dominant role as the drivers of violence in the early stages of its life cycle. As the organisation ages, however, intra-organisational dynamics frequently displace ideology as the primary driver of violence (Oots, 1989). This implies that steps taken to ameliorate the grievance that provided the original stimulus for the formation of a terrorist organisation might actually accomplish very little if enough intra-organisational momentum has already been gained (Creshaw, 1985). This highlights the importance of understanding terrorist organisations from a longitudinal perspective. Strategies and tactics that show great promise when applied to newer terrorist organisations can fail dismally when applied to organisations in the middle or later stages of their life cycles. Sageman (2004) pointed out that intra-group dynamics can dominate the decision-making of contemporary jihadi cells from their very inception, especially if a terrorist cell′s formation was the result of a group of friends that gradually became radicalised. Wilson′s (1973) influential theory that survival was the overriding goal of any political organisation (and this includes terrorist organisations) can be contrasted against the actions of the 2005 London suicide bombers, who did not plan for their group to survive the bombings they carried out.

While there is no universally accepted life cycle model for terrorist organisations, descriptions of the stages through which many terrorist organisations pass as they age have been provided by Karber and Mengel (1983), Long (1990), Bell (1998), Sprinzak (1998), and Roberts (2003). Several models of terrorist organisational life cycles have quite similar stages to the four and five-stage life cycle models that emerged from studies of legal commercial organisations. Karber and Mengel′s (1983) and Roberts′ (2003) life cycle models emphasised the important behavioural thresholds terrorist organisations often cross when they realise that their tactical success has not translated into strategic success. The large variation in circumstances, goals, and structures among terrorist organisations mean that a

3

single life cycle model would be hard-pressed to cover them all. Sprinzak (1998) developed a life cycle model that described three distinct stages that many left-wing terrorist organisations pass through. The tendency for terrorist organisations to become less discriminating in their attacks as they age, to polarise along moderate and extreme lines, and to replace ideology with cohesion as the dominant driver of their violence emerge as leitmotifs from the various life cycle models discussed in this thesis.

The circumstances surrounding the formation of a terrorist group can vary widely. Terrorist organisations can form as a result of an increasingly radical faction hiving off from a larger, non-violent protest organisation. They can also form as a result of a merger between two or more organisations. Large terrorist organisations in their death throes can produce many smaller, distinct splinter groups, differentiated from each other on the basis of religion, geographic location, goals, and leadership rivalries. The sudden appearance of several radical splinter groups can complicate the environment for counter-terrorist planners and analysts. More importantly, it can lead to an increase in overall violence, as the smaller organisations ruthlessly compete with each other for recruits, publicity, and influence (de Mesquita, 2006). Terrorist organisations can end in as many ways as they begin. Some destroy themselves from within, some are eliminated by the authorities, while others decide to abandon terrorism as a strategy of political change. Some, like the African National Congress (ANC), succeed in achieving their goals and have no further use for terrorist tactics. Ross and Gurr (1989) pointed out that some terrorist organisations fail simply because of the members′ waning commitment to the organisation and its goal.

Agreement among scholars and governments on a definition of what constitutes terrorism has been, and is expected to remain, an elusive goal. While discussing Schmid and Yongman′s (1988) influential review of terrorism research, Silke (2004)

4