MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School
Certificate for Approving the Dissertation
We hereby approve the Dissertation of
Katherine Wynn Mitakides
Candidate for the Degree:
Doctor of Philosophy
Director (Dr. John Rothgeb)
Reader (Dr. Venelin Ganev)
Reader (Dr. Warren Mason)
Graduate School Representative (Dr. Sheldon Anderson)
ABSTRACT
STAYIN’ ALIVE: A MIXED-METHODS STUDY OF THE INCONSISTENT EFFECTS OF LEADERSHIP DECAPITATION ON TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS
by Katherine Wynn Mitakides
The purpose of this sequential mixed methods study is to provide policymakers with a more- complete understanding of the varying effectiveness of leadership decapitation as a counterterrorism technique. To this end, my central research question asks, “why do certain terrorist groups endure despite experiencing leadership decapitation?”. Drawing on previous studies of terrorism and theories of organizational behavior, I suggest that a high degree of bureaucratization and the provision of social services reduce the destabilizing effects of leadership decapitation by decreasing a group’s functional dependence on any single individual to secure the resources necessary to survive. The first phase of this study is a qualitative exploration of two existing explanations of organizational endurance, bureaucracy and incentive- based organizational maintenance, that should, prima facie, explain leadership decapitation’s varying outcomes. I use a deviant case study of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, one of the oldest and most important politically-violent groups in history, to illustrate existing explanations’ weaknesses and to find evidence linking my proposed characteristics to the outcome of survival. Based on my qualitative findings, I generate a set of hypotheses about the relationship between select organization-level factors and the effectiveness of leadership decapitation. I then test these hypotheses on a unique dataset of 138 terrorist organizations using both descriptive and binary logistic regression statistical analyses to determine their applicability to a wider class of cases. The quantitative results indicate that my hypotheses are partially supported by the data: While providing social services is by far the strongest predictor of an organization’s likelihood of surviving leadership decapitation, the relationship between bureaucracy and survival was found to be non-significant. After discussing the implications of these findings, I present a preliminary set of counterterrorism strategies that target terrorist organizations’ means of organizational maintenance rather than their leaders, and then conclude with suggestions for future research.
STAYIN’ ALIVE: A MIXED-METHODS STUDY OF THE INCONSISTENT EFFECTS OF LEADERSHIP DECAPITATION ON TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS
A DISSERTATION
Submitted to the Faculty of
Miami University in partial
fulfillment for the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Political Science
by
Katherine Wynn Mitakides
Miami University
Oxford, Ohio
2017
Dissertation Advisor: Dr. John Rothgeb
©
Katherine Wynn Mitakides
2017
Table of Contents Chapter One ...... 1
Introduction ...... 1
Previous Research on Leadership Decapitation ...... 3
Research Question and Argument ...... 5
Research Design ...... 5
Chapter Outline ...... 7
Summary ...... 8
Chapter Two: Literature Review ...... 10
Terrorism “Studies”...... 10
Approaches: Structural, Psychological, or Rational Choice ...... 11
Structural Theories ...... 11
Psychological Theories ...... 12
Rational Choice Theories ...... 14
How Terrorism Ends ...... 17
Common Themes ...... 20
Leadership Decapitation ...... 23
Organizational Endurance—The Missing Piece ...... 27
Existing Explanations of Organizational Endurance ...... 28
Weber’s Theories of Authority and Bureaucracy ...... 31
Incentives and Incentive Theory ...... 37
Terrorist Organizations and Social Services ...... 38
Conclusion ...... 38
Chapter Three: Methodologies ...... 40
Introduction ...... 40
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Objectives ...... 40
Research Design ...... 41
Mixed-Methods Research ...... 41
Specific Advantages of the Sequential Exploratory Model ...... 42
An Organizational Approach ...... 43
Phase One: Qualitative Analysis ...... 45
Phase Two: Quantitative Analysis ...... 49
Dataset, Population, and Sample ...... 49
Instrumentation ...... 53
Statistical Tests ...... 54
Chapter 4: A Case Study of the Society of Muslim Brothers (Egypt) ...... 57
Introduction ...... 57
A Note About the Muslim Brotherhood and Terrorism ...... 57
Organizational Attributes of Interest ...... 58
The Society of Muslim Brothers, 1928-1979 ...... 60
Background ...... 61
The Founding of the Brotherhood ...... 62
The First Dissolution and Death (1944-1948) ...... 64
Restoration and Succession ...... 70
The Brotherhood under Nasir (1952-1956) ...... 73
The Great Mihna ...... 81
Reorganization: 1957-1973 ...... 84
Organizational Structure ...... 90
Bureaucratic Development ...... 95
The Role of Social Services ...... 97
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Types of Social Services ...... 98
The Function of Social Services ...... 102
Conclusion ...... 106
Chapter Five: Quantitative Analysis ...... 108
Introduction ...... 108
Variables in the Equation ...... 108
Dependent Variable: The Effectiveness of Leadership Decapitation ...... 108
Key Independent Variables: Bureaucracy Score and Provides Social Services ...... 112
Other Independent Variables ...... 113
Hypotheses and Tests ...... 115
Findings ...... 117
Model One: Bureaucracy Score & Provides Social Services ...... 120
Model Two: The Nature of the Group ...... 121
Model Three: Ideology ...... 121
Model Four: Founder and Multiple Decapitations ...... 121
Model Five: Collective Effects ...... 122
H3: Model One ...... 122
Chapter Six: Conclusion ...... 124
Introduction: The (Flawed) Logic of Leadership Decapitation ...... 124
Knowledge Gaps ...... 125
This Study’s Contribution ...... 126
Research Design Advantages ...... 127
Qualitative Analysis ...... 127
Quantitative Analysis ...... 132
Discussion ...... 134
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Implications and Recommendations for Counterterrorism Policy ...... 136
Questioning the Utility of Leadership Decapitation ...... 138
Suggestions for Future Research ...... 139
Conclusion ...... 141
Bibliography ...... 142
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LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1 AVERAGE LIFESPAN OF TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS BY EXPERIENCED LEADERSHIP DECAPITATION ...... 117 TABLE 2 MEANS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR VARIABLES UNDER INVESTIGATION ...... 118 TABLE 3 REGRESSION ANALYSIS FOR H1 AND H2 ...... 119 TABLE 4 REGRESSION ANALYSIS FOR H3 ...... 123
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LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1 CLASSIFICATION OF GROUPS BY THE EFFECTIVENESS OF LEADERSHIP DECAPITATION ...... 111 FIGURE 2 CODING FOR DEPENDENT VARIABLE EFFECTIVENESS OF LEADERSHIP DECAPITATION ...... 112
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Acknowledgements I am fortunate to have had the support of many wonderful individuals throughout the duration of this dissertation and I am forever indebted to all of them for seeing me through to its end. First, I would like thank the members of my committee for their endless patience. My chair, Dr. John Rothgeb, was my rock throughout this process. He was always there to remind me of what was most important (getting it done!) and, when necessary, to prevent me from going “a bridge too far.” To my first reader, Dr. Venelin Ganev: Thank you for reading and offering feedback on every version of this project. Your words were always encouraging and enlightening. I would also like to thank Dr. Warren Mason, whose support of this project came at a critical time. I am forever grateful that you agreed to sit on this committee; it was both a pleasure and an honor to have you as a reader. Finally, to Dr. Sheldon Anderson: thank you for being willing to go above and beyond to ensure the completion of this dissertation. Additionally, throughout my academic career, there have been many individuals without whom I could not have made or completed this journey. I would like to first recognize and thank Dr. Martha Crenshaw, whose work served as the inspiration for this dissertation. To Dean Thomas Mesner at Hollins University: Thank you for never giving up hope, and for never letting me give it up, either. I would also like to acknowledge Dr. Christopher Bradley. What started as a simple advisor-advisee relationship has turned into a full-fledged friendship. I could not have finished this dissertation without you. To my colleagues Diana Liu and Trey Orndorff: Thank you both for countless hours of statistics tutoring. You were there for me even after we had all gone our separate ways. Lastly, I would like to give special recognition to Dr. Donna Schlagheck. When people ask me why I chose to study terrorism, I always say, “It chose me.” The truth is, Donna, you chose me. It was in 2003, in your office, as your research assistant, that this project was born. On a simple post-it note, I jotted down a single phrase, “effects of identifiable leader?” Ten years later, this dissertation is my answer to that question. I cannot thank you enough for all you have given me. You are more than a mentor; you are a role model and a friend. Finally, I would like to thank my family. To my parents: Without you, nothing in my life would be possible. Your unwavering, unstoppable support, love, and faith have been the driving force behind my success, from my first day at Dr. John Hole elementary, to my last day at Miami University. It was you who taught me what it means to work, to achieve, and to succeed, and it is on your shoulders I will stand when I accept my degree. I love you both. Lastly, I would like to thank my son, Hutt: This, like everything else I do in life, is for you.
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Chapter One Introduction What explains the inconsistency of leadership decapitation as an effective counterterrorism technique? Why do some organizations collapse after the death or capture of just one man, while others show increasing resolve in the face of repeated high-value target losses? The death of Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011 once again raised questions about the highly controversial yet increasingly common practice of leadership decapitation, which is the killing or capture of a terror group’s leader or leaders. The strike against bin Laden was an undeniable victory for the United States; nevertheless, it produced disparate responses about what his death will actually mean for the future of al-Qaeda and, consequently, for the United States. Many senior government and military officials hail bin Laden’s death as a decisive blow to al-Qaeda by noting that his absence cripples the group’s operational capacity and puts it on an irreversible path of decline (The White House 2011). Other analysts, largely outside the government, disagree with this position and instead claim that the event’s significance is largely symbolic and not likely to impair al-Qaeda’s1 ability to continue their attacks (Haass 2011). The uncertainty about the effects of bin Laden’s death is due in part to the inconsistent record of leadership decapitation2 as an effective means of collapsing terrorist organizations. The policy and practice of leadership decapitation is grounded in the belief that leaders are critical to the formation, operation, and survival of terrorist organizations. Conventional wisdom on the topic has been that if the leader is removed, the organization will (eventually) dissolve. In practice, however, this has not always been the case. For example, whereas Peru’s Sendero Luminosa (Shining Path) suffered severe organizational disintegration following the capture of its leader, the Palestinian group Hamas remained active and, in fact, made significant gains in strength and popularity, despite repeated losses of leadership including the group’s founders. Even with its spotty record, the practice of targeting leaders has been a common counterterrorism policy that has been employed for decades. Israeli Defense Forces began openly targeting Hamas leaders in the 1990s, though it is widely speculated that the IDF have been using this tactic since the 1970s. Spain, Great Britain, Turkey, Russia, and Peru have also openly
1 This includes al-Qaeda and its acting affiliates. 2 This term is used interchangeably with “targeted killings,” and “leadership targeting.” 1
targeted suspected terrorist leaders, though the effects of these operations on the groups themselves vary widely. After the devastating attacks of September 11, 2001, U.S. government and military officials made leadership decapitation one of the primary methods for combatting transnational terrorist organizations. “Targeting terrorist leaders” was listed first among the four central tenets of the 2003 National Strategy for Combatting Terrorism (The White House 2003). Nevertheless, it was clear even then that policymakers were aware of the practice’s unreliability. “The loss of leadership can cause many organizations to collapse. Some groups, however, are more resilient and can promote new leadership should the original fall or fail,” (Bush 2003, 6). Other reports echoed this uncertainty; the 9/11 Commission Report revealed that many government agencies remained unsure what effect, if any, removing a leader would have on a terrorist organization (Kean et al. 2004). Indeed, the 9/11 Commission noted that, in some instances, removing a leader might exacerbate the situation. Irrespective of these misgivings, leadership decapitation remains the cornerstone of America’s counterterrorism policy (Obama 2010). From a political perspective, this decision is understandable, given that targeting the leaders of terrorist groups is a tangible means of appearing decisive and dynamic to a public that quickly disfavors leaders who seem “soft” on terrorism. Yet the public can also grow weary of long, expensive, and seemingly unproductive wars. As such, removing a high-profile terrorist leader gives a president that rare “high-five” moment or clear “win” in the Global War on Terror, a conflict that is often covert and lacks the overly simplistic markers of success that resonate with the American public. In the host country, a successful strike against a commonly defined enemy, such as a feared terrorist leader, can often endear an occupying force to its host population. Conversely, too many failed attacks can carry high costs. Repeated “misses” can make a president appear incompetent, undermining his authority at home and abroad. Furthermore, with each strike, the risk of creating backlash among the local population increases. Repeated strikes can engender frustration among those who are already suffering disrupted lives, and may turn members of a local population into terrorist sympathizers, or in the worst case, terrorist recruits. Recognizing there may be various motivations for continuing to use leadership decapitation as a part of an overall counterterrorism strategy—revenge, political perception,
2
tangible markers to gain operational funding—the current inability to explain the inconsistent outcomes of the practice calls for further and more nuanced study of the problem. Previous Research on Leadership Decapitation Research on leadership decapitation is relatively young and still very much in the developmental phase. Early research on terrorism focused on the psychology of individual terrorists and terrorist leaders. From this early research a consensus emerged that, like many other illegal, clandestine, and violent organizations, terrorist groups were built and held together by a charismatic, albeit psychotic, leader and, consequently, would collapse if these leaders were removed (Oots 1986; Post 1991; Mayer 2001). Several recent quantitative studies, however, show no clear pattern of either success or failure for group collapse due to leadership removal (Jordan 2009; Mannes 2008; Price 2010). In fact, these recent studies are themselves inconsistent insofar as they contain contrasting and often conflicting results that ultimately leave the question of the technique’s efficacy unresolved.3 One inherent weakness of existing leadership decapitation research is an overreliance on Max Weber’s “charismatic authority” model (M. Weber 1947). According to this model, members recognize the authority of an individual because of exceptional, extraordinary, and/or super-human character traits (Dow 1978; Gerth and Mills 1946; M. Weber 1978). As opposed to Weber’s other types of authority (these being traditional and rational/legal authority), charismatic authority rests entirely on the personal relationship between a leader and his followers. In fact, it is the followers’ perception of the extraordinariness of his skills, attributes, or characteristics that give the leader his authority. Should their devotion cease, however, the charismatic’s source of authority would vanish and he would no longer be recognized as a legitimate leader. Thus, according to Weber, charismatic authority is inherently unstable and organizations built around it are prone to collapse following the loss of their leader (M. Weber 1978). This is the logic underlying the counterterrorism policy of leadership decapitation. As such, however, it is inherently flawed because, as the evidence shows, not all terror groups end after losing a leader. There are two interrelated explanations for this. First, as will be argued in this dissertation, not all terrorist organizations are organized in the same way. There are important distinctions among terrorist organizations and, as the mixed success of decapitation reveals, few
3 More will be said about the leadership decapitation literature in chapter 2. 3
are completely dependent upon a single, charismatic, or perhaps more appropriately, critical leader. Even among religious terrorist groups, which many authors assume are the most likely to be organized around a charismatic leader, there are variations in structure, recruiting methods, and generating income, all of which may affect how or if leadership decapitation will result in organizational collapse. Second, even if a group was founded on charismatic authority, Weber notes that it is possible for it to survive the loss of its leader by fundamentally changing the nature of its authority, namely, by “becoming either traditionalized or rationalized, or a combination of both” (Weber 1997, 379). Weber calls this process “the routinization of charisma” (Toth 1972; M. Weber 1947, 1978). The routinization of charisma involves not only the institutionalization of a leader’s vision, mission, and/or purpose for the organization, it also, and more importantly, requires that standard operating procedures (i.e. routines) be established, especially for generating the resources necessary to operate (M. Weber 1947). While these are sometimes enacted by the founder, it is often left to his immediate successor to design and implement these plans (Toth 1972). This is one reason why the initial leadership transition is by far the most critical and often determines the fate of the organization (Rubenson 1996). Nevertheless, the vast majority of research on leadership decapitation continues to rely on the “key man” assumption. To date, only two studies suggest alternative theories for the unpredictable effectiveness of leadership decapitation (Jordan 2009; Price 2010), and none offer a viable explanation for organizational endurance. This dissertation attempts to fill that gap by starting with the assumption that while a charismatic leader may be critical to the formation of the organization, as the mixed record of decapitation shows, his role may diminish over time. Moreover, research indicates that terror groups recognize that the centrality of a single leader may be antithetical to their survival; this would account for the proliferation of decentralized, “network”-structured terrorist organizations. Thus, understanding when leaders—even highly visible ones such as Gerry Adams or Yasir Arafat—are not critical to their organization’s operations can lead to more effective and more efficient counterterrorism policies. Furthermore, by correctly identifying the factors that are critical to an organization’s survival, policymakers can formulate counterterrorism strategies that have a greater likelihood of achieving the goal of collapse without risking civilian or military casualties or backlash from the host state or population. 4
Research Question and Argument The existing research on leadership decapitation leaves serious gaps in policymakers’ understanding of the efficacy this unreliable and potentially counterproductive practice. While previous studies, both qualitative and quantitative, have illustrated that the technique of leadership decapitation can be effective, they have failed to explain why it was effective in some cases but not in others. I believe there are two reasons for this: First, existing studies overemphasize the concept of “the leader” and thus, focus almost exclusively on successful cases, i.e., those where leadership loss led to organizational collapse. Second, most of these studies fail to consider the organizational differences among terrorist groups. Much of the research on terrorism, and especially of counterterrorism, assumes that terrorist organizations are uniform entities. Just like other legitimate organizations, however—corporations, universities, and governments—there are notable differences in the ways in which terrorist groups are organized, e.g., their structure, size, modus operandi, etc. What is needed to explain the variation in outcomes is an organizational-level study of leadership decapitation that focuses on groups that endured despite the loss of a leader. This dissertation directly contributes to filling this gap by asking, “why do certain terrorist organizations endure despite experiencing leadership decapitation?” Drawing on previous studies of terrorism and counterterrorism as well as theories of organizational behavior, I suggest that two factors—a high level of bureaucratization and the provision of social services—reduce the destabilizing effects of leadership decapitation by decreasing a group’s functional dependence on any single individual to secure the resources necessary to survive. Research Design While the purpose of all political science research is to acquire knowledge about important problems, it is also meant to have real-world implications that can be used in the practice of solving those problems. Nowhere is this truer than in the areas of terrorism and counterterrorism. Heeding Alexander George’s call to “Bridge the Gap” between the government and academia, the primary goal of this project is to provide policymakers with a more complete understanding of the varying effectiveness of leadership decapitation as a counterterrorism technique. My aim is to contribute to both the academic study of terrorism and to better counterterrorism policy-making by producing a theory-driven, policy-oriented study of leadership decapitation. 5
To do this, I use a sequential mixed methods research design. The first phase of this study is a qualitative exploration of two existing explanations of organizational endurance, bureaucracy and incentive-based organizational maintenance, that should, prima facie, explain leadership decapitation’s varying outcomes. Using a deviant case study of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, one of the oldest and most significant political opposition groups4 in history, I illustrate the weakness of existing explanations, namely their inability to account for endurance, and find evidence of the causal mechanisms that link my proposed organizational characteristics with the outcome of survival. Based on the findings of my qualitative analysis, I generate a set of hypotheses about the relationship between select organization-level factors and the effectiveness of leadership decapitation as a counterterrorism technique. In the second phase, quantitative analyses are used to build on the findings of the case study, specifically to test the relationships observed in the case study to determine their applicability to a wider class of cases. I use two types of statistics, descriptive and binary logistic regression, on a unique dataset of 138 terrorist organizations to determine if the relationships I suggest are significant. I conclude the study by discussing the policy implications of both my qualitative and quantitative findings. I then present a preliminary set of counterterrorism strategies that target terrorist organizations’ means of organizational maintenance rather than their leaders, and close by offering suggestions for future research. The unit of analysis in this study is the organization; thus, throughout my data collection and analysis, I employ an organizational approach.5 This approach is grounded in theories of Organizational Studies and, as such, makes certain fundamental assumptions about terrorism,6 terrorist groups, and how best to analyze both.7 Most importantly, this approach assumes that terrorist organizations are organizations. While terrorist organizations have some distinct characteristics that define them as a “type,” they also have several characteristics that are
4 The question of the Muslim Brotherhood’s status as a “terrorist organization” is addressed in chapter 4. 5 Other works employing the organizational approach to the study of terrorism include: (Asal and Rethemeyer 2008; Crenshaw 1985, 1987; Gates 2006; Mayntz 2004; Oots 1986, 1989; Shapiro 2005). 6 While there have been instances of "lone wolf" terrorism (i.e., the “Unabomber”), these are the exception and not the rule. Overwhelmingly, terrorist acts are carried out by small groups of individuals. Some groups are part of (or backed by) larger movements or political or social organizations, but others are freestanding units and isolate themselves from legitimate political activity. 7 These are discussed at length in chapter 2. 6
common to all non-state organizations. Accepting this facilitates generalizability, thus allowing the researcher to compare terror organizations (which are notoriously difficult to study) with other types of more-transparent organizations and to apply existing theories of organizational behavior to terror group behavior (Oots 1989). In this way, the organizational approach contributes to the development of theory and, consequently, to cumulative knowledge, both of which are important and historically difficult tasks for terrorism researchers (Silke 2004; 2009). Such comparisons must be made with caution, however, because “generalizing about the characteristics of terrorist organizations should not lead to the false assumption that all such organizations are identical” (Crenshaw 1985, 467). Rather—and this is a central argument of this dissertation—different combinations of organizational characteristics and the degrees to which these characteristics vary affect the behavior of terrorist groups, including how they respond to leadership decapitation. Chapter Outline The first chapter of this manuscript provided a scope for the nature of this project. In the next chapter, I review the literature most relevant to this study. I begin with a general review of terrorism studies, outlining the progression from the question of how terrorism begins to the question of how terrorism ends. I then review the current research on leadership decapitation, emphasizing the major gaps within this body of work and suggesting where my work fits in the current agenda. In chapter three, I present my research design. First, I review my research question and restate my argument. Then, I outline my objectives for this project and explain why a sequential mixed methods research design is the most appropriate methodological technique to meet them. I also present the organizational approach and discuss its inherent assumptions. Next, I discuss my qualitative analysis strategy, focusing specifically on the role deviant case studies play in theory building and my decision to use the case of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to generate new hypotheses about organizational endurance. Lastly, I discuss the quantitative portion of my analysis, reviewing how I constructed my unique dataset and describing the specific statistical tests I use to test my hypotheses. I then treat the Society of Muslim Brothers (Egypt) as a deviant case study of leadership decapitation in chapter four. After reviewing the proposed organizational characteristics of interest—a high level of bureaucratization and the provision of social services—I present the 7
prima facie evidence supporting why each should reduce a terrorist organization’s vulnerability to leadership decapitation. Then, using an organizational approach, I give a structured, focused analysis of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that has withstood nearly four decades of state repression, including multiple counts of leadership decapitation. The purpose of the case study is threefold: 1) illustrate the primary weakness of existing theories, i.e., the inability to explain an outcome of survival; 2) to find evidence of causal mechanisms linking my proposed characteristics to the Society’s ability to withstand repeated exposure to leadership loss, and; 3) to guide data collection and analysis in the subsequent quantitative phase, primarily by identifying important variables. In chapter five, I present a set of hypotheses about the relationship between the organization-level factors identified in my qualitative analysis and the effectiveness of leadership decapitation. I use two types of statistical analyses to test these hypotheses on a unique dataset of 138 terrorist organizations. With SPSS software, I use descriptive statistics to examine the data, and identify basic patterns among the variables that are used in the subsequent multivariate analyses. I then use binary logistic regression analysis to assess the significance of key independent variables on the effectiveness of leadership decapitation. In the final chapter, I summarize both my qualitative and quantitative findings. I discuss the extent to which the latter validated important conclusions drawn from the case study and offer possible explanations for instances where proposed relationships were found to be non- significant. I conclude by discussing the implications of my findings for current counterterrorism policies, presenting a preliminary set of alternative strategies, and offering suggestions for future research. Summary Despite a history of mixed results, leadership decapitation remains a key element of U.S. counterterrorism policy. Several recent studies have attempted to explain the conditions under which leadership decapitation will be successful. To date, however, none of the existing research reveals any clear pattern that policymakers might use to identify which groups will be susceptible to this counterterrorism practice. In contrast to these previous works, this study attempts to develop an understanding of why leadership decapitation has collapsed some terrorist organizations but not others. Essentially, I suggest that bureaucratized organizations that provide social services have made themselves less dependent upon specific leaders by finding alternate 8
means of securing the resources necessary to survive. This is not to say that bureaucratized terrorist organizations that provide social services are without “leadership”; to the contrary, there may be several tiers of leaders, each with functionally different roles. Rather, I suggest that these groups have successfully “bureaucratized” away from the highly centralized “cult of personality”-type leadership that characterizes many other terrorist organizations. In this way, these groups are not dependent upon any single “leader” to perform the functions that are critical to a group’s survival. Recognizing that a one-size-fits-all approach, such as leadership targeting, is not a realistic counterterrorism strategy is the first step to preventing the unnecessary expenditure of blood and treasure on measures that are aggressive, alienating, and ultimately unproductive. Moreover, by revealing the factors that are critical to terrorist groups’ survival, this project can be used to construct a new set of counterterrorism policies that not only minimize backlash, but also have the potential to improve society-government relations while simultaneously weakening the bonds between terrorists and their support base.
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Chapter Two: Literature Review Terrorism “Studies” Prior to September 11, 2001, the study of terrorism was a marginal and multidisciplinary endeavor to which a small group of individuals from a variety of academic fields dedicated their research efforts (Ganor 2008). Occasionally, single publications were added by random—and often interloping— contributors, usually in reaction to the latest terrorist attack. These offerings, however, added little to the field’s development and often created confusion within the literature because the “findings” of these works were largely based on popular myths rather than empirical evidence (Reid 2007). This first wave of terrorism scholarship (i.e., those studies published before September 11, 2001) produced a body of knowledge that was rich in methods, frameworks, and approaches. This wave of scholarship was also disparate, segregated, non- cumulative, and overwhelmingly preoccupied with finding the origins of specific cases of terrorism. Although these efforts gave us many of the most familiar explanations of terrorism used today, their explanatory power was inherently limited because they examined only one or two variables (Pape 2009). In the decade since 9/11, the volume of published material about terrorism has increased exponentially. Within the past three years alone, over 13,750 non-fiction English-language documents were published with “terrorism” as a self-identified subject term.8 In fact, one review finds that post-9/11 studies account for over 90% of all terrorism research (Silke 2008). Professor Andrew Silke suggests that this increase in attention has proven tremendously beneficial to the study of terrorism. In a series of papers examining the state of the field, he identifies a positive trend in the quality of terrorism research, noting improvements in data collection and data analysis, as well as increases to the numbers of devoted “terrorism scholars” and collaborative research projects (Silke 2001, 2004, 2008). Professor Robert Pape, Director of the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism at the University of Chicago, echoed this in his 2009 analysis of the field. Pape claims that second wave scholarship on terrorism is more complex, sophisticated, and “academic” in its analysis of terrorist phenomena (Pape 2009).
8 Based on WorldCat.com statistics. I did a simple search for English language, non-fiction printed material (books, reports, theses and dissertations, etc.) published between 1/1/2008 and 12/31/2011 with “terrorism” as keyword. Checked as of 1/22/2012. 10
Unfortunately, despite the many advances in second wave research, there appears to be little progress in the area of theory development with respect to terrorism. Whereas other “bridging” fields, such as Foreign Policy Analysis, have developed their own explanatory frameworks, scholars of terrorism are hamstrung by conceptual issues (i.e., the lack of a consensus definition), and thus remain dependent upon theories and methods from other disciplines (Silke 2004a). Approaches: Structural, Psychological, or Rational Choice Due to the multidisciplinary nature of the field today, recent studies of terrorism and all of its subtopics have examined the phenomena both qualitatively and quantitatively via an array of theories at every level of analysis. Within the academic study of terrorism,9 research can be generally classified into one of three broad categories: structural, psychological, or rational choice.10 The choice of approach largely depends on the preferences of the researcher. In fact, almost every topic has been examined using at least two, if not all three, perspectives. For example, explanations of “who becomes a terrorist and why” might seem best suited for a micro- level analysis using a psychological approach. However, explanations have also been given at macro levels by scholars using economic, sociological, and political theories (Berman and Laitin 2008; Burgoon 2006; Waldmann 2005). What follows is a brief review of the three major approaches and examples of studies that employ them. Structural Theories Structural theories assume that the cause(s) of terrorism are found in the environment in which the terrorist group operates (Krieger and Meierrieks 2010; Ross 1993). For example, some of the most commonly examined structural variables for the causes of terrorism include economic factors (Blomberg and Hess 2008; Freytag et al. 2010; Gurr 1970; Piazza 2006; Sandler and Enders 2004), military/political occupation (Pape 2005; Wheeler 1991), and regime type (Li 2005; Piazza 2008). Other structural factors thought to affect terrorism include modernization/development (Laitin and Shapiro 2008; Tavares 2004), global political and/or economic order (Crenshaw 2001, 2008; Cronin 2003), and ethnic, religious, or national fractures (Berman and Laitin 2008; Huntington 1996; Katz 2009; Leman-Langlois and Brodeur 2005).
9 As opposed to studies by journalists, government officials, or terrorism “experts” (non-governmental analysts) 10 Recently, some scholars have produced “critical analyses” of terroristic phenomena; these, however, are few and are not yet considered part of mainstream research. See for example (Franks 2009; R. Jackson, Smyth, and Gunning 2009; D. M. Jones and Smith 2009). 11
Structural approaches are popular with policymakers because the relevant variables are easily identifiable and (relatively) malleable. These approaches are also inherently limited for three reasons. First, structural approaches entirely ignore the human factor. Theories that reduce terrorist activity to purely environmental factors cannot explain why only a small group of those affected ever engage in terrorist activities. Second, while structural variables may be easily identified, determining their actual causal effect on terrorism is far more difficult due to problems of collinearity. For example, Krieger and Meierrieks (2010) show that poverty, which was once believed to be a primary source of terrorism, has little causal significance when one controls for the role of political institutions. Finally, structural explanations cannot account for important exceptions. For instance, if poverty is the principal cause of terrorism, why is it still found in the wealthiest, most developed countries in the world such as Germany, Japan, Israel, Spain, or the United States? Psychological Theories In contrast to structural explanations of terrorism, psychological explanations focus on the personality, beliefs, motivations, and attitudes of the individual (Victoroff 2005). Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the belief that terrorists were mentally ill dominated this area of research (Ferracuti and Bruno 1981; Kellen 1982; Post 1990). According to this view, terrorism is not a choice made for instrumental or strategic reasons. Rather, “terrorists are driven to commit acts of violence as consequence of psychological forces” (Post 1990, 25). For those adopting the psychological viewpoint, “the ‘cause’ is not the cause...[Rather, it is] their special ‘psycho- logic’...constructed to rationalize acts [terrorists] are compelled to commit” (Post 1990, 25). This line of thinking led to the decades-long search for “the terrorist personality,” which is an identifiable set of abnormal psychosocial characteristics shared among those engaged in terrorism (Russell and Miller 1977; Strentz 1988). What came of this search, however, were overwhelming amounts of empirical evidence11 indicating “the outstanding common characteristic of terrorists is their normality” (Crenshaw 1981, 390). Psychological approaches to the study of terrorism have changed significantly over the past two decades. One important contribution made by psychological theorists12 is the concept of
11 For an excellent critical review of this work, see Victoroff (2005). 12 This category includes psychologists, psychiatrists, and other scholars employing a psychological approach. 12
terrorism as a process (Horgan 2008). Other contributions of psychological theorists include analyses of terrorist group dynamics (Alderdice 2007; Gates 2006; Gupta 2005; Rapoport 2001), group belief systems and decision-making (B. A. Jackson 2009; McCormick 2003), and the disengagement from terrorism (Bjørgo and Horgan 2009; Horgan 2010). Although the psychological approach has unquestionably advanced our understanding of terrorism, it nevertheless suffers from considerable limitations. Access to the type of data required for psychological studies, e.g., first-hand interviews, diaries, memoires, or detailed biographies, is extremely limited and highly unreliable. Furthermore, understanding the motivations of individuals (much less thousands of individuals, en mass) will never explain fully terrorism because terrorism is, fundamentally, a group activity. This also limits its use to governments seeking practical counterterrorism options because, as has been shown by several recent studies, the dynamics of the group are greater than the sum of its individual members (Alderdice 2007; Crenshaw 2000; Kruglanski and Fishman 2009). The fundamental flaw of both structural and psychological explanations is the failure to recognize that, though analytically useful, distinct levels of analysis do not really exist, in any approach. Explanations of terrorism, like all other socio-political phenomena, cannot be reduced to a single cause or set of causes operating in isolation. While it may be a cliché, the maxim “terrorism does not occur in a vacuum” is also a fact. Terrorism must be understood as the consequence of both human and environmental factors. For researchers, this renders deterministic findings impossible and probabilistic findings difficult, for while cases of terrorism may similar, they will never be identical. To borrow Charles Tilly’s metaphor about democracy, terrorism is like a lake in that A lake—a large inland body of water—can come into being because a mountain stream feeds into a naturally existing basin, because someone or something dams up the outlet of a large river, because a glacier melts...because people deliberately dig an enormous hole and channel nearby watersheds into it, or for a number of other reasons. Once it exists, nevertheless, a lake nurtures characteristic ecosystems and maintains characteristic relations with its surroundings... [Terrorism] behaves like a lake; although it has distinguishing properties and a logic of its own, it forms in a variety of ways, each of which retains traces of its singular history in the details of its current operation (Tilly 210).
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Rational Choice Theories Whereas psychological and structural theories view terrorism as “the unintended outcome of psychological or social factors” (Crenshaw 1990, 4), rational choice theories assume that terrorism is the result of a calculated, deliberate, and strategic choice. According to this perspective, an actor13 selects terrorism as the best means to achieve his political goals based on a calculation of the available options’ expected14 costs and benefits, which are measured primarily in terms of efficacy. Thus, terrorism is viewed as the result of a decision-making process that can be discovered and explained once the actor’s perceived opportunities, constraints, and incentives are identified. Chief among the benefits of this approach are three ways in which it is applicable to counterterrorism policymaking. First, because rational choice theory assumes that actors respond to perceived opportunities and constraints, it integrates both psychological and environmental variables, thus giving policymakers more options for countermeasures.15 Second, because it assumes that actions follow from relatively stable decision making processes, this approach allows analysts to establish a baseline of behavior so that deviations can be identified, measured, and most importantly, compared (Crenshaw 1985). Finally, by assuming that an actor’s choice includes a consideration of efficacy (something that can only be measured ex post-facto), this approach allows for theories of organizational learning and adaptation. Whereas first wave scholarship focused on the irrationality of terrorist behavior, second wave scholars have embraced the rational choice approach. For example, in one of the most successful applications of rational choice modeling, Enders and Sandler (2006) predicted how terrorist groups should react to various counterterrorism practices. Another groundbreaking, albeit more controversial, use of rational choice theory is Robert Pape’s “Dying to Kill,” in which he explains what he calls “the strategic logic of suicide terrorism” (2005, 3). Iannaccone and Berman (2006) use a rational choice framework to explicate what they call “the economics of religion,” a framework which analyzes why individuals join religious extremist terror groups
13 As will be discussed intra, “the actor” can be either an individual or a group. 14 Most rational choice models assume some type of “bounded rationality.” See for example Victoroff (2005), Berrebi (2009), and McCormick (2003). 15 In contrast, if terrorism were the result of psychosis, then the only option open to policymakers would be a worldwide round up of individuals believed to match the terrorist profile. 14
versus their more secular alternative(s). Other topics examined using rational choice models include terrorists’ choice of targets (Berman and Laitin 2005; Brandt and Sandler 2010), the timing of terrorist attacks (Berrebi 2009; Berrebi and Lakdawalla 2007), the effects of terrorism on the economy of the target state (Satloff 2006), and the success of terrorism as strategy to achieve territorial goals (Pape 2005). Despite their obvious advantages, rational choice theories are often deemed inappropriate for the analysis of terrorist behavior primarily because of the first wave’s emphasis on the irrationality of terrorists and terrorism (Post 1990). Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, some terrorism scholars remain dubious about the rationality of terrorist actors. For example, authors have argued that suicide terrorism is unquestionably irrational because the cost of the behavior clearly outweighs any individual benefit (Caplan 2006). Another issued frequently raised is free riding; the goods terrorists frequently claim to seek are public,16 so why would otherwise risk-adverse individuals join a terrorist group when benefits are not contingent upon participation? Advocates of rational choice models respond that these critiques are based on narrow and inappropriate conceptions of “self-interest” and “utility” (Abrahms 2008; Bray 2009; Crenshaw 1990; Iannaccone and Berman 2006; Pape 2005). Advocates of rational choice models instead argue instead for “a flexible form of utility function that could include satisfaction from perceived altruism and intangible psychological or social rewards, including expected rewards in the afterlife” (Berrebi 2009, 170). Other authors claim that because terrorism is fundamentally a group activity, rational choice models must be expanded to include organization-level factors (Crenshaw 1981; Gates 2006; Oots 1989; Rapoport 2001). Crenshaw, for example, maintains that individuals use “collective rationality” when making the decision to join an existing terrorist group (Crenshaw 1990). Crenshaw and her like-minded colleagues understand that the strength17 of the group affects the likelihood of its success, and that individually rational actions (in this case non- action) may lead to collectively irrational outcomes. Recent interview-based studies support this
16 Terrorist group typologies often determined by the type of “public goods” they seek, i.e., nationalist/separatist= independent state; economic change = leftist/Marxist; religious equality or superiority= religious/right wing (US), etc. 17 Strength is often measured exclusively in terms of group size, however, other factors, such as increases in funding, communal support, or military capabilities can enhance a group’s power and resilience. 15
position by presenting evidence that individuals identify the group’s goals as their own; thus, seemingly irrational individual actions that benefit the group can be considered rational because the actor’s goals and the group’s goal are one in the same (Alderdice 2007; Gupta 2005; Kruglanski and Fishman 2009). Organization-Level Studies of Terrorism Though not as widely used as micro or macro level of analysis approaches, organization- level studies of terrorism are becoming increasingly popular, especially within the counterterrorism literature. This is not to say that organizational analyses are new to terrorism research, as they are not (Crenshaw 1985, 1987; Mullins 1988; Oots 1986, 1989, 1990; Zawodny 1978, 1981). Rather, the paucity of early organization-level studies is simply a reflection of the first wave’s bias toward individual and or structural level variables. Of the few first-wave studies that went beyond noting basic organizational differences (i.e. size, age, structure) to using any organizational theory to explain the causal processes between the characteristics noted and group behavior, the most important are those of noted terrorism scholar (and goddess) Martha Crenshaw (Crenshaw 1985, 1987, 1990, 1992). In addition to Crenshaw, other standout exceptions to this were Kent Layne Oots, who used political organization theory to explain the behavior—including the formation and disintegration—of terrorist groups, and J.K. Zawodny, who used his personal experience as a member of the Polish Underground movement during WWII to explain the internal dynamics of and the importance of leaders to terrorist organizations (Oots 1986, 1989; Zawodny 1978, 1981). In the years following 9/11, however, organization-level analyses have become more sophisticated and more theory-driven (Asal and Rethemeyer 2008; Cronin 2009; Helfstein 2009; B. A. Jackson 2006; Shapiro 2008). Scholars have used organizational theories to explain how organizational properties affect the lethality and/or success rate of terrorist attacks (Asal and Rethemeyer 2008; Helfstein and Wright 2011), target choices (Brandt and Sandler 2010), and the decision to enter or exit negotiations (Cronin 2009; Wither 2009). Other studies use organization-level variables to examine differences in recruiting patterns (Gates 2006; Gutfraind 2009), the types of activities/operations used (Cobb 2007; Feinstein and Kaplan 2010; Heger, Jung, and Wong 2008), and group mortality (Blomberg, Engel, and Sawyer 2009; Rowlands and Kilberg 2011).
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How Terrorism Ends One of the most notable additions to the post-9/11 terrorism studies research agenda is the question of how terrorism ends. Despite its importance, the body of literature on this topic is small and disconnected. To some extent, this is another consequence of the decades-long preoccupation with the causes of terrorism.18 It is also, however, a reflection of the event-driven nature of terrorism research; that is to say, the interest in terrorism research is always on the most recent event, the most current threat, and rarely—if ever—on groups or campaigns that have already ended. The consequence of ignoring historical data, however, is that much of the conventional wisdom about how terrorism ends is flawed, a fact that has been illustrated by several recent studies (Blomberg, Engel, and Sawyer 2009; Cronin 2009; Jones and Libicki 2008; Pedahzur, Eubank, and Weinberg 2002). In the following sections, I review how the question “how does terrorism end” has been examined in previous research and then discuss some of the common themes that have developed within this small but critical area of academic scholarship. Typically, discussions of decline have been integrated into studies of broader topics, such as the causes of terrorism, the effectiveness of counterterrorism policies, the history of a particular terror group, or the evolution of larger social movements within which terrorism was used (Crenshaw 1990; Cronin 2009). Only recently have scholars begun to examine the end of terrorism as an independent phenomenon (Cronin 2009; Horgan 2009). Thus, much of what has been written is either inferential and speculative, or historical and case-specific (Cronin 2009). Systematic, empirically-based examinations of the various ways terrorist campaigns have historically ended are rare, even within the post-9/11 academic literature. Martha Crenshaw’s “How Terrorism Declines” is one of the few first-wave studies that directly addresses how terrorist organizations end in a systematic, empirical manner (Crenshaw 1991).19 Based on a review of 77 terror groups, Crenshaw suggests three modes of cessation, which include “physical defeat of the extremist organization by the government, the group’s decision to abandon the terrorist strategy, [or] organizational disintegration” (Crenshaw 1990,
18 For an excellent sample of this literature, see Walter Reich’s volume Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind (Reich 1990). 19 Others include Oots (1989), and Ross and Gurr (1989). 17
70). She develops a conceptual framework largely based on the organizational approach, and finds that three factors contribute to the conclusion of terrorist activity: 1) government actions; 2) the strategic choices of the organization; and 3) its organizational resources (Crenshaw 1991, 80). Crenshaw’s primary argument is that absent internal factors, such as disunity or burnout, external factors (such as government actions) are not sufficient to bring about the end of a terrorist organization (1991, 80). She suggests that the lifecycle of the terrorist group may be pivotal to successful government intervention and cites several cases where government action against a group succeeded because it occurred during a period of organizational weakness, such as leadership changes or factionalization. Crenshaw also notes that many of the most difficult terror groups have existed between 10 to 20 years and hypothesizes that there may be “a threshold point beyond which the extremist organization becomes self-sustaining. The younger the organization, the greater the likelihood of its ending” (1990, 79). Nonetheless, Crenshaw does not test any of her hypotheses, nor does she provide much theoretical grounding for her arguments regarding lifecycles. Finally, although she introduces the idea that some groups are more susceptible to destabilization following the loss of a leader than are others, she does not provide an explanation for—or even hazard a guess about—the varying results. Seth Jones and Martin Libicki’s “How Terrorist Groups End” is the most comprehensive study of how terrorist organizations end published to date (Jones and Libicki 2008). Jones and Libicki examine the effects of size, ideology, regime type, economic conditions, and breadth of goals on the incidence of demise for 648 terrorist organizations (Jones and Libicki 2008). They find that the two most-common ends of terrorist groups are 1) transition to legitimate political processes (42%), and 2) through local police and intelligence intervention (40%). They also find that only 10% of groups disbanded because they were victorious, and even fewer than that (only 7%) ended due to military intervention (Jones and Libicki 2008, 35). Of the five independent variables they examine, only size was found to be statistically significant. “[T]here is no correlation between the duration of terrorist groups and ideological motivation, economic conditions, regime type, or the breadth of terrorist goals,” (Jones and Libicki 2008, 40). The authors note, however, that the causal relationship between size and endurance may be endogenous. On the surface, there appears to be weak support for the argument that a terrorist group’s size may affect its duration.... However, size may be endogenous to duration. That is,
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groups that last longer may be larger simply because they have more time to recruit new members. In this case, duration would cause size, rather than the other way around (Jones and Libicki 2008, 41). In their conclusion, the authors concede, “[this] analysis refuted many hypotheses and confirmed none” (Jones and Libicki 2008, 197). There are two issues with Jones and Libicki’s analysis as it relates to the question under consideration in this dissertation. First, although the authors begin with 648 cases, the statistical analysis was run only on the 268 groups that “came to an end in ways that eliminated their contribution to terrorism” (Jones and Libicki 2008, 35). While choosing cases based on the dependent variable can be highly informative in qualitative research, doing so in quantitative analysis creates selection bias issues, which can skew results (George and Bennett 2005). Second, Jones and Libicki’s study only considers those factors that can be manipulated by the government.20 In other words, in the authors’ assessment of how terrorism has ended and the various modes of collapse did not take into account any intra-organizational factors.21 Thus the possibility of self-defeat, which most authors argue is the primary cause of death for the majority of terror groups, was not taken into account. Furthermore, although it was beyond the scope of their project, an analysis of only collapsed groups cannot explain why some groups in their study collapsed and others did not. Audrey Kurth Cronin, arguably the leading scholar in this area, draws strikingly different conclusions about how terrorism ends (Cronin 2006, 2009). Using data from the now-defunct Terrorism Knowledge Base website,22 Cronin compares the “basic dynamics” of 457 terror groups operating from 1968 until 2006. She finds six patterns of decline for groups and campaigns operating during that time: 1) death or long-term arrest of the leader; 2) transition into
20 The authors exclude economic aid, sanctions, diplomacy (state-to-state), and various other counterterrorism tools because they find these “too weak to be used in a leading role,” (Jones and Libicki 2008, 10). 21 Jones and Libicki separated out “splintered” groups, those groups that ended due to splintering but whose members continued to use terrorism either through joining an existing group or by forming a new one (Jones and Libicki 2008, 19). Of the initial 648 groups, splintering resulted in the collapse of 136, or 28%. This supports Crenshaw’s claim that internal factors, such as disunity, burnout, or defection are significant to the collapse of terrorist organizations. 22 The TKB data is now housed at the START Center at the University of Maryland and at the RAND Corporation in the RAND-MIPT database. Cronin’s raw data is available online at http://howterrorismends.com.
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legitimate political processes; 3) achievement of the group’s aims; 4) implosion or loss of popular support;23 5) defeat and elimination by force, and; 6) transition to other forms of violence. Like Crenshaw, Cronin argues that these “patterns of decline reflect factors that are both internal and external to the campaign itself... terrorist groups implode for reasons that may or may not be related to measures taken against them” (Cronin 2009, 8). In contrast to Jones and Libicki, Cronin’s quantitative analysis shows that less than 20% of collapsed groups entered into negotiations.24 Importantly, however, Cronin finds a clear and statistically significant relationship between entering into negotiations and achievement of goals. Within the 18% of groups who engaged in negotiations, 31% achieved at least some of their stated goals (Cronin 2009, 189). One possible implication of this finding is that groups are more willing to engage in negotiations once they have something to lose. However, as is discussed below, Cronin does not explore any theoretic explanations for this (or any other) relationship. Although Cronin’s work is exemplary, it suffers from many of the same flaws she notes in previous studies of terror group termination. For example, Cronin offers no theoretic explanations for the causal mechanisms at work between her posited “critical factor or process” and observed outcome. Furthermore, she spends very little time discussing her quantitative findings, such as the interesting relationship between goal achievement and negotiations mentioned above, despite heralding the need for such analysis throughout her book. Instead, she uses detailed, but purely descriptive, case studies to illustrate the seven “historical ways out of terrorism,” many of which include well-known and overly cited historical examples. Common Themes Although the body of research on “how terrorism ends” is somewhat disconnected, there are some overlapping themes and general points of consensus within it. First, it is important to recognize terrorism does end. This is not to say that the phenomenon of “terrorism” will cease to exist, as it likely will not; however, “individual terrorist campaigns and the groups that wage them always [end]” (Cronin 2006, 48). In fact, Jones and Libicki find that among post-World War II terrorist organizations, approximately 62% are no longer active (Jones and Libicki 2008).
23 Most authors, including myself, consider these separate and distinct factors affecting group collapse and they will be treated as such in my analysis. 24 Cronin uses negotiations as a proxy for transitioning into legitimate political processes. 20
Second, the most appropriate level of analysis for studies of how to end terrorism is at the organization/group level (Crenshaw 1985, 1991; Cronin 2009; Jones and Libicki 2008; Oots 1986; Price 2010; Shapiro 2006). As I detailed above, studies of terrorism from either the structural or the individual level have been unproductive in terms of identifying effective counterterrorism techniques. “The simple truth is the majority of terrorist attacks are conducted by groups, groups that have the resources, skills, planning, and organizational capability to launch repeated attacks against the state in ways that no individual can” (Price 2009, 139). In the next section, I shall discuss in detail the organizational approach to studying terrorism and review many of the important investigations that have used this perspective. Third, and more importantly, although the majority of all organizations die, when and how they die varies essentially on a case-by-case basis (Crenshaw 1991; Cronin 2009; Lum, Kennedy, and Sherley 2007; Price 2009). Recent quantitative analyses confirm that an overwhelming majority of terror groups (between 70% and 80%) break down within 10 years of their first attack, with most collapsing within the first 2 years (Jordan 2009; Price 2009; Young and Dugan 2010). Each of these recent studies also found that if a terrorist group reaches the 10- year mark, its chances of dying from state intervention decrease significantly, thus supporting Crenshaw’s speculation that “possibly there is a threshold point. beyond which the extremist organization becomes self-sustaining” (Crenshaw 1991, 79). Among other things, these findings suggest that using age as an indicator of success for specific counterterrorism measures, as Jordan does for decapitation, is perhaps misleading (Jordan 2009). If age is an indicator of overall durability, then irrespective of the type of counterterrorism measure applied, older groups will be more likely to survive it. Additionally, despite a clear correlation between age and durability, the causal relationship between the two phenomena remains unclear. Thus, in examinations of the effectiveness of a particular type of counterterrorism, age should be treated as a null variable.25 Fourth, while organizations are the most appropriate unit of analysis when studying decline, the collapse of a group does not always equate to the cessation of violence (Bjørgo and
25 Jordan uses age as a proxy for size, assuming that older groups are also larger (Jordan 2009). Given this, both age and size should be treated as null variables in studies of specific types of counterterrorism.
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Horgan 2009; Cronin 2006). While this may seem like a rather obvious statement, some government and private sector analyses have failed to make this distinction.26 In some cases, violence may not end because there are multiple organizations involved in the conflict, as is the case in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Alternatively, “organizations can disband or abandon terrorism but individual members may remain active by joining rival groups or forming new ones. Thus, the strategy of terrorism may [continue] under different auspices” (Crenshaw 1991, 78). For instance, the actual duration of right-wing extremist groups is notoriously difficult to trace due to their modus operandi of “leaderless resistance” and their decentralized, sometimes single-actor, structure (Crenshaw 1991; Cronin 2006). In such cases, various organizations may be short lived; however, “the racist causes...can persist long after the disappearance of the group itself...[and] reemergence under a different name or structure is common”27 (Cronin 2006, 23). Fifth, the relationship between the beginnings and ends of terrorism is non-linear. The first-wave’s obsession with origins led to the widely-held assumption “that many of the same factors that lead to the rise of terrorism also cause its decline” (Ross 1995, 283). Cronin, along with the majority of second-wave scholars, warns that such statements are oversimplified fallacies. “Understanding the causes of terrorist campaigns tells us no more about how they actually end than understanding the causes of war explains war termination” (Cronin 2009, 1). Many of the scholars making the “origins-as-ends” argument also assumed that the causes of terrorism were structural and limited their investigations to environmental factors (Gause III 2005; Gurr 1970; Piazza 2006; Ross 1993). As was discussed previously, however, links between terrorism and structural conditions are (at best) difficult to establish and/or prove. Finally, within academic and non-governmental research circles, it is established that the role of the state is overemphasized in analyses of terror group decline. As was discussed in Pape’s assessment of the “too close for comfort” relationship between terrorism research facilities and government, most first-wave studies of terrorism focused exclusively on the role of state (Pape 2009). Consequently, these analyses, particularly in studies of decline, often ignored other potentially more significant factors (Crenshaw 1991; Ross 1995; Ross and Gurr 1989).
26 See Lum, Kennedy, and Sherley (2006, 2008) for discussions of specific examples. 27 Cronin cites The Order and The Aryan Resistance Army, two U.S.-based right-wing extremist groups, as examples of this. 22
“The result is a strong bias toward tying the decline of such groups to specific government policies, especially after the fact, even though the relationship between cause and effect may be unclear” (Cronin 2006, 14). In fact, a recent meta-analysis of counterterrorism research found virtually no empirical evidence about the effectiveness of counterterrorism programs in general (Lum, Kennedy, and Sherley 2006, 2008). Not only did we discover an almost complete absence of evaluation research on counter- terrorism interventions, but from those evaluations that we could find, it appears that some interventions either did not achieve the outcomes sought or sometimes increased the likelihood of terrorism occurring (Lum, Kennedy, and Sherley 2006, 489).
Leadership Decapitation Given that its aim is group disintegration, many of the key variables examined in studies of leadership decapitation are borrowed from Organization Studies and organizational theories. In the following sections, I review the leadership decapitation literature and focus on those works that employed organization-level variables and/or framework, as well as noting specific studies’ strengths and weaknesses. Finally, I will discuss how my work fills a major gap within this specific body of knowledge and the study of terrorist organizations more generally. The policy and practice of leadership decapitation is grounded in the belief that leaders are critical to the formation, operation, and survival of a terrorist organization and, consequently, that if its leader is removed, the organization will dissolve (Obama 2011; The White House 2003). Until recently, however, this was little more than conventional wisdom based on anecdotal evidence. No empirical investigations into the effects of the removal of a leader existed to substantiate or refute this claim. Within the past few years, leadership decapitation has been examined both quantitatively and qualitatively (Freeman 2010; Jordan 2009; Mannes 2008; Price 2010; Staeheli 2010). As was discussed in the introduction, most of these studies are descriptive and merely illustrate that leadership decapitation is effective against some organizations but not others. Among the few studies that attempt to develop a theoretical explanation for its success, there is an overreliance on Weber’s concept of charismatic authority (Freeman 2010; Jordan 2011; Langdon, Sarapu, and Wells 2004; Staeheli 2010; Varden 2011). Theories based on charisma only explain the successful cases of leadership targeting, leaving open the question of the technique’s variability. This dissertation attempts to fill that gap.
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Not all studies of leadership decapitation are equal. Much like previous organization- level analyses, while all investigations of leadership targeting use the organization as the primary unit of analysis (and thus treat organizational characteristics as variables), only a few include variables such as age, size, and ideology in their models. One of the most widely cited studies of leadership decapitation which uses these variables is from the University of Chicago’s Jenna Jordan (Jordan 2004, 2008, 2009, 2011). In a series of statistical studies,28 Jordan “develop[s] an empirically grounded assessment of leadership targeting... [by examining] variation in the success of... decapitation” (2009, 2). Jordan concludes that leadership targeting does not increase the likelihood of group collapse beyond a baseline rate of disintegration. Moreover, she claims that it is not an effective counterterrorism strategy in general, and in fact may be counterproductive in larger, older, religious, or decentralized terror groups (2004, 2008, 2009). Jordan’s analysis does include the three variables of size, age, and ideology (Jordan 2011). Her conclusions, however, are questionable for two reasons: first, she treats these as proxies for other organizational characteristics such as bureaucracy and institutionalization, which she does not identify or test independently (Jordan 2011). Second, her explanation is grounded entirely in Weber’s theory of charismatic leadership, which, ultimately, is refuted by her own empirical findings. Initially, Jordan (2004) suggests that religious organizations, such as Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad, should be more susceptible to leadership targeting than ideological groups, such as ETA or the Shining Path, because they tend be led by a charismatic figure. However, her findings revealed that religious groups were the most resistant group-type to leadership targeting while ideological groups were the most vulnerable (Jordan 2004). Thus, Jordan hypothesizes that religious groups are less affected by decapitation because they are more decentralized than other types of terror groups (2008, 2009). Importantly, Jordan herself admits that she has no empirical evidence of this29; rather, “for the purposes of theory building [she] assume[s] that religious groups tend towards decentralization” (2009, 20). This is a recurring weakness within Jordan’s research. While she claims to analyze terror groups based on their organizational characteristics,
28 Jordan uses regression analysis to examine 298 cases of decapitation from 1945-2004. 29 See Jordan, Jenna. 2009. “When Heads Roll: Assessing the Effectiveness of Leadership Decapitation.” Security Studies 18(4): 719–755. 24
Jordan’s analysis is not grounded in any type of organizational theory, nor does her dataset include any Organization Studies derived variables, such as leadership structure, subunit autonomy, or standard operating procedures. Rather, she makes assumptions about certain organizational characteristics, such as degree of bureaucratization and/or decentralization, based exclusively on a group’s age, size, and type. One clear example of how the absence of robust and properly defined organizational variables is problematic can be found in Jordan’s conclusion that size is an important predictor of effectiveness. Claiming that reliable membership counts for clandestine organizations are difficult to obtain, Jordan uses age as a proxy for size, assuming that older groups are larger than younger groups and are, therefore, more stable (Jordan 2009). Furthermore, given her argument that age and size are good indicators of overall stability, it stands to reason that both variables should be treated as null in studies of the effectiveness of specific types of counterterrorism techniques, such as decapitation. If older organizations are more resilient to counterterrorism in general, it is not surprising that they are resilient to a specific type of counterterrorism. Thus, Jordan’s analysis is far from conclusive, given that her findings were based on flawed operationalizations of concepts. Similarly, Rowlands and Kilberg (2011) attempt to link organizational structure to successful organizational collapse through leadership decapitation. The authors find that “decapitation strategies are not particularly effective in causing terrorist groups to cease operation...[Moreover,] the absence of any effect also does not seem to be related to the type of organization adopted by the group” (Rowlands and Kilberg 2011, 10). The authors did report other findings which support that it is not the structure of the organization per se that affects effectiveness, but rather the internal processes of the organization. For example, the loss of a leader affected “the frequency, lethality, and nature of attacks,” which suggests that groups undergo some internal dis/re-organization following the loss of a leader (Rowlands and Kilberg 2011, 21). This study is an ideal example of why qualitative work on decapitation is necessary: without understanding the underlying processes that link factors like organizational structure to varying outcomes, statistical findings are virtually meaningless. Professor Austin Long uses organizational theory to explain variation in leadership decapitation in Iraq and Afghanistan (2010, 2011). This is perhaps the best example of applying organizational theory to decapitation - and perhaps terrorism in general - since Crenshaw and 25
Oots. Long emphasizes not only the specific organizational attributes of various terror groups, but provides a solidly theory-based explanation of the causal mechanisms at work between them and the observed varying outcomes. According to Long, certain organizations remain effective despite the loss of a leader because they “can efficiently and effectively replace...lost leaders due to institutionalization” (2010, 19). Long goes on to explain how organizations with three characteristics (functional specialization, hierarchy, and bureaucratic processes) are more institutionalized than organizations without these attributes. In highly institutionalized organizations, such as the military, replacing leadership causes only temporary functional disruption because it is a matter of routine, not rarity. Even though Long’s theory is well conceived, his analysis is underdeveloped because he limits its application to a very narrow set of cases.30 Nevertheless, this type of project illustrates how useful the organizational approach can be to the analysis of terrorism and to leadership decapitation specifically. Professors Michael Freeman and Bryan Price also examine the varying effects of leadership loss on terrorist organizations. However, they focus specifically on how, why, and when leaders matter (Freeman 2010; Price 2009). Freeman argues that leadership decapitation is most likely to result in the collapse of an organization when it relies on a leader for operational and inspirational guidance (Freeman 2010). Conversely, in an organization where these “have become institutionalized through some combination of routinization, bureaucratization, and decentralization,” the likelihood that decapitation will unsettle the organization is very low (Freeman 2010, 13). Still, Freeman caveats that the effectiveness of decapitation may “depend on other variables such as the ‘replace-ability’ of the leader, the adaptability of the organization, the reactions of sympathizers, and other factors...In other words, the existence of an important leader is a necessary but not sufficient condition for effective leadership targeting” (Freeman 2010, 2). Although he acknowledges this possibility, Freeman does not explore it in depth. Price examines the varying effects of leadership loss by testing its impact on an organization’s longevity (Price 2009, 2010). Price writes, “This test differs from previous
30 Per direct communication with the author, Long is in the process of further developing this analysis; however, he intends to keep the scope of his analysis limited to Afghanistan and Iraq. In contrast, my model can be applied to a variety of groups, irrespective of geographic or ideological type.
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quantitative analyses in that it evaluates the effects of decapitation events on the duration of terrorist groups as opposed to the number, frequency, or lethality of attacks after a decapitation event” (2010, 2). In sharp contrast to Jordan, Price finds that nearly 45% of all 207 groups in his dataset, and 70% of those that experienced decapitation, collapsed within two years of the event31 (2010, 15). Thus, he concludes, “removing the leader of a terrorist group significantly contributes to organizational decline” (2010, 224). Although Price’s quantitative analysis is by far the most comprehensive and rigorous, it leaves important questions about effectiveness unanswered. Price’s theory, largely grounded in concepts from Leadership Studies, is that terrorist leaders are more important to their organization’s survival than are leaders of other types of organizations, so their removal should be more likely to result in organizational decline (2010). As stated above, his findings support this theory; the majority of terrorist organizations in his dataset collapsed after experiencing a leadership loss. However, while Price’s theory may explain why removing leaders causes organizational collapse more often for terrorist groups than for other groups, it does not offer an explanation for the variation of leadership decapitation outcomes among terrorist organizations. Considering the only organizations included in his data were terrorist organizations, it also calls into question his claim that leadership loss is greater among terrorist groups than other organizations since he does not establish a baseline rate of decline for non-terrorist organizations for comparison. Organizational Endurance—The Missing Piece As I stated in chapter one, one of the most significant gaps in the leadership decapitation literature is an explanation of organizational endurance; why some terrorist organizations can withstand repeated losses of their “top” leaders while others crumble after the arrest or death of just one man. One major reason for this gap is that very little research exists on the topic of terrorist group endurance overall. In fact, other than the handful of first-wave studies mentioned above, the question of why certain terrorist organizations survive longer than others went unaddressed until Jones and Libicki’s study (Jones and Libicki 2008).
31 This is perhaps one of the clearest examples of how different datasets can produce wildly divergent results. Interestingly, Price’s data is more up-to-date than Jordan’s; furthermore, despite stricter inclusion criteria, his dataset is larger. Finally, Price’s work includes detailed coding explanations and group lists; Jordan does not provide any information about her data, even upon request. 27
In one of the few existing studies of terror organization survivability, Jodi Vittori (2009) measures the longevity of terrorist groups using two metrics, the autonomy of the organization and its capability to conduct violence, each of which are shaped by the group’s resourcing process(es). Vittori finds that “it is the variations in the resourcing process” that are the greatest determinants of a group’s lifespan (2009, 444). Resourcing, according to Vittori, includes money, tangible goods such as weapons, and intangible goods (i.e. operational space, intelligence, and training). She concludes that “groups bringing in the most and highest quality resources, including personnel, expertise, and financing, will likely survive the longest” (Vittori 2009, 462). While Vittori provides some theoretical background for her claims, her study lacks an actual explanation of how (or why) the differences in resources matter. Moreover, aside from her assumption that more money equates to stronger buying power, she does not provide any insight into the ways in which terrorist groups acquire “the highest quality” resources, including higher levels of communal support. In contrast, Young and Dugan (2010) test the relationship between structural conditions and group duration. Their findings support earlier scholars’ claim that this relationship is (at best) weak and difficult to prove. Specifically, Young and Dugan (2010) find that only higher levels of GDP and the presence of other terror groups diminished group duration. Interestingly, they also find that repressive government policies are antithetical to counterterrorism efforts and actually increased rather than decreased the life span of terror groups (Young and Dugan 2010). Finally, Young and Dugan’s conclusions also support the claim that the factors necessary to sustain an organization differ from those that are critical to its birth (Crenshaw 1985; Cronin 2009; Oots 1989; Price 2009). Existing Explanations of Organizational Endurance The previous sections highlighted major gaps in existing studies of terrorist organizations and of leadership decapitation; namely, the inability to explain why certain groups persist. This dissertation seeks to address those gaps by exploring and testing two prima facie explanations of organizational endurance. In the remainder of this chapter, I outline the foundation of each argument and suggest why collectively they should account for the ability of certain terrorist organizations to survive leadership loss. Given that no theories of terror group survival exist, I drew from the fields of Sociology and Organization Studies. Organization Studies is dedicated to “identifying forms and 28
constructing models of organizations and organizational behavior”32 (Stepanova 2008, 100). While several definitions for the term “organization” 33 exist, noted organizations scholar and theorist Richard Daft’s is one of most frequently cited. “Organizations are social systems that are created to fulfill certain well-defined goals; they have a formal structure to facilitate internal coordination and to be able to respond to their external environment” (Daft 2009, 10). All goal- driven social systems - collectives of two or more individuals - have some form of organization. Power is dispersed along some line(s), relations are ordered, and, consequently, behaviors are influenced although not necessarily determined. Thus, theories of organizations aim to explain their behavior by positing causal relationships between factors such as goals, structure, people, and environment (Scott and Davis 2007). As I stated in the introduction, the Organizational Approach assumes that organizations have enough in common that studying one type (e.g., a hospital) will inform us about how other types of organizations (e.g. schools, prisons, or terrorist groups) function.34 Furthermore, organization theorists believe that all organizations face the same fundamental problems: (1) defining/redefining objectives; (2) finding, training, and replacing members; (3) inducing members to participate/contribute; (4) coordination and control; (5) garnering resources and dispersing products, and; (6) coexisting with “neighbors” (Daft 2009; Scott and Davis 2007). Terrorist organizations face the additional problems of (1) state repression/coercion, (2) secrecy vs. command and control, and (3) maintaining support despite the failure to achieve stated objectives (Crenshaw 1987; Shapiro 2006). Numerous theories have emerged over the past century regarding how organizations address these problems and which attributes are most significant to developing effective responses to them. My analysis of terrorist group survival is rooted heavily in two such theories, bureaucracy and incentives. Noted sociologist Max Weber’s statements on authority and bureaucracy provide both the underlying logic of leadership decapitation and an explanation for its limited success.
32 The purpose(s) of which are myriad: efficiency, power dispersion, management styles, benefits of various structures, etc. 33 In this project, as in the social sciences more generally, organizations are viewed from a sociological perspective. Such a perspective focuses on the ways in which organizations affect and are affected by society as opposed to the market or the psychologies of specific individuals within the group. 34 I discuss the Organizational Approach, its assumptions, and how I applied it to this study in the next chapter. 29
According to Weber, if an organization led by a charismatic authority wishes to exist beyond the life of its founder it must fundamentally change its form of authority and, correspondingly, its administrative structure (M. Weber 1947). In other words, it must reorganize to a more stable form of authority/administration, namely that of rational-bureaucratic. This supports my thesis that differences in how terror groups are organized explain their divergent responses to leadership decapitation. Changes in authority and/or administrative structures, however, are not sufficient to form a causal theory of organizational behavior. Equally essential to explanations of organizational behavior, especially their survival, are the processes by which organizations maintain the human and financial resources they need to function (Barnard 2011; Child 1972; Clark and Wilson 1961; Knoke 1988). A critical facet of organizational maintenance is the type of incentives an organization uses to recruit and retain members (Barnard 1968; Crenshaw 1985; Knoke 1988; Wilson 1974). The concepts of incentives and incentive systems complement Weber’s theory of routinization in that they provide the causal mechanisms within a theory of organizational maintenance. According to noted theorists Chester Barnard and James Q. Wilson, leaders’ primary interest is in the maintenance of the organization; thus, their core task is “supplying tangible and intangible incentives to individuals in order that they will become, or remain, members and will perform certain tasks” (Wilson 1995, 13). For terrorist groups, this is an especially challenging task, as the risks of membership will be perceived by many to outweigh any rewards. Thus, it follows that the incentives offered by terrorist leaders must be high value, scarce, or unique to their organization (Berman and Laitin 2008; Crenshaw 1985; Oots 1989). While the relationship between individuals’ motivation to join a group and the actual benefits they receive is not always clear-cut, providing social services has proven to be a particularly effective way for some terrorist groups to generate and maintain both money and membership (Bartels 2010; Berman and Laitin 2008; Grynkewich 2008; Iannaccone and Berman 2006; Koppuzha 2010). Social services provide constituents with both tangible (medicine, education, food) and intangible (a sense of community, spiritual guidance, action over enemies) membership enticements. They also generate income for the terrorist group either through direct donations or as fronts through which groups launder money (Rudner 2010; P. C. Weber 2008). Finally, they serve as source of legitimacy for the group who otherwise might be rejected by their host community because of their violence (Bloom 2005; Paul 2009). 30
The next section explores these concepts in detail. First, I examine Weber’s notions of authority and of bureaucracy. I also discuss the routinization of charisma and review what Weber and others have theorized about it. Next, I present theories of organizational maintenance and incentive systems and their significance to a group’s survival. I conclude with a brief discussion of terrorist organizations’ use of social services, which I suggest some groups use as the foundation of these systems. Weber’s Theories of Authority and Bureaucracy In his treatise The Theory of Economic and Social Organization, Weber presents three pure types of legitimate authority: rational-legal, traditional, and charismatic (M. Weber 1947). While all forms of authority rest on a “certain minimum of voluntary submission... an interest (based on ulterior motives or genuine acceptance) in obedience,” they differ in two important respects. These are the ways in which the claim to command is validated - the source of the authority’s legitimacy - and the administrative structures35 through which commands are carried out (M. Weber 1947, 335). Rational-legal authority rests “on a belief in the ‘legality’ of patterns of normative rules and the right of those elevated to authority under such rules to issue commands” (M. Weber 1947, 343). It is established, regulated, and legitimized by a set of stable and impersonal rules that were intentionally created and (at least minimally) agreed upon by the “members,” those who have consented to obey (M. Weber 1947, 1978). The rules are also universal: while the person issuing commands may be a “superior,” he is still subject to the same impersonal order that governs his subordinates. This is perhaps the most distinct feature of rational-legal authority: “while members may obey a person in authority... they do not owe their obedience to him as an individual, but rather to the impersonal order” (M. Weber 1947, 218). Weber specifies that what makes the order impersonal is the fact that authority is vested in “the office,” and not the officeholder. Thus, an official’s claim to command is both derived from and limited to his position within the organization (M. Weber 1947, 1978). Moreover, there is a strict separation between ownership and administration of the rules; in other words, the source of the rules and/or laws is outside the administration. Consequently, any changes to the rules and/or laws must go
35 It is difficult to associate charismatic authority with any real type of “administrative structure” because it is, at its core, individualized and impermanent. 31
through some procedure that is beyond the individual administering them (M. Weber 1947, 1978). This is unique to rational-legal authority: in both traditional and charismatic authority, ownership of the laws/rules lies with the person administering them and they may be modified at his or her discretion. According to Weber, “rationally regulated association... finds its typical expression in a bureaucracy” (M. Weber 1947, 956). Although the term bureaucracy has come to denote the bloat, redundancy, and inefficiency of government, Weber intended its use to be that of an analytic construct (Hall 1963; Olsen 2004). Using “an ‘ideal-type’ approach... [Weber] extrapolated from the real world the central... features characteristic of the most fully developed bureaucratic form of organization” (Shafritz, Ott, and Jang 2011, 37). The most commonly cited characteristics of a Weberian bureaucracy include36 (1) a centralized leadership whose authority is derived from its position in the organization, (2) stable, learnable, impersonal, and universal rules, (3) a strict hierarchy of command and control, (4) a specialized division of labor, (5) an appointment and promotion based on specific qualifications, and (6) codified standard operating procedures (M. Weber 1947). Additionally, relations in a bureaucracy are highly formalized, especially those between members and leaders (Merton 2011). Although it is commonly believed that terrorist organizations are either leaderless networks37 or tightly controlled spheres of personal influence, in reality, some of the most well-known, dangerous, and durable terror groups have many of the above characteristics (Abuza 2009; Acharya and Marwah 2010; Flanigan and Abdel-Samad 2011; Gray and Larson 2008; Shapiro 2008; P. C. Weber 2008). As opposed to rational-legal authority, traditional authority rests its legitimacy “on... the sanctity of the order and the attendant powers of control as they have been handed down from the past,” (M. Weber 1947, 35). Those over whom authority is exercised are subjects and their allegiance is to the officeholder “who occupies a position of authority by tradition or who has been chosen for such a position on a traditional basis” (M. Weber 1947, 356). The relationship between master and subjects is “primarily based on relations of personal loyalty, cultivated
36 Lists of these attributes vary in the Organizations Studies literature. For example, many authors include redundancy and fixed salaries as bureaucratic attributes. For a review of this see Hall (1963). 37 Marc Sageman (2008) is the strongest proponent of this idea; however, for other discussions of “leaderless terrorism” see: (Dishman 2005; Magouirk, Atran, and Sageman 2008; Pressman 2003). For critiques of this view see: (Crenshaw 2007, 2009; Hoffman 2008, 2011). 32
through a common process of education” (M. Weber 1947, 341). Furthermore, whereas rational- legal authority is limited to an official’s legal sphere of competence, “the [traditional] master wields his power without restraint, at his own discretion and, above all, unencumbered by rules, insofar as it is not limited by tradition or competing powers” (M. Weber 1978, 1007). Traditional authority is typically expressed in patriarchic or patrimonial systems, with the latter using an organized staff to carry out the master’s commands (M. Weber 1947). Charismatic authority is the opposite of both rational-legal and traditional authority. “Both rational and traditional authority are specifically forms of everyday routine... while the charismatic type is the direct antithesis of this” (M. Weber 1947, 376). Instead of relying on established institutions or rules for validation, charismatic authority “rests on the devotion to the specific and exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person... [who is] set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities” (M. Weber 1947, 373). Weber notes that the authenticity or genuineness of these “powers” is inconsequential; rather, “what is alone important is how the individual is actually regarded by those subject to [his] authority, by his ‘followers’ or ‘disciples,’” (M. Weber 1947, 374). Thus, the master’s claim to authority is legitimized solely by his followers’ recognition of and belief in his powers. Charismatic authority is fundamentally a personal bond between a leader and his followers. As such, it has no uniform administrative structure. To the contrary, each charismatic community is shaped, figuratively and literally, by its leader (M. Weber 1947). Although Weber’s description of such groups is vague, many real-world examples resemble three concentric circles, with the innermost circle representing the charismatic master, the second circle consisting of disciples (those “special” individuals whose charismatic qualities have been recognized as extraordinary by the master), and the outer circle representing the followers. One clear example of this type of charismatic community structure can be found in early Christianity when Jesus (the master) chose the Twelve Apostles (the inner circle) from among his other disciples (the outer circle). More-contemporary examples include Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese apocalyptic terror group, and The People’s Temple (a.k.a. Jonestown) (Atkins 2004). Among the primary advantages of rational-legal authority and, consequently, of bureaucracy, are stability and resilience (Baron, Burton, and Hannan 1999; Olsen 2004; Udy 1959; M. Weber 1978). “Once fully established, bureaucracy is among those social structures 33
which are the hardest to destroy” (Weber 1978, 987). According to Weber, this was the result of the formal and impersonal structure of the organization and its rules. For example, he observes that bureaucracies make specific provisions for promotion and replacement so that “relations within the structure [are] determined in such a way that individuals will be interchangeable and the organization will thus be free of dependence upon personal qualities” (Selznick 1948, 25). Thus, highly bureaucratized organizations - including terrorist groups - usually have detailed succession plans in place to guard against the disruptive effects of leadership loss. While rational-legal authority and bureaucracy are characterized by their permanence, charismatic authority is inherently unstable, and thus short-lived. “In its pure form charismatic authority has a character specifically foreign to every-day routine structures... Indeed, [it] may be said to exist only in the process of originating. It cannot remain stable...” (M. Weber 1947, 454). Weber notes two fundamental weaknesses of charismatic authority. First, its legitimacy is based entirely on the recognition/belief of the followers. If, however, the charismatic “is long unsuccessful, above all if his leadership fails to benefit his followers, it is likely that his... authority will disappear” (M. Weber 1947, 374). Second, since the group is bound together only by complete personal devotion to a single individual, in the event that the individual is removed, the group will lose its raison d’être and will likely collapse. More practically, the group under a charismatic authority is especially dependent on their leader for resources (M. Weber 1947, 1978). Even if the group’s ideology could survive, without this “key man” there is no mechanism or routine in place to provide for the economic or administrative needs of the group (M. Weber 1947). The assumptions inherent within a charismatic authority situation buttress the underlying assumptions behind the logic of leadership decapitation (Freeman 2010; Mullins 1988; Obama 2010). Not only does the policy of “eliminate the head man” assume that all terrorist groups are organized around a core leadership, it also assumes that this leadership is irreplaceable. Thus, if the core is removed, these assumptions dictate that the group will subsequently collapse (Kenney 2003; Rowlands and Kilberg 2011). As history has shown, however, this logic is flawed because not all terror groups collapse after experiencing a loss of leadership. I suggest this is because terrorist groups are organized differently. Although certain characteristics are common to all terrorist groups, one of the few things we are certain of is that there are significant differences in their organization, including
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variations in size, structure, and scope of activity.38 For example, Horgan and Taylor describe the Provisional Irish Republican Army as having a “cellular-based, hierarchically-organized authoritarian structure... [with an] active membership that does not exceed a few hundred at any one time” (Horgan and Taylor 1997, 3). In sharp contrast, the Earth Liberation Front is well known to be “a decentralized, non-hierarchical movement with no recognized leader” (Jane’s ELF 2013). Furthermore, several studies have shown that these organizational differences affect (among other things) the lethality of the groups’ attacks, their choice of targets, and the government’s ability to successfully negotiate with them (Asal and Rethemeyer 2008; Gates 2006; Heger, Jung, and Wong 2008; Oots 1990). Even if we assume that all terrorist groups were founded by charismatic39 “entrepreneurs,”40 the mixed record of leadership targeting indicates that, at least for some groups, the influence of a charismatic founder wanes as the organization grows (Daft 2009; Freeman 2010; Frisch 2009; Price 2009; Shapiro 2008). Indeed, Weber notes that if it is not to remain a purely transitory phenomenon, but to take on the character of a permanent relationship forming a stable community... it is necessary for the character of charismatic authority to become radically changed...it must become either traditionalized or rationalized, or a combination of both (M. Weber 1947, 378).
In other words, if a charismatic community is to exist beyond the life of its founder, it must reorganize. Weber calls this process of reorganization the “routinization of charisma” (M. Weber and Eisenstadt 1968). Routinizing charismatic leadership involves developing a vision, mission, and/or purpose for the organization, including “the creation and maintenance of symbols, myths, rites, rituals and ceremonies which reflect the values inherent in the vision [of the leader]” (Jacobsen and House 1999, 6). It also requires that standard operating procedures (i.e. routines) be established, including a plan of succession and a means of generating financial and social support for the group (M. Weber 1947). While these aspects of routinization are sometimes
38 This refers to the geographical boundaries of the group’s actions; some groups are regional, others are national, and some, like al-Qaeda, are transnational. 39 The policy of leadership decapitation does not distinguish between charismatic and non-charismatic leaders; thus, I do not attempt to determine if specific terrorist leaders actually possessed charismatic qualities. 40 This concept is borrowed from Abdukadirov (2010). 35
dictated by the founder, it is often left to the leader’s immediate successor to design and implement such plans (Toth 1972). This is one reason the initial transition is by far the most critical and the one that often determines the fate of the organization (Rubenson 1996). Thus, if an organization is to survive and grow outside of the shadow of its charismatic leader, it must find a way to bureaucratize. One such explanation that provides guidance on this process of bureaucratization is Richard Daft’s theory of an organizational lifecycle. This theory suggests that “as organizations progress through the life cycle, they usually take on bureaucratic characteristics as they grow larger and more complex” (2009, 345). In the early stages of an organization’s life, “the organization is small, nonbureuacratic, and a one person show”; in other words, charismatic leadership is necessary to provide control, direction, creativity, and mission (2009, 344). As the organization matures however, “the organization adds staff... formalizes procedures, and establishes a clear hierarchy and division of labor... Top management becomes concerned with issues such as strategy and planning and leaves the operations of the firm to middle management” (2009, 345). In fact, Daft suggests that failure to transition out of the “one man band” phase can hamper an organization’s development, stunting its growth and potentially causing it to fail (2009). Freeman (2010) makes a similar argument in his qualitative study of leadership decapitation, although his model focuses more on different styles of leadership than organizational types. Finally, irrespective of whether a terrorist organization was originally constructed with an end goal of becoming a bureaucratized entity, the Weberian viewpoint would suggest that it must do so if it wishes to outlive its charismatic founder. As I noted previously, however, changes in authority and/or administrative structures are not sufficient to form a theory of organizational behavior concerning why terrorist organizations persist over time. Equally essential to explanations of organizational behavior, especially with respect to organization survival, are the processes by which organizations acquire the human and financial resources they need to function (Barnard 2011; Child 1972; Clark and Wilson 1961; Knoke 1988). Critical to any explanation of organizational maintenance, then, is the type of incentives an organization uses to recruit and retain members (Barnard 1968; Crenshaw 1985; Knoke 1988; Wilson 1974). Weber’s statements about the various structures of authority fail to address the processes through which organizations generate and maintain money and membership (Toth 1972). Incentive theory complements Weber’s structural analysis by 36
explicating the processes through which organizations garner support, despite repeated failures to achieve their stated objectives. Incentives & Incentive Theory The original concept of incentives as instruments of organizational maintenance41 was developed by Chester Barnard in his classic The Functions of the Executive (Barnard 1968). Barnard argued that individuals must be induced to cooperate, and it is the duty of the executive to find and employ various types of incentives to engender their cooperation, lest the organization dissolve entirely (Barnard 1968). “The contributions of personal efforts which constitute the energies of organizations are yielded by individuals because of incentives. The egotistical motives of self-preservation and self-gratification are dominating forces... organizations can exist only when consistent with the satisfaction of these motives, unless, alternatively, they can change these motives” (Barnard 1968, 139). Noted Political Science and Sociology scholar James Q. Wilson used this as a point of departure in his seminal study of voluntary organizations (1974). In short, Wilson argued that an organization’s behavior could be explained by the type of incentive system it employs42 (Clark and Wilson 1961; Wilson 1974). For example, business firms typically rely on specific material incentives, i.e., wages, promotions, firm-paid healthcare, to induce members’ participation. Their use of this particular type of incentive system explains their profit-seeking behavior; a firm’s survival depends on its ability to make enough money to pay its “members.” In contrast, voluntary organizations—whose members are not full-time employees—rely on solidary or purposive incentives to motivate members to join and/or participate. Solidary incentives are “intangible rewards arising out of the act of associating,” and include a sense of belonging, conviviality, or social prestige (Wilson 1974, 33). Purposive incentives are the intangible rewards derived from the personal satisfaction of participating in the attainment of the group’s stated (collective) goals (Wilson 1974). As such, they are intrinsically linked to the (public) mission/purpose of the organization and to each individual’s personal preferences. Although Wilson’s study treated organizations as ideal-types, he acknowledges that no
41 Barnard also introduced the concept of “organizational maintenance,” by which he meant not only survival, but also sustaining communication, willingness to serve, and common purpose (Barnard 1968, 82). 42 For a complete explication of this theory, see Wilson (1974), especially chapter 3. 37
organization relies exclusively on a single type of incentive. In his case studies, Wilson clearly illustrates that different combinations of incentive systems have important consequences for organizational survival (Clark and Wilson 1961; Wilson 1974). This point is especially critical to understanding differences among the behaviors of a single type of organization, such as terrorist groups. Incentives can be tangible or intangible; however, they are by definition scarce and not evenly distributed throughout the organization. The value of any given incentive is always relative to the recipient; a $5,000 bonus is fundamentally worth less to a millionaire than to a homeless person. Similarly, the significance of social status, academic prestige, or even comradery varies based on the preferences of potential recipients. Since the 1970s, questions of organizational maintenance and/or survival have fallen to the margins of the Organizational Studies research agenda (Halpin and Nownes 2012). Indeed, Wilson’s theories appear to have become conventional wisdom, with more-recent studies serving to refine or expand his framework (Knoke 1988; Moe 1988; Prestby et al. 1990). While there are a few recent studies of how organizations survive, a search into the literature revealed no significant theoretical or practical changes to Wilson’s original theory. Terrorist Organizations and Social Services Providing social services has proven to be a particularly effective way for some terrorist groups to generate and maintain both money and membership (Bartels 2010; Berman and Laitin 2008; Grynkewich 2008; Iannaccone and Berman 2006; Koppuzha 2010). Social services provide constituents with both tangible (medicine, education, food) and intangible (a sense of community, spiritual guidance, action over enemies) membership enticements. They also generate income for the terrorist group either through direct donations or as fronts through which groups launder money (Rudner 2010; P. C. Weber 2008). Finally, they serve as source of legitimacy for the group who otherwise might be rejected by their host community because of their violence (Bloom 2005; Paul 2009). Conclusion Any explanation of terrorism (especially transnational terrorism) that does not include
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organization-level factors is insufficient and, most likely, inaccurate.45 Although much has been made about the diffuse, loose, or “unorganized” nature of 21st Century terrorism, all but a handful of scholars agree that this represents a change to how groups are organized, not the abandonment of organization altogether (Acharya and Marwah 2010; Crenshaw 2007). How terrorists organize represents a critical yet frequently misunderstood aspect of terrorism analysis. Much can be learned from discussing the effects differing organizational characteristics can have on internal processes, such as decision-making, recruiting, or internal dispute resolution.
45 As was noted in chapter 1, while there has been a marked rise in discussions of “lone wolf” terrorism, incidents of this type represent a very small percentage of terrorist attacks. 39
Chapter Three: Methodologies Introduction As I noted in the literature review, the current research on leadership decapitation, both qualitative and quantitative, illustrates that this tactic can be effective at collapsing terrorist organizations but fails to explore why it is effective in some cases but not in others, thus leaving serious gaps in policymakers’ understanding of this heavily-used practice. This dissertation is an effort to address this void. As such, my central research question asks, “Why do certain terrorist organizations endure despite experiencing leadership decapitation?” In contrast to previous studies which focused primarily on cases of group collapse, this project explores the phenomenon of organizational survival. Drawing on previous studies of terrorism and theories of organizational behavior, I suggest that the efficacy of leadership targeting is contingent upon how a terrorist group is organized, and, consequently, how it operates. More specifically, I hypothesize that two distinct organizational characteristics—a high degree of bureaucratization and the provision of social services—reduce the destabilizing effects of leadership decapitation by decreasing a terror group’s functional dependence on any single individual to secure the resources necessary to survive. In this chapter, I present my research design and methodology. I begin with an outline of my objectives for this project and then discuss why a mixed-methods research design is the most appropriate to meet them. I briefly review the history of mixed methods research, and then present the specific advantages of a sequential exploratory mixed-methods design. In the final sections, I illustrate how I applied this design model, detailing both my qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and close with a review of this project’s limitations. Objectives The primary objective of this dissertation is to provide a more-complete understanding of the varying effectiveness of leadership decapitation as a counterterrorism technique. My aim is to contribute to the academic study of terrorism while also providing insight for counterterrorism policymakers. Beyond that, my objectives for this project are: 1) to determine the applicability of two existing, prima facie explanations of organizational endurance, bureaucracy and incentive- based organizational maintenance, to the question of terrorist group survival of leadership decapitation; 2) to illustrate the weaknesses of existing theories and generate new hypotheses about organizational endurance; 3) test these hypotheses using a unique dataset of 138 terrorist 40
organizations, and; 4) based on the conclusions drawn from the case study and statistical analyses, present a set of alternative counterterrorism policies that target groups’ social services—not their leaders—thereby reducing their ability to generate financial or human capital while simultaneously weakening the bond between the terrorists and their community. Research Design To meet these objectives, I employ a sequential exploratory mixed-methods design model that combines both quantitative and qualitative analysis into a theory-driven research design, thereby drawing on the strengths of both strategies while simultaneously reducing the weaknesses incurred by using only one or the other (Creswell 2009). Specifically, I combine an in-depth case study with large-n statistical analysis of data collected based on the evidence drawn from the case study. The latter is what differentiates mixed-methods research designs from “multi-method” models: in multi-method research, two types of analysis are used to examine the same problem, but each is conducted independent of and with minimal reference to the other. In mixed-methods research, however, the findings of one phase actually determine the data collected and analyzed in the subsequent phase. Mixed-Methods Research The goal of mixed-methods research is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of interest by examining the same research question(s) with some combination of research methods (Bazely 2004; Creswell 2008; Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, and Turner 2007; Tashakkori and Teddlie 2002). In 1959, Campbell and Fiske introduced the concept of using “more than one method...as part of a validation process that ensures that the explained variance is the result of the underlying phenomenon or trait and not of the method” (Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, and Turner 2007, 13). This concept, now referred to as triangulation, was premised on the belief that if two separate tests of the same research question produced similar results, the findings were more reliable (Denzin 1978; Jick 1979). Later advocates of mixed-methods research contended that the benefits of combining methods extended beyond corroboration, claiming that the complementarity of the methods actually strengthened the internal validity of the research design (Greene, Caracelli, and Graham 1989). The logic of complementarity is that different methods have different strengths and weaknesses; thus, “when two or more methods that have offsetting biases are used to assess a given phenomenon, and the results of these methods
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converge or corroborate one another, then the validity of inquiry findings is enhanced” (Greene, Caracelli, and Graham 1989, 256). The field of mixed-methods research has evolved significantly over the past twenty years. Contemporary mixed-methods research involves increasingly sophisticated and systematic integration of methods at various points in the research process, such that the use of one method affects the data collected and analyzed by the second method (Creswell and Clark 2010; Teddlie and Tashakkori 2010). While there are some prototypical research designs46, there is no set formula or framework for conducting mixed-methods studies. The specific methodologies used (e.g., surveys and interviews; statistics and case studies; formal models and game theory) and how and when they are combined (e.g., in the data collection, analysis, or inference stage) are determined by the purpose of the study and the research question(s) being investigated. One of the primary strengths of mixed-methods research is its unique ability to explore and explain complex problems. Most social science research questions involve problems that are multifaceted, dynamic, and difficult to study out of context. Thus, the rationale for using a mixed-methods research design is that such problems cannot be fully understood when analyzed using either quantitative or qualitative methodologies alone. When used in combination, however, the researcher can take full advantage of the strengths of each approach and give a more robust analysis of the data (Green, Caracelli, and Graham 1989; Miles and Huberman 1994; Green and Caracelli 1997; Tashakkori and Teddlie 1998). This is not to say that all research problems require mixed-methods research designs. However, when the questions involve complex phenomena or when a single method has previously proven inconclusive, the use of a mixed-methods research strategy may lead to a more-complete understanding of the problem. Specific Advantages of the Sequential Exploratory Model A sequential exploratory47 mixed-methods research design has two distinct research phases (in this project, an in-depth case study followed by large-n statistical testing) in which the
46 See Creswell and Plano Clark (2010) for an overview of the various types of mixed methods research designs. 47 The name “sequential exploratory” comes from Creswell and Plano Clark’s research design classification system (Creswell and Plano Clark 2010).
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results of the qualitative analysis contribute to the data collection and analysis in the second phase (Creswell and Plano Clark 2010). I use the theory development48 model, a variant on the main exploratory sequential model (Creswell 2008), as my primary methodological approach throughout the current project. The goal of this particular research design is to use the qualitative phase to identify important variables/relationships and generate new hypotheses, and then to use the quantitative phase to test their significance and/or applicability to a larger universe of cases (Creswell 2008). “In this model, the initial qualitative phase produces specific categories or relationships. These... are then used to direct the research questions and data collection used in the second, quantitative phase” (Creswell 2008, 78). Sequential exploratory research designs are particularly well-suited for hypothesis generation because they “make room for both the exploratory inductive process that begins with empirical evidence of the particular and proceeds to a level of abstracting/theorizing/generalizing and the confirmatory deductive process of hypothesis testing” (Rocco et al. 2003, 22). In the sections that follow, I discuss my research strategies in detail; however, a visual model of the procedures used can be found in Appendix 1. An Organizational Approach This dissertation looks at the effects of leadership loss on terrorist organizations; thus, the unit of analysis is the organization, not individual leadership targeting events.49 As such, I use an organizational approach throughout the project. This approach focuses on organization- level factors and processes rather than individual or structural (environmental) factors, and how differences in a group’s organization can and will affect its behavior, including its response to leadership loss. Pioneered by Martha Crenshaw, the organizational approach “focus[es] on the organization as a determining factor in the process of terrorism” (1985, 465).50 As opposed to explanations of terrorist activity that focus exclusively on ideology, individual psychology (or
48 Creswell (2008) refers to this as the “taxonomy development model,” but states that it is equally applicable to hypothesis generating and theory development. 49 In other words, I am not concerned with the number of times government agents were successful in their attempt to kill or capture a terrorist leader. Rather, I am concerned with the effect(s) of leadership loss—via natural causes, government intervention, or otherwise—on individual terrorist organizations. 50 Other works employing the organizational approach to the study of terrorism include: (Asal and Rethemeyer 2008; Crenshaw 1985, 1987; Gates 2006; Mayntz 2004; Oots 1986, 1989; Shapiro 2005) 43
psychopathology), or environmental conditions, the organizational approach assumes that terroristic behavior is the result of the internal dynamics of the organization and “may be motivated by the imperative of organizational survival or the requirements of competition with rival terrorist groups” (Crenshaw 1985, 473). Thus, it “offers a way of integrating variables of ideology, individual motivation, and social conditions into explanations of how terrorist campaigns get started and of why they continue” despite repeated failures to meet their stated goals (Crenshaw 1985, 472). This perspective is grounded in theories and concepts from Organization Studies and, as such, makes certain fundamental assumptions about terrorism and terrorist groups and how best to analyze them. In addition to the assumption of rationality, this approach assumes that terrorism is fundamentally a group phenomenon (Crenshaw 1987; Cronin 2009; Oots 1990; Rapoport 2001; Shapiro 2008). Therefore, explanations and policy prescriptions are developed using organization-level factors.51 Most importantly, however, the organizational approach assumes that terrorist organizations are organizations. While they do have features that distinguish them as a particular type, terrorist groups possess several characteristics that are common to all non-state organizations: (1) a defined, though potentially adaptable, structure; (2) functionally differentiated roles for members; (3) a discernible chain of command; (4) publicly stated goals that, if achieved, will produce collective benefits, and; (5) a set of distinct standard operating procedures (Crenshaw 1985; Oots 1986; Zawodny 1978). Professor Jacob Shapiro underscores the similarity between terror groups and their legal counterparts stating, “the core managerial challenges of terrorist organizations are actually quite similar to those faced by other, more traditional human organizations… This is exactly why their organizations employ many of the same managerial tools that we find in business firms and government bureaucracies” (2013, 2). Other works stress the similarity between terror groups and non-violent activist/interest groups claiming that both are political and (primarily) voluntary organizations whose aim is to provide collective goods to their members (Berman 2009; Crenshaw 1985; Oots 1986).
51 At this level of analysis, factors of consequence are those that affect the organization/group, which can include other groups (i.e. allies or rivals). In this way, it is akin to the level of “firm” rather than “market” in economic analysis. 44
Terrorist groups are distinct from legitimate organizations in three significant ways: (1) the use of violence as the primary means of accomplishing their collective goals; (2) the (relatively) small size of the group, and; (3) the clandestine and/or isolated nature of the group. These characteristics affect the behavior of terror groups, primarily by acting as constraints on their options, but also by affecting their internal dynamics (Crenshaw 1985; Gates 2006; McCormick 2003; Shapiro 2013). The assumption that terrorist groups are a type of organization is one of the primary benefits of the organizational approach because it facilitates generalizability, thus allowing the researcher to compare terrorist organizations to other types of organizations and apply existing theories of organizational behavior to them (Oots 1989). In this way, the organizational approach is beneficial for both academic and practical reasons: First, it contributes to the development of theory and, consequently, to cumulative knowledge, both of which are important and historically difficult tasks for terrorism researchers (Silke 2004a). Second, the organizational approach gives policymakers a heuristic for understanding terror group behavior, allowing them to make sounder decisions about how best to counter them. This is not to say that all terrorist organizations are alike, because they are not. In fact, Crenshaw warns that “generalizing about the characteristics of terrorist organizations should not lead to the false assumption that all such organizations are identical” (1985, 467). Important distinctions among terrorist organizations, such as degree of clandestiness, access to resources, and level of cohesion, can and do affect how they behave, including how they respond to leadership loss. Similarly, these same factors require that important qualifications be made when comparing terrorist organizations to their legitimate counterparts. Because terrorist groups face different constraints than do their legitimate counterparts, we should not expect the former to behave—i.e. respond to internal or external pressures—in the same manner as the latter. Rather, we should use the organizational approach as a tool for identifying those factors that might help us understand and explain terrorist groups and their behaviors. Phase One: Qualitative Analysis The purpose of the qualitative portion of a sequential mixed-methods research design is to explore a phenomenon, to identify important variables, and to generate hypotheses about causal relationships (Creswell 2008). In the first phase of my research, I use a deviant case study to explore two existing explanations of organizational endurance, bureaucracy and incentive- 45
based organizational maintenance, that should prima facie account for the ability of some terror groups to survive leadership loss. Based on its divergent response to (repeated) episodes of leadership loss, I selected the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood as my case for study.52 Using an organizational approach, I conduct a structured, focused study of the group that spans fifty years, concentrating on the group’s operational and structural development especially after periods of leadership loss. I first illustrate the inability of existing explanations to explain the Society’s divergent response to leadership decapitation; then, I look for evidence that my hypothesized causal mechanisms (variables and processes) are linked to the observed outcome of organizational endurance. Based on these findings, I formulate specific hypotheses regarding the effectiveness of leadership decapitation and organizational endurance. Cases and Case Studies Case studies are a popular choice of qualitative approach in mixed methods research because they “are generally strong precisely where statistical methods and formal models are weak,” (George and Bennett 2005, 19). For example, statistical analyses can identify which and/or how much certain variables contribute to an observed outcome; however, they cannot explain how or why this occurs, nor can they identify new variables or generate new hypotheses about outlier or deviant cases (George and Bennett 2005; VanEvera 1997; Yin 2009). When trying to make causal inferences, statistics rely on covariation to make highly generalizable statements about potential relationships between variables, but as every introductory level stats book warns, “correlation is not causation.” In contrast, the case study method allows researchers to examine a small number of complex, context-specific phenomena and, when combined with process tracing, to develop probabilistic statements about the causal mechanisms (the processes through which causal and intervening variables work) that link hypothesized causes to an observed outcome (George and Bennett 2005). In these ways, case studies are especially valuable for generating new hypotheses. Different types of case studies accomplish different goals and the type of case study a researcher chooses should reflect specific research objectives as well as the amount and kind of data available for study (Baxter and Jack 2008; Levy 2008; Yin 2009). Most typologies of case studies are based on Lijphart’s (1971) categories of hypothesis-generating, theory-confirming,
52 I discuss my case selection strategy in detail intra. 46
theory-informing, atheoretical, deviant, or interpretive case studies, and/or Eckstein’s (1992) categories of configurative-idiographic, disciplined-configurative, crucial, plausibility probe, or heuristic case studies.53 As Levy notes however, there is considerable overlap among these in terms of goals and purpose (2008). Thus, he consolidates them into four (4) basic types: idiographic, hypothesis generating, hypothesis testing, and plausibility probes (Levy 2008). Importantly, “these are ideal types, and in practice case studies often combine several of these aims, often (and preferably) in sequence as a part of a multi-stage research program, one that may involve other methods” (Levy 2008, 3). Irrespective of which type of case study is chosen, it is incumbent upon the researcher to clearly identify the selection and justify it as an appropriate choice for the project. Given that the goal of the qualitative phase of my research is hypothesis generation, I chose to conduct a deviant case study. Deviant cases, referred to as outliers in statistical testing, are especially useful for hypothesis generation since, by definition, their outcome differs from what existing theory predicted (Bennett and Elman 2007; Levy 2008). Whereas statistics have no ability to explain their divergence, deviant case studies are designed for the explicit goal of explaining why these outcomes do not fit the existing theory (Levy 2008). Rogowski notes the central importance of a deviant case in which the outcome is unexpectedly wrong: “A powerful, deductive, internally consistent theory can be seriously undermined... by even one wildly discordant observation” (2004, 82). George and Bennett (2005) suggest that such deviant cases may yield information about previously unidentified causal mechanisms that may also operate in other cases.54 Furthermore, because researchers are not limited to analyzing prescribed sets of variables, they are able to determine if the exceptional outcome was the result of measurement error or of previously unnoticed causal mechanisms. In this way, case studies are often (and best) used as part of a building-block approach to theory building, where single case studies are part of an iterative process along with statistical tests, potentially followed by a return to comparative case analysis for further refinement (Eckstein 1992; Eisenhardt 1989; George and Bennett 2005; Yin 2009).
53 For an in-depth discussion of each of these, see Levy (2008). 54 See also Brady and Collier (2004).
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Case Selection Process The Society of the Muslim Brothers (the Society)55 is the oldest and most successful Islamist organization56 in the world. It began in 1928 as a “peripheral Islamic welfare society,” operating in a few small towns along the Suez Canal (Lia 2006, 1). Within a decade, however, the Society grew into Egypt’s largest and most influential political and social grassroots organization, a status it has maintained for over 80 years (Lia 2006). The legacy of the Society, however, extends far beyond its influence in Egypt. It has been called “the mother organization of all modern Islamist movements,” in part because much of the movement known as “political Islam” or “Islamism” is rooted in the writings of the Society’s most prominent leaders, Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb (Gaskew 2011). Additionally, the Society has spawned dozens of new Islamist organizations, including some of the most violent and long-lived terrorist groups of the 20th and 21st centuries. While it is quick to point out that these are distinct organizations and that the Society itself has not engaged in violence since the 1970s, the fact remains that many of these groups’ leaders were recruited and trained by the Society. In terms of this study’s primary research objective, explaining the inconsistent effects of leadership targeting, the Society of Muslim Brothers represents an ideal case for study. In Organization and Management Studies, one of the most critical and potentially destabilizing times in an organization’s lifecycle occurs when there is a change in leadership (Carroll 1984; Gordon and Rosen 1981; Rubenson 1996). Leadership succession, “the planned or unplanned change of the formal leader of a group or organization,” (Gordon and Rosen 1981, 227) can have serious and long-lasting effects on an organization’s performance.57 Research has indicated that the first transition, that away from the organization’s founder/owner, is the most critical; however, most scholars agree that a change in top leadership at any time can create instability and potential organizational disintegration (Rubenson 1996). Similarly, in their research on how
55 As Barry Rubin observes, it is more correct to say Muslim Brotherhoods due to the distinct natures of the three organizations in Egypt, Jordan, and Syria all of which operate under the same moniker. While at times I may refer to the groups in Jordan and Syria, the focus of my analysis—and the source of my model—is the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. 56 Many authors refer to the Muslim Brotherhood “movement” because it is trans-national and diverse. However, the focus of this paper is on the organizational characteristics of one specific group, the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. 57 For a review of this literature, see (Giambatista, Rowe, and Riaz 2005) 48
terrorist groups end, Kurth-Cronin and Crenshaw both cite leadership loss and failure to transition to the next generation as two of the most common ways terrorist groups end (Crenshaw et al. 1999; Cronin 2009). Throughout its existence, the Society has experienced perpetual losses of leadership, numerous internal disputes, and multiple incidents of splintering (Lia 2006; Rubin 2010). Yet, the Society has endured for over 80 years. In fact, despite the overwhelming and sustained effort to destroy it, the Society has maintained its status as the most influential political-opposition organization in Egypt. Given this fact as well as its ties to many of the most dangerous terror groups in the world today, an examination of the Society during critical periods of its lifecycle may help us better understand why traditional counterterrorism measures, including leadership targeting, are ineffective against certain organizations. Phase Two: Quantitative Analysis The purpose of the quantitative portion of a mixed-methods research design is to build on the findings of the qualitative analysis. Specifically, the quantitative analysis is used to test variables, relationships, or hypotheses “resulting from the qualitative [analysis] and... to generalize qualitative findings to different samples” (Creswell 2008, 211). In this project, my aim is twofold: first, to identify basic patterns among the variables identified in the qualitative phase58 and, second, to determine if the relationships I suggest between my variables of interest and the observed outcome of leadership decapitation are significant. Using SPSS software, I run both descriptive and inferential statistical analyses on three hypotheses generated from the case study, using binary logistic regression for the latter. Dataset, Population, and Sample To assess my propositions regarding the conditions under which leadership decapitation is least likely to result in organizational collapse, I created a unique dataset of 138 terrorist organizations. This dissertation uses the group as the unit of analysis; thus, my dataset consists of organization-level variables, many of which are not found in any other existing dataset. Given its singularity, this dataset is one of the primary ways this project contributes to the development of the field.
58 One of the primary aims of my descriptive statistical analysis is to determine the frequency with which the core elements of a Weberian bureaucracy are present among the universe of cases in my dataset. 49
Prior to 9/11, only a few (perhaps as many as five) terrorism datasets/databases existed, almost all of which were government owned and operated (Schmid 2011). In response to the events of 9/11, many organizations (government, academic, and non-profit) began creating publicly available, open-source databases comprised of key bits of information about thousands of incidents of terrorism that have occurred over the past forty years. The most comprehensive of these is the GTD (Global Terrorism Database) kept at the START Center at the University of Maryland.59 The other two notable open-source databases are the RAND-MIPT Worldwide Incidents database, available from the RAND Corporation, and the ITERATE database available from the University of Michigan.60 The START Center also houses the Terrorist Organization Profiles (TOPs) database, the only open-source relational database featuring detailed histories of specific groups and biographies of key group leaders. While many analyses of leadership decapitation use data from one of these existing sources, I opted to create a new dataset for two reasons. First, because I am using an organizational approach, I needed to analyze information about the various organizational characteristics of terrorist groups. To date, none of the publicly available databases has this type of information; rather, they are event-based, with information about specific attacks (e.g., date, place, casualty count, etc.). While TOPs provides some information on terrorist organizations, these are descriptive profiles only; its information has not been coded in any systematic, quantifiable way. Second, there are inconsistencies in the amount and quality of information available from each database. For example, both TOPs and the GTD contain information about groups whose attacks resulted in no injuries or fatalities, groups who tried but failed to carry out an attack, as well as groups who committed purely criminal acts that were undertaken for non- political reasons (Price 2009; Dugan and LaFree 2007). Moreover, much of the information in the TOPs database is out of date, given that it has not been updated since March 2008. Because of these issues, I elected to create a unique, organizational-level dataset.61
59 The START Center is a Center of Excellence funded by the Department of Homeland Security. 60 For a full review of existing terrorism databases see Bowie, Neil G, and Alex P. Schmid. 2011. “Databases on Terrorism.” In The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research, ed. Alex P. Schmid. New York: Routledge, 294– 340. 61 Previous studies of leadership decapitation have focused on group-level, but not necessarily organizational factors. Such group-level factors might include size, age, and group “type.” In contrast, organizational factors
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To construct this new dataset, I systematically assembled comprehensive and comparable organization-level data62 on 138 terrorist organizations involved in various campaigns around the world between 1951 and 2011.63 While this is clearly not the entire universe of terrorist organizations active during this period, the sample is large enough for a sufficient evaluation of how differently organized terrorist groups respond to leadership decapitation. I used the following criteria to select my cases. First, all groups had to meet the State Department’s definitional requirements of a terrorist organization. Second, all groups must have a minimum of three attributed attacks, at least one of which had to result in fatalities other than the terrorist. Third, groups must demonstrate sustained activity; in other words, they must be responsible for more than one series of attacks within a short timespan (one month or less) without evidence of subsequent activity.64 These criteria are a reasonable method of ensuring that only consequential terrorist groups, or those displaying organizational fortitude, are included in my analysis. Cases were drawn from the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Terrorist Organization and Specially Designated Global Terrorists lists. Additionally, I included certain groups found on the terrorism lists of Australia, the European Union, and Great Britain. Finally, to ensure diversity of geography, age, and status, I selected cases from three existing datasets: the GTD, Audrey Kurth Cronin’s “How Terrorism Ends” dataset, and the BAAD (Big, Allied And Dangerous) dataset. In sum, the dataset I have constructed for the purposes of this project includes 110 groups that have experienced leadership loss and 28 groups that have not. Furthermore, of the 138
include distribution of power, codification of standard operating procedures, decision-making structure, redundancy, etc. 62 Unlike Jordan (2009) who uses age, size, and type as proxies for other organizational characteristics, I coded for specific organizational attributes identified as potentially significant in the case study. The coding for each variable is discussed at length in chapter five. 63 Some of the groups included in the dataset could be classified as both terrorist organizations and insurgent organizations. Many authors have offered opinions regarding the distinctions between terrorists, guerrillas, and insurgents (see Hoffman 1997; Laqueur 1987; Merari 1993) the overlap is due to the fact that terrorism is a strategy, a tactic chosen by a group engaged in political violence. There are “purely” guerilla and/or insurgent groups, those who do not engage in terrorism as defined above; however, all of the groups included in my dataset meet the definitional criteria of “terrorist.” 64 Certain groups that fell outside these criteria were included because of their significance. Aum Shinrikyo, for example, was one of very few terrorist groups to commit an attack using a WMD.
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groups in my dataset, 68 are active and 70 are inactive.65 A complete list of the organizations is provided in Appendix 2. Once the universe of cases was established, I collected data on key organizational characteristics for each group. All data were collected between 2003 and 2012 and were drawn from publicly available, open-source materials. Multiple sources were used for each case; the most frequently referenced sources were Jane’s World Insurgency and Terrorism66, the TOPs database, the U.S. Department of State’s Country Reports on Terrorism (2004-2011) and the National Counterterrorism Center’s Annual Report on Terrorism (2008-2011). Other common sources include the Sage Encyclopedia of Terrorism, the Council on Foreign Affairs website (backgrounders and profiles), the BBC Online website (profiles and in-depth series), and Congressional Research Service reports. When available, I examined the primary67 documents of specific terrorist actors and organizations, including press releases, interviews, autobiographies, and intra-organizational documents.68 The latter were especially important for gleaning information about the organizational characteristics of various terror groups, including their standard operating procedures, the roles and functions of members and leaders, and the degrees to which these are institutionalized. Finally, I examined various academic journals, government reports, and monographs for contextual information about the groups, including the historical, political, geographical, and economic environments in which they operate.
65 Groups are considered inactive if there is no documented evidence of a significant attack within two years. This two-year timespan is consistent with the U.S. Department of State’s review period for placing or removing groups on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list. Note: If a group that would otherwise be considered inactive continued to be designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization on any of the major lists referenced, I coded it as “active.” 66 Jane’s World Insurgency and Terrorism is a subscription-based online reference product offered by IHS/Jane’s. http://www.janes.com/products/janes/security/terrorism-insurgency-intelligence-centre/world.aspx 67 “Primary” indicates that the original source of these documents was a terrorist leader or group, not that they were obtained via first-hand research. All such documents, however, were collected from third-party sources, such as the State Department, RAND Corporation’s “Voices of Jihad” database, and/or the Combatting Terrorism Center’s Harmony Project (http://www.ctc.usma.edu/programs-resources/harmony-program). 68 Many intra-organizational documents have been captured during recent operations in support of the Global War on Terror. Examples include letters, charts, handbooks, maps, etc., such as those found in the May 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and the 2002 Israeli Defense Forces raid of the Palestinian Authority headquarters in Ramallah.
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Instrumentation To ensure the systematic examination of each organization, I designed a questionnaire to guide my data collection (see Appendix 3). I chose to create my own instrument primarily because, to my knowledge, no other questionnaire exists that is designed to collect information about my variables of interest. Furthermore, the creation of a unique instrument is a key facet of this sequential mixed-methods study; in fact, it is one the primary areas in which the “mixing” of data occurs. The questionnaire has 51 questions (49 = yes/no) that are designed to ascertain how each terror group is organized,69 its age, ideology, location, if it provides social services, and its experience with leadership decapitation. Each question, especially those regarding the group’s organizational properties, is based on evidence of the causal mechanisms (variables and processes) gleaned from the case study. There was no need to run a standard reliability test of the questionnaire, i.e., a chrome box alpha test, because no scale variables were used in my analysis.70 The specific coding of each independent variable is discussed in chapter five. For many of the well-known groups, determining the most appropriate response to each question was rather straightforward because there are explicit references to organizational design, standard operating procedures, command structure, etc. Statements such as “the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades consists of localized cells of Palestinian Militants” or “al-Shabaab’s regional units appear to operate independent of each other” require little or no interpretation. In contrast, determinations about some of the newer groups required meta-analyses of several sources and, at times, responses were based on my general impression of the organization. I attempted to corroborate each piece of information using multiple independent sources, however, given the covert and fluid nature of terrorism and terrorist organizations, there is no way to guarantee the data’s accuracy. I will discuss this further in the limitations section of this chapter.
69 i.e., its structure, policies, and processes. 70 The only scale variable recorded was group age, however, due to the requirements of the binary logit regression model, this was converted in a categorical variable.
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Statistical Tests As I stated in the introduction, I use both descriptive and inferential statistics to test my hypotheses about organizational endurance. Descriptive statistics describe and summarize the data collected, allowing me to identify patterns among the variables of interest. I used frequency tables to obtain the mean, median, mode, and standard deviation71 of each independent variable used in the subsequent regression models for all 138 groups in the dataset. I also ran separate frequency tables for each of the variables used to create the composite variable “bureaucracy score” to determine the frequency with which these organizational attributes were found among these terrorist groups. The results of this preliminary analysis indicated that the majority of terror organizations possessed three (3) or more bureaucratic attributes, and nearly half possessed more than four (4). All results are reported in chapter five and discussed in chapter six. I then used inferential statistics to determine the significance of the relationships observed in the case study and, to make (probabilistic) statements about their applicability to a larger population. The dependent variable for this project is dichotomous;72 thus, to accomplish the tasks above, I use binary logistic regression analysis. Binary logistic (or logit) regression is a measure of the probability or odds of the dichotomous dependent variable taking on a particular value (0/1) based on the values of the independent variables, which can be continuous or categorical (Roval, Baker, and Ponton 2012). The goal of logistic regression analysis is to find the best fitting model—the one that explains the most—to describe the relationship between the dependent variable and independent variables. Binary logit regression does this using the Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) of all model coefficients. Whereas standard regression models, such as Ordinary Least Squares, tries to find the best fitting model by minimizing case prediction errors (i.e., cases being predicted into the wrong category of the dependent variable), logistic regression finds the best fitting model by estimating the maximum likelihood (probability) of a case having a statistically significant impact on the proportional odds outcome of either state (whether 0 or 1) of the dependent variable. In a logistic regression equation, the “Exp(B),” or the odds ratio, is the predicted change in the proportional odds of a given outcome in the dependent variable for a unit increase (or
71 The mean and standard deviation for all variables under investigation are reported in chapter 5. 72 A complete discussion of the dependent variable and its coding is provided in chapter 5. 54
decrease) in the predictor variable. The “exp” refers to the exponential value of B. When the Exp(B) is negative, increasing values of the independent variable correspond to decreasing odds of the occurrence of a desired state (i.e., whatever is coded as 1) of the dependent variable. When Exp(B) is positive, increasing values of the variable correspond to increasing odds of the occurrence of a desired state (i.e., whatever is coded as 1) of the dependent variable. If you subtract 1 from the exponentiated coefficient and then multiply by 100, you get the percent change in the proportional odds of the dependent variable having a value of 1. For example, let us assume that the independent variable is age, and the dependent variable is whether or not a person eats fast food once a month (coded as 1 = yes, 0 = no). Let us also assume that for age, the Exp(B) = -.941. By applying the previously stated formula, we obtain the following equation: ((1 - .941) * 100)) = 5.9%. Thus, there is a 5.9% decrease in the proportional odds ratio for eating fast food once a month for every unit increase in age. For the current investigation, the general logistic regression equation that was estimated is as follows:
logit(p) = b0 + b1X1 + b2X2 + … bkXk where b = the exponentiated coefficient, X = a given independent variable, k = the kth variable in the equation set, and logit(p) is the proportional odds of the occurrence of an event in the dependent variable as a function of the independent variable(s) in the logit equation. Limitations of this Study One of the primary benefits of a mixed-methods research design is its ability to provide a robust analysis of a complex phenomenon, one that is more complete than if it were examined using either a purely quantitative or qualitative approach. This design’s use of an in-depth case study and large-n statistical analyses allows me to draw on the strengths of each method, while simultaneously minimizing their inherent limitations. Nevertheless, this project has certain limitations that may affect the applicability of my findings; namely, the accuracy of the data collected and the scope of the research question. The covert natures of terrorism and terrorist organizations present unique obstacles to all researchers. Scholars and analysts outside governments, however, are especially challenged by the difficulty of gathering reliable, current, and accurate data. First, as I discussed in the Dataset, Population, and Sample section, only a small number of public data collections on terrorist
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events exist, all of which have inconsistencies and missing information. Second, the two primary sources of information about terrorist organizations and their activities—governments and the groups themselves—are equally unlikely to share important operational details with the general public, even though it may be in the former’s best interest to do so. Given these facts, the validity of data used in any study of terrorism should be considered carefully. These concerns, however, are somewhat mitigated by this project’s organization-level focus. As Renate Mayntz observed, [While] the use of our standard data collection methods is severely restricted when we deal with drug cartels, the mafia, or terrorist organizations...descriptive accounts of the basic organizational features of clandestine illegal organizations...can be culled from the work of journalists, court transcripts, interrogation protocols, and governmental agency reports (Mayntz 2004).
A second important limitation to consider is the narrow scope of my research question. My study is of organizational endurance; thus, I do not address every instance of leadership targeting. Rather, my analysis applies only to those cases where decapitation failed to collapse the terror group. My hypotheses further limit the predictive and explanatory power of this study to cases of failed leadership loss for groups that possess specific organizational qualities. By limiting the scope of this project to a specific class of cases, my findings are inherently narrower and more contingent. This loss of generalizability, however, allows for more-specific statements about when the practice of leadership targeting is least likely to be effective (George and Bennett 2005). Despite these limitations, this dissertation accomplishes two important things. First, I provide significant insight into the survival of the some of the most notorious, lethal, and (to date) durable terrorist organizations active today. Second, I identify a new set of significant variables, which reveal an alternative set of policy prescriptions for countering these groups.
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Chapter 4: A Case Study of the Society of Muslim Brothers (Egypt) Introduction In this chapter, I treat the Society of Muslim Brothers as a deviant case of leadership decapitation, one where the outcome does not fit with existing theories. The goals of this case study are multiple: first, to illustrate the weaknesses of existing explanations; second, to look for evidence of causal mechanisms (e.g., the bureaucratic attributes of the organization, the presence or absence of leadership decapitation, and/or the amount and type of social services provided by an organization) that link my proposed variables to the outcome of organizational endurance; and third, to generate testable hypotheses about organizational endurance based on that evidence. As discussed in chapter three, deviant case studies are “selected in order to reveal why the cases are deviant—that is, to uncover relevant additional variables that were not considered previously” (Lijphart 1971, 692). They are fundamentally exploratory in nature; thus, “the purpose of a deviant case analysis is… to probe for new—but as yet unspecified—explanations” (Seawright and Gerring 2008, 302). In this way, they are especially well-suited to hypothesis generation and theory building. A Note About the Muslim Brotherhood and Terrorism One of the most pervasive questions about the Society pertains to its ties to terrorism.73 Although the United States and many of its allies currently classifies it as a non-violent political and social welfare group, the Egyptian state currently considers the Society of Muslim Brothers a terrorist organization. Academically and historically, it is well established that, during various periods of its existence, the Society engaged in violence against the Egyptian government, including extended campaigns of bombings and assassinations that targeted both government officials and civilians (Lia 2006; Mitchell 1993; Rubin 2012). It is equally well established that Society of Muslim Brothers has, for the majority of its life, preached non-violent resistence and denounced the terroristic acts of other groups as well as those of its own members. Nevertheless, irrespective of whether or not the Muslim Brotherhood was or is a terrorist group, it has been, and continues to be, treated as such by its host state. This fact allows me to use it in my analysis of other official terrorist organizations.
73 This is discussed in detail in the next section. 57
Organizational Attributes of Interest In chapter two, I introduced two existing explanations of organizational endurance. Here, I briefly review the key organizational attributes associated with each explanation and suggest how they may affect terrorist group survival. Before proceeding, however, I wish to reiterate the central assumption of this dissertation: Differently organized (terrorist) groups behave differently. Thus, the following is limited to a small sub-category of terror groups, those who have survived leadership decapitation and who (may) possess specific organizational attributes. Certain terrorist organizations may survive leadership decapitation if they possess two distinct organizational characteristics. First, terrorist groups that have adopted at least some features of a bureaucracy should prove more difficult to collapse via leadership targeting. Importantly, because of the organizational traits specific to a terrorist group (clandestineness, use of violence, high turnover), a “terrorist bureaucracy” will not be identical to Weber’s ideal type. Nevertheless, it will have many of the same attributes, which should stabilize the organization by institutionalizing many facets of its operation. These facets include those functions most commonly performed by a leader; namely, recruiting members, retaining members, and fundraising. Second, groups that provide some type of social services should also prove more resilient to leadership removal efforts, although there is a high level of variation among them regarding distribution, type, and number of services. Among its other effects, providing social services literally embeds the terrorist organization within its host community by creating deep, complex, and highly personal ties. Not only does this make “rooting out” the terrorists a difficult task for the government, it also poses a serious threat to the state-society relationship, especially if the services end—and are not replaced—due to the state’s intervention. As outlined in chapter two, bureaucracies are more stable than other types of organizational types because of their formal structure and policies (rules, standard operating procedures), which collectively serve to create routines. In terms of structural changes, the process of bureaucratization creates a clear (though potentially decentralized) command and control structure, in which authority is removed from any single or singular leader. Some scholars have suggested that the trend toward decentralization is a clear example of organizational learning among terrorist groups; that is to say, these groups are adapting in order to survive specific types of counterterrorism techniques (Horgan and Taylor 1997; Sinno 2008). Intuitively, this argument makes sense because in response to the active pursuit of members— 58
leaders and operatives—groups assume a decentralized organizational structure that is more difficult to disrupt by leadership decapitation than the more traditional hierarchical design. Importantly, however, the change in design necessitates other operational changes as well. For example, a decentralized organization by definition has a dispersed command and control function, with authority potentially spread out among several sub-units. Depending on the degree of decentralization, each unit may have a high (if not a complete) level of operational, financial, and/or strategic autonomy. Thus, even if one or two nodes are removed, the group as a whole will still be operationally functional. Importantly, while decentralization may decrease the chance of disruption from external threats, it can increase internal complications, such as diminished group cohesion, internal challenges for power, and/or loss of members from defection. Organizations choosing to decentralize may be trading resilience to external threats for vulnerability from internal complications. Structural adaptations are just one part of this process, however. Bureaucratization also involves establishing a clear division of labor, role and function redundancy, the codification of standard operating rules, processes, and procedures, and the institutionalization of leadership (Weber 1947). Undoubtedly, the institutionalization of the group’s leadership is, in terms of surviving leadership decapitation, the most critical part of this process. If a group was organized around charismatic authority, replacing it with bureaucratic authority ensures a stable process of leadership transition, so that when a leader is killed or captured, his role can be filled by another member of the group without a potentially harmful internal power struggle. In its entirety, the bureaucratization process enhances organizational stability and safeguards longevity by removing the organization’s functional dependency on any single leader. The second key organizational characteristic is the provision of social services to the group’s host society. These “shadow government” services include education, food assistance, childcare, and emergency relief. The provision of these services helps to stabilize the group in two ways. First, providing social services to the local population creates a web of complex patron-client ties with community members and literally embeds the group into society, thus making the population more receptive to the group’s demands, sympathetic to its cause, and protective of its members. This “web” is both metaphorical and actual: much like other social services organizations, these groups operate at the grass-roots level, and as such are spread out in the community, essentially creating a more diffuse network organizational structure. Second, 59
these services generate support for the group, bringing in both new members and revenue. In terms of recruiting, social services act as incentives74 for potential and existing members. Thus, in a situation where terror groups must compete for support (in terms of membership and empathy from the locals), those who provide social services have a distinct advantage over those who do not. Furthermore, social services often provide a source of revenue for the group. As has been widely reported, many terrorist organizations receive funds through seemingly legitimate charities (Glaser 2010; Kaplan 2006; Rudner 2010). While some of these charities are purely illegal fronts for laundering money, others are, at least in part, legitimate aid and/or relief agencies. By adopting these two key organizational characteristics, terrorist groups are not dependent upon any one leader to perform the critical functions of organizational maintenance, i.e., generating social support, fundraising, and recruiting, which should render them less susceptible to collapse via leadership decapitation. The Society of Muslim Brothers, 1928-1979 This case study aims to understand the organizational endurance of the Society of Muslim Brothers by examining key periods of the group’s lifespan between its founding in 1928, and the year 1979 when it solidified its position as the preeminent organization in the movement known today as Political Islam. I introduce the case by presenting the historical backdrop against which the group was established and then briefly review the organization’s early years, highlighting its extraordinary growth between 1932 and 1942. I then move into an examination of the Society’s history between 1945 and 1979. First, I present two specific instances of leadership decapitation that, according to existing theory, were the most likely to result in the group’s collapse. As I illustrate in the subsequent section, however, not only did the Brotherhood survive these events, it rematerialized as a stronger and more popular organization. I then give a detailed description of the group’s “organization,” i.e., its structure and policies, much of which has not changed since its founding. I call attention to a series of “reorganizations” made during the group’s early years, through which Hasan al-Banna, the Society’s founder, enhanced the organization’s bureaucratic attributes for the specific purpose of withstanding government
74 According to Mancur Olson, selective incentives are one way for rational individuals to overcome the free-rider problem inherent within collective goods problems. 60
repression. Finally, I examine the role the Society’s social service provision played in its ability to reconstitute after its near collapse. Background The 1920s and 1930s were a time of political and social turmoil for Egypt. In 1922, the British officially ended their protectorate and recognized the “Kingdom of Egypt” as an independent state. Between 1923 and 1952, commonly referred to as Egypt’s “liberal experiment,” Egypt functioned as a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral, Western-style parliamentary system (Goldschmidt Jr. 2004). Yet, while Egypt had many of the hallmarks of a democracy, including an independent judiciary, a free press, and competitive elections, the political system was extremely dysfunctional, suffering from a constant power struggle between the British, the King, and Parliament (Cleveland 2004). The result was an inefficient, unresponsive government, and a majority of Egyptians who were disillusioned with democracy and searching for a practical alternative to solve their problems. Despite being declared a “free and independent state,” in reality, Egyptian sovereignty was severely limited (Constitution 1923). The British retained significant economic and political authority, including exclusive control of the Suez Canal, which they executed through the Office of High Commissioner (Goldschmidt Jr. 2004). They also maintained complete dominion over Egypt’s foreign affairs, including the right to conscript Egyptians into both World Wars. British influence over domestic and international politics was secured by more than 80,000 troops, which were stationed in Cairo and throughout the Canal Zone (Lia 2006). Relative to the British, the monarchy had some authority, mainly over domestic politics, but Parliament, ostensibly representative of the people, was essentially powerless (Goldschmidt Jr. 2004). The early years were an incessant battle over Egyptian independence. Both the monarchy and the Wafd, the preeminent party in Parliament and champion of liberation, fought against British interference in domestic politics, but as the “liberal period” progressed, the King grew increasingly acquiescent to the High Commissioner and, accordingly, drastically less popular with his subjects (Goldschmidt Jr. 2004). The Wafd, the one-time embodiment of Egyptian nationalism, also eventually fell out of favor for collaborating with the British, especially after signing the loathed Anglo-American Treaty of 1936 (Mitchell 1993). The British presence also deepened existing social cleavages, especially between the secular, “educated” classes and the majority working-poor and peasant classes. Upper and 61
middle class Egyptians, especially the political elite, underwent an “intellectual renaissance” in the early 1900s (Goldschmidt Jr. 2004). Consequently, they abandoned traditional Islamic and Egyptian practices, institutions, and values in favor of a more modern and inherently Western “civilization.” Yet, despite the surrounding secularist paraphernalia, the majority of Egyptians remained devout Muslims. The working-poor and peasant classes, most of who were illiterate and lived in slum-like conditions, viewed this movement as anti-Islamic and anti-Egyptian. They felt “alienated... from the parliamentary system and the politicians and intellectuals who claimed to speak for the people but ignored their economic grievances and insulted their Islamic sensibilities” (Cleveland 2004, 198). It was against this backdrop of social unrest, a weak state, and political paralysis that mass politics emerged in Egypt. In light of the government’s failures, a shadow state emerged, comprised almost entirely of grass roots, social welfare organizations. “Disaffected elements of the population began to seek practical solutions to their economic problems and sustenance for their spiritual needs by joining organizations that operated outside the structured party system” (Cleveland 2004, 199). Many of the organizations that grew out of this movement were religious; some were led by Christian missionaries, but most were Islamic. By 1939, the largest and most influential of all of these was the Society of Muslim Brothers. The Founding of the Brotherhood The Society of Muslim Brothers (Jam’iyyat al-Ikwhan al-Muslimin, or the Society) was founded in 1928 in Ismailia, Egypt by a small group of devout young Muslims led by Hasan al- Banna. The Society originated as a small social welfare organization dedicated to reinstating Islam as the center of Egyptian life, primarily through educational reform (Mitchell 1993). al- Banna and his associates were devout nationalists; the “revolution of 1919 had profound symbolic value” for most of the young men of that generation, and many, including al-Banna, were active participants in the nationalist movement (Lia 2006, 27). al-Banna was deeply disturbed by the anti-Islam and anti-Egyptian movement taking over Cairo, especially the “defection of ‘educated youth’ from the ‘Islamic way of life’” (Mitchell 1993, 5). He blamed the prolonged British occupation for the students’ rejection of Islam in favor of secularization and Westernization, which many Egyptians incorrectly equated with modernity and progress. In his essay “Between Yesterday and Today,” al-Banna condemns the deliberate efforts of the British to indoctrinate young Muslims into Western life. 62
[They] founded schools and scientific and cultural institutes in the very heart of the Islamic domain, which cast doubt and heresy into the souls of its sons and taught them at a young age how to... disparage their religion and their fatherland, divest themselves of their traditions and beliefs and to regard as sacred anything Western (al-Banna and Wendell 1978, 25).
In his opinion, the British campaign to win the hearts and minds of Egypt’s youth “was more dangerous [to Islam] than the political and military campaigns by far” (al-Banna and Wendell 1978, 25). al-Banna argued that “the solution to these and other problems was an embrace of Islamic teachings and an understanding that all Muslims comprise a single cohesive community [that] must work together to resist the encroachment of corrupt Western influences” (Munson 2001, 489). Thus, al-Banna called for a “return to the Qur’an and the Sunna and the practice of the early [Islamic] community,” which he believed were the “cure” for Egypt’s social and political ills (Paison 2009, 2). From the beginning, al-Banna envisioned the Society of Muslim Brothers as the vehicle through which the “single cohesive community” of Muslims would emerge (Al-Banna and Wendell 1978). Its mission was complete, comprehensive reform of Egypt’s economic, social, and political systems. al-Banna clearly stated this when he wrote: This movement...encompasses every aspect of social reform. It is a religious movement because it is the defender of the Holy Quran and the Sunna and aims to mould [sic] the society according to the principles of Islam...It is a political organization, because we want reforms outside and within the country...It is a physical training group: The members of the Ikhwan do exercise in teams and improve their health...It is an educational and cultural society, because its clubs provide education and organize healthy cultural programmes. It is a financial co-operative bank because Islam solves the financial problems also...It is a social organization because the Ikhwans try to detect the evils of the society and suggest remedies for the cure (Al-Banna 1981).
In the first three years of its existence, the Society went from a group of six (plus al- Banna) to a “fully and formally registered Islamic welfare society with an administrative council, a general assembly, various committees and district branches” (Lia 2006, 41). The primary goal of the group was to increase its membership, a task which al-Banna and his cadre of “preacher- teachers” “pursued… by direct contact, touring the countryside on weekends and during vacations, preaching most usually in the mosques but also in the homes, clubs, and other meeting places of the people,” (Mitchell 1993, 9). Between 1930 and 1941, the Society grew from five branches to over 500. Three years later, the Society had approximately 1,000-1,500 branches
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spread across the entirety of Egypt75 (Lia 2006). The Society’s ability to achieve—and sustain— such extraordinary expansion was made possible by its social welfare activities. The establishment of every new branch was followed immediately by the undertaking of a social welfare project: “As early as 1934 the Society was stated to have a benevolent project or welfare institution in almost all of its 50 branches” (Lia 2006, 109). In addition to fulfilling some pressing public need, each social welfare project promoted and legitimized the Society. As the organization expanded, so did the number of Society-operated social welfare institutions and types of services they provided. By 1945, the Society of Muslim Brothers was a fully-developed grassroots political and social welfare group with a nationwide base of popular support (Paison 2009). The group’s rapid rise in popularity was due in part to its unique blend of organization and ideology, but also to the Egyptian people’s dissatisfaction with the social, economic, and most especially, the political status quo (Mitchell 1993). WWII brought a series of weak and ineffective governments and the imposition of martial law, which not only undermined the idea of liberal democracy, but also heightened already-acute Egyptian nationalism (Cleveland 2004). As the war years passed, Egyptians grew increasingly frustrated with the monarchy and the Parliament; their inability to stand up to British demands during this time resulted in a complete loss of credibility for both. After the war, the situation grew increasingly unstable. “Traumatized by the legacy of British intervention, a malfunctioning administration and government were unable to implement effective policies to address [the country’s] most pressing social and economic problems” (Zollner 2008, 11). Most Egyptians were too poor or sick to actively protest their decrepit conditions. But in the urban areas, people flocked to any group that was not part of the establishment looking for a better answer to their problems. Several thousand of the disenfranchised found it in the Muslim Brotherhood. The First Dissolution and Death (1944-1948) Within two decades, the Society of Muslim Brothers had built an unparalleled grassroots network, with inroads to key political groups such as trade unions and university students (Lia
75 For more discussion on these estimates, see Lia (2006), especially Appendix I. See also Mitchell (1993) and Munson (2001). 64
2006). It had constructed hundreds of schools, clinics, and job centers, and dozens of hospitals were funded and staffed by Brotherhood members. Most importantly, it had repeatedly demonstrated its ability to mobilize its members against the establishment, organizing demonstrations, strikes, and protest rallies (Mitchell 1993). No government could afford to ignore the Muslim Brothers, even if the group openly opposed its policies. As the Society’s size and influence grew, the government’s popularity dropped; recognizing that the conditions for revolution were ripe, the declining regime began to lash out at its perceived rival. Despite its active participation in politics, the Society was largely untouched by the extreme restrictions placed on political organizations and politicians during the war. The fact that the Society of Muslim Brothers was originally a religious welfare organization meant that its network operated through mosques, schools, and social welfare institutions, which were less restricted in their activities than traditional political channels (Lia 2006). The Society, although still vocal in its opposition to the establishment, also kept a relatively restrained tone while the country was at war. Nevertheless, the political establishment grew fearful of the group’s rising popularity and antagonistic rhetoric and, during the early 1940s, began to clampdown on the organization (Mitchell 1993). These initial incidents of repression were relatively minor and included the dissolution of the group’s newspapers, the suspension of meetings, and the temporary closure of branches (Mitchell 1993; Zollner 2008). On multiple occasions, al-Banna and some of the other high-profile leaders of the Society were arrested and/or detained, but were always (relatively) quickly released. Nevertheless, the regime’s punitive measures took a toll on the Society, disrupting its external activities and causing internal strife. al-Banna responded by making two significant organizational changes, both aimed at ensuring operational continuity. First, al-Banna instituted the Family System, a tight-knit system of small cells76 (each one had no more than 10 individuals) that was designed specifically to operate independently from the central leadership, should the latter fall prey to state repression.77 Second, he created the Special Unit,78 a
76 The Society has repeatedly tried to dispel the reference of families as “cells” due to the nefarious image associated with the term. 77 The Family System is discussed in greater detail in the section on Bureaucracy. 78 This is sometimes referred to as the “Secret Unit” or “Secret/Special Apparatus.” 65
paramilitary wing dedicated to armed struggle (Mitchell 1993). Although it is generally accepted that the Special Unit was established to support the war effort in Palestine, there is no question that, in the latter part of the 1940s, it engaged in violent acts against the Egyptian state, including the assassination of two prime ministers, a number of judges and cabinet members, and hundreds of British troops (El-Awaisi 1998; Zollner 2008). This fits with Crenshaw’s claim that an existing group’s resort to terrorism is often motivated by the imperative of organizational survival. As we will see, this definitely became a concern for al-Banna and the Society after the war (Crenshaw 1986). When World War II ended, the Society ramped up its anti-establishment rhetoric, compelling an already-unstable government to rely on violence and coercion to maintain its authority (Lia 2006; Mitchell 1993). The government’s strong-arm tactics, however, only served to provoke increasingly zealous (re)actions from the Society’s rank-and-file members, which in turn caused the government to impose harsher penalties on the organization and its leadership. It was this downward spiral of violence that prompted al-Banna to “activate” the Special Unit inside Egypt, essentially transforming it from a paramilitary unit training for the war in Palestine to a “devoted force willing to fight against the Egyptian political system” (Zollner 2008, 13). The Special Unit and its Terroristic Activities Formed sometime between 1940 and 1943, the Special Unit was as much the result of internal discord as external repression (Lia 2006; Pargeter 2013). In addition to the dissent over violent vs. non-violent opposition, al-Banna faced a series of internal crises in the 1940s that ultimately “resulted in a number of resignations and dismissals... [and] partially paralysed [sic] the administrative apparatus” (Mitchell 1993, 52). Although he was able to hold his organization together, these internal conflicts proved costly: al-Banna’s ability to control the Society’s rank- and-file had waned, as evidenced by the number of direct confrontations between police/military and Society members despite the Supreme Guide’s explicit orders for compliance (Zollner 2008). Thus, the Special Unit was al-Banna’s attempt to placate calls for direct action against the state, as well as bolster the image of the Society as an organization ready to engage in armed struggle. Regarding the status of the Special Unit—and the Society as a whole—as a terrorist group, Lia (2006) notes, “the involvement of the military wing of the Society in political violence between 1945 and 1949 is well established” (271). In addition to bombings on British 66
military outposts in the Canal Zone, the Special Unit was implicated in multiple assassinations, attempted assassinations, and acts of violence against known Zionists (Mitchell 1993; Schmidt 1948b). Undoubtedly, the most serious of these was the assassination of Prime Minister Nuqrashi in December 1948. Thus, there is no question that the Special Unit was engaging in terrorism. What was (and remains) unclear, however, is the extent to which the Society of Muslim Brothers as a whole participated in or was even aware of The Unit’s activities. Factoring largely into this question is the organizational independence of the Special Unit. Even though little can be definitively verified of the Special Unit, it appears that its structure and operations were separate from the larger, mainstream Society of Muslim Brothers (Lia 2006; Mitchell 1993). This is not to say that there was no cross-over between the bodies; rather, it is to note the organizational distinction—structural, operational, and administrative— between the two bodies. For example, as will be discussed below, al-Banna plucked high-ranking Special Unit members from their posts in the paramilitary wing and put them in positions of power within the administration of the Society. Importantly, however, once removed from The Unit, these individuals were officially replaced and their functions, duties, and authority assumed by someone else (Mitchell 1993). This distinction proved critical to the Society’s survival, both in the near and distant future. In contrast to the main body of the Society, the Special Unit had a tight-knit, cellular structure, with a short, hierarchical chain of command (El-Awaisi 1998; Zollner 2008). Members were handpicked by al-Banna, and these members reported only to the commander of their cell. Cell commanders reported only to the head of the Special Unit, who reported directly to the Supreme Guide. All of this was done to protect the unit from infiltration and to ensure its continued operation should any of its members be captured (Zollner 2008). Nevertheless, while it may have been covert, it is inappropriate to say that the Special Unit was actually “secret”: it operated in the open, with the knowledge (if not the consent) of the government throughout the mid-1940s (El-Awaisi 1998; Mitchell 1993; Zollner 2008). Moreover, that the Brotherhood was actively stockpiling weapons, a fact that would later be used as evidence of their plan to overthrow the government, was well known to members of the Egyptian military because they were responsible for at least some of the Unit’s weapons-training (Mitchell 1993). As the Special Unit’s external activities increased, so did its presence within the main organization of the Brotherhood. Nowhere is this clearer than in al-Banna’s decision to fill the 67
position of Deputy Guide—a post once held by his brother-in-law—with the head of the Special Unit (Mitchell 1993). Importantly, however, the Special Unit was not universally favored among the Society’s leadership, and its growing power troubled many within the group’s upper- echelons (El-Awaisi 1998). Thus, a deep divide among the organization’s leadership developed between those who favored a strategy of political violence and those who favored the providing of social services. Founder Decapitation The dissolution of the Society of Muslim Brothers and the assassination of its founder are best understood within the context of the significant political, economic, and social changes occurring in Egypt at this time. In short, the years immediately surrounding these events represent the last breaths of Egypt’s “liberal experiment.” Mitchell writes that during this time, “all the organized and unorganized groups in the country” were engaged in violence against the state in some way or another (Mitchell 1993, 59). However, due to its size and high profile, it was perceived to be the greatest threat to the existing order. Thus, the Society became the primary target of the government’s wrath. Mitchell further notes that “underlying the order dissolving the Muslim Brothers in [December] 1948 was the belief that the Society was planning imminent revolution. More immediately, however, the order related to the stream of violence that shook Egypt from 1945 onwards” (Mitchell 1993, 58-9). The order charged the Society with multiple acts of terrorism against various military, police, and civilian targets; political assassinations; and inciting riots (El-Awaisi 1998; Mitchell 1993). Furthermore, the order accused the organization of stockpiling weapons to be used in a coup d’état, and of indoctrinating young Egyptians into revolution via the Society’s education programs. The primary objective of the order was to show the “guilt” of the organization as a whole (Mitchell 1993). Thus, rather than seeking indictments against only those individual members accused of perpetrating the attacks, the government made its case against the Society en masse, and used intra-organizational documents, including the group’s religious training manual, as evidence of its intention to take power by force.79
79 For a full discussion of the evidence cited in the dissolution order, see Mitchell (1993) p.58-67.
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Within moments of the order’s announcement over the radio, military police80 stormed the Society’s Executive Headquarters, arresting everyone inside except Hasan al-Banna (Mitchell 1993). Over the next two nights, dozens of additional arrests were made across Egypt, and state guards were posted outside each of the shuttered branch headquarters. According to a New York Times article, the government seized all Brotherhood-owned properties and businesses, and appointed an official “to liquidate the Brotherhood’s financial and other assets and to distribute them to charitable societies” (Schmidt 1948a). Furthermore, with a penalty of up to two years in prison, the order forbade members “to continue any form of activity, to hold elections, or establish other organizations that might constitute indirect revivals” (Schmidt 1948a). There is no doubt that the dissolution order and the arrests that followed were a major blow to the Society of Muslim Brothers. The arrests caused a serious disruption to the Brotherhood’s chain-of-command and cut off virtually all communication between any members who remained at-large (Mitchell 1993). Moreover, in addition to most of the Society’s mid-level leadership, the police (unwittingly) had in their custody all the leaders of the Special Unit and most of its members (Mitchell 1993). Recognizing the imminent threat this posed to his organization, al-Banna tried to get at least some of the Brothers released with the hope of restoring some part of the command-and-control structure (Mitchell 1993). While al-Banna was trying to negotiate this, however, Prime Minister Mahmud al-Nuqrashi was assassinated by a 23- year-old student-member of the Society of Muslim Brothers.81 Just a few weeks later, a member of the Special Unit was arrested for bombing the courthouse that held The Jeep Case records.82 Al-Banna was quick to denounce both incidents, publishing an open letter in which he famously stated that the perpetrators were “neither Brothers, nor... Muslims” (Kramer 2013). He also tried to distance himself and the Society from these acts of violence, as well as those listed in the dissolution order, calling them “fabrications or distortions,” and argued that the Society could not be held responsible for the deeds of individual members (Kramer 2013). Finally, in what
80 Martial law had been declared prior to Egypt’s entry into the war in Palestine. 81 Schmidt, Dana Adams. 1948. “Egyptian Premier Is Slain By Cairo Student Terrorist.” The New York Times (1923- Current file): 1, 12. 82 “2 Killed In Cairo by Fanatic’s Bomb.” 1949. The New York Times (1923-Current file): 8. 69
would be his last publication, al-Banna cited the weakened state of the organization as evidence of its innocence, claiming, “There was no Society to be questioned, no leaders to plan, for they were either in prison or under surveillance” (Mitchell 1993, 70). In the end, however, al-Banna’s efforts were in vain. The new government, headed by former palace chief Ibrahim Abd’ al-Hadi, struck back at the Society with a vengeance. Al-Hadi had one goal: to “break” the Muslim Brotherhood organization (Mitchell 1993; Zollner 2008). To this end, he used “the full governmental apparatus, legal and illegal, including physical and mental torture in the prisons” (Mitchell 1993, 69). Thus, after the courthouse bombing, another round of arrests swept through the Brotherhood. Once again, however, Hasan al-Banna remained at-large, a fact that he “prophetically told his associates... was his official death warrant,” (Mitchell 1993, 71). Just a few days later, al-Banna’s prophecy materialized. On February 12, 1949, in what was unquestionably (although never proven) a government-orchestrated attack, Hasan al-Banna was assassinated outside the Young Men’s Muslim Association headquarters. Restoration and Succession The death of Hasan al-Banna was a devastating loss to the Society of Muslim Brothers. For, “as its founder and General Guide, Hasan al-Banna personified the Society of Muslim Brothers as no other person did” (Kramer 2013, 83). Nevertheless, as spiritually shattering as al- Banna’s loss was to the group, organizationally its consequences were even more severe. Longstanding rifts between senior Brotherhood leaders surfaced anew, and ideological divisions that had been irrelevant during al-Banna’s reign suddenly threatened to collapse the organization from within (Zollner 2008). Equally as devastating to the organization—though not in the same way—were the consequences of the dissolution order (Mitchell 1993; Zollner 2008). By the time al-Hadi left office in July 1949, over 4,000 Muslim Brothers had been incarcerated; several were placed in internment camps created specifically for members of the Society (Nada and Thompson 2012). While the mass arrests left the Society operationally defunct, they did not have the deleterious organizational effect al-Hadi had intended. Rather, the Brotherhood “continued to operate as an organization inside the prisons; grouped together in mass concentrations, it was a simple matter to re-establish... former patterns and relationships” (Mitchell 1993, 80). Furthermore, there was an active underground network operating outside the prisons that held (secret) meetings and maintained contact with the imprisoned leadership (Munson 2001; Zollner 2008). Munson finds 70
that this network kept the Society “sufficiently organized [during the] three years of formal dissolution to produce a demonstration of over three thousand members on less than a day’s notice in early 1951, and to carry out well-organized rallies at every branch office in Egypt the day after the ban on the organization was lifted” (2001, 499). Thus, once the government began releasing members from prison, the group was able to resume operations almost immediately because its fundamental structure had never truly collapsed. To keep the organization alive, the newly released leaders of the Society of Muslim Brothers had to address two separate but related issues: selecting al-Banna’s successor, and restoring the group’s legal status. The latter was no longer a political question to be decided by the government. Rather, legalization depended on a series of court cases that arose from specific allegations made against Society, most notably the Jeep Case. “Because of its scope, the ‘jeep case’ was regarded by the Muslim Brothers as the centre [sic] of their legal battle,” (Mitchell 1993, 74). As the country was still under martial law, the cases were tried in military courts, with court-selected lawyers for both the prosecution and the defense. Had the case been tried with the original defense attorneys appointed under the al-Hadi regime, the outcome would undoubtedly have been very different. The 1949 change in governments, however, allowed lawyers from the Society and the Wafd, currently allied with the Brotherhood, to represent the defendants. When the court found in favor of the Brotherhood in March 1951, “it was held to be a total vindication of the Society and its works” (Mitchell 1993, 74). In fact, two of the four cases against the Society were dropped following the conclusion of the Jeep Case. This was a major victory in the Brotherhood’s fight to restore its legal status. Within a year, the Society regained control of their financial assets and took possession of their properties, including the General Headquarters in Cairo (Zollner 2008). When martial law was lifted in May, the General Guidance Bureau immediately declared the Society of Muslim Brothers restored and reactivated. “All over the country the banners of the Society were raised,” and within a few weeks, the Society held its first public meeting (Mitchell 1993, 83). Meanwhile, in late 1949, the senior leadership turned its attention to the issue of al- Banna’s successor. In accordance with the Society’s constitution, immediately after al-Banna’s death, his deputy, Salih Ashmawi, assumed the role of Supreme Guide (Mitchell 1993; Zollner 2008). Importantly, however, while the duties and powers of Supreme Guide transfer after an individual’s death or removal, the title (and thus, official authority) of murshid does not. 71
According to the Society’s bylaws, those are bestowed only after an individual has been elected.83 Nevertheless, fearing that without a leader the organization would appear weak, the senior Brothers agreed that until official elections could be called, Ashmawi would continue to serve as acting Guide. In theory, Ashmawi, as Deputy Guide, was the obvious choice to succeed al-Banna. However, his role as founder of the Special Unit made him a less than desirable front man for the still-recovering organization. “It was of prime importance... to restore the reputation of the Muslim Brotherhood and to defend it against the accusation of being a threat to Egypt’s political system” (Zollner 2008, 19). Thus, some within the group’s leadership felt that choosing a Supreme Guide that was so closely affiliated with violence would be detrimental to the organization. Additionally, without al-Banna to hold them together, longstanding ideological differences divided the leadership, and each faction put forth a candidate to succeed him (Mitchell 1993; Pargeter 2013; Zollner 2008). Among the names raised as potential candidates were Abdel ah-Rahman al-Banna, al-Banna’s brother; Sheik Hasan al-Baqri, a well-respected cleric and important figure in the Guidance Council; and Abdel al-Hakim Abidin, the Society’s Secretary General and al-Banna’s brother-in-law (Mitchell 1993; Zollner 2008). The Society’s bylaws are very clear regarding the process through which the new Supreme Guide is to be chosen. According to the organization’s constitution, to be eligible for election, a candidate for Supreme Guide must have served at least five years in the Shura Council and must be nominated by the General Guidance Bureau (Bylaws 2011). In order to hold the vote, 80% of the Shura Council must be present. Candidates are chosen via secret ballot and, in order to be elected, a candidate must receive a 75% majority vote (Bylaws 2011). The problem facing the Brotherhood’s leadership was that an election risked fracturing the Society further, thereby putting the entire organization at risk for splintering, or worse, collapse. Additionally, since each of the candidates represented a different ideological faction, a vote for any one of them, most especially Ashmawi, “would have had immediate implications for the future outlook of the organization” (Zollner 2008, 17). Ultimately, the small cadre opted to find an outsider, “a well-respected public figure, but one who lacked influence within the
83 I will say more about the requirements and procedure for electing the Supreme Guide in the next section. 72
Brotherhood, since the interim leaders of the organization had no intention of giving up their power or control” (Zollner 2008, 20). Hasan Hudaybi, a high-ranking judge with ties to the Palace, was given the bay’a, or oath of loyalty, in October 1951, thus becoming the second Supreme Guide of the Society of Muslim Brothers. Although it was supposed to bring stability, Gordon writes, “The appointment of Hudaybi failed to restore harmony to the movement,” (1992, 27). Hasan Hudaybi’s efforts to consolidate power were thwarted by an intra-organizational power struggle between the new murshid and those who never recognized his authority as legitimate. Hudaybi’s transition was also complicated by dramatic changes to the political environment in which the Society operated (Mitchell 1993). When he was selected as murshid, it was in large part due to his personal and professional connections to powerful political players. Those connections, however, were soon meaningless as the existing regime was overthrown by small group of military officers, led by Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasir. The Brotherhood under Nasir (1952-1956) Despite its internal issues, by the summer of 1952, the Society of Muslim Brothers had regained its status as the largest grassroots political opposition group in Egypt (Gordon 1992). “The Brotherhood could rally mass support second only to the Wafd, and with its paramilitary secret organization and cells in the army and police, indeed [it] appeared to be, as the [RCC] would later label it, a state within a state” (Gordon 1992, 91). Its “street power” made the Society a potent political force, and as a result, a critical ally for the Free Officers as they planned their overthrow of the existing regime. The extent of the Society’s role in the Free Officers’ Revolution remains unclear, as each side has its own version of history (Gordon 1992). Although the Officers would later downplay the depth of their relationship with the Brotherhood, in reality, given the close connections between key leaders of the two groups, it is likely that members of the Special Unit were active in the planning of the revolution (Gordon 1992). Nevertheless, in terms of carrying out the revolution, the Society’s role was marginal (Gordon 1992; Mitchell 1993). Mitchell suggests that the Brothers’ were the Free Officers’ contingency plan; they would provide additional security, force, and if necessary, facilitate the Officers’ escape (Mitchell 1993). Considering that the coup was bloodless, none of the tasks the Officers gave the Brothers was ever executed.
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The Brotherhood and the Free Officers At first, it appeared that the alliance between the Society and the Free Officers would continue through the transitional governance period. Within days of the coup, the Society’s Shura Council publicly announced its support of the Free Officers’ “blessed movement” to liberate Egypt. Similarly, actions taken by the RCC immediately after coming to power, including reopening the investigation into al-Banna’s assassination, indicated “that there was a special fund of goodwill consciously reserved for the Muslim Brothers” (Mitchell 1993, 106). This congeniality, however, was short-lived, and over the course of the next year, policy differences turned into personal dislike (Mitchell 1993; Zollner 2008). The primary antagonists, Hudaybi and Nasir, disagreed fundamentally regarding the new state and its governance. In keeping with their organizational mission, the Brothers envisioned the new republic as an Islamic one and issued prescriptions for bringing all parts of Egyptian life in-line with Shar’ia (Gordon 1992). In sharp contrast, Nasir, like all the Free Officers, was a devout nationalist. Although he and his comrades may have shared the Brothers’ ideals of social justice and economic reform, the Free Officers “swore ultimate loyalty to a movement in which religion would play no role,” (Gordon 1992, 47). Moreover, irrespective of any promises that may have been made in the days before the revolution, Nasir never intended to give any real power to an organization as large and influential as the Society of Muslim Brothers for fear that it would someday challenge the RCC’s authority. The tension was brought to a head in late 1952, when the RCC ordered all political parties to register before the next election (Zollner 2008). Despite a Shura Council vote in favor of party registration, Hudaybi rescinded the Society’s application84 and instead “announced a policy of non-participation in the electoral contest, either in the name of the organization or as individuals” (Gordon 1992, 28). To the RCC, Hudaybi’s actions were evidence of his hostility toward the new government. (Mitchell 1993). Zollner writes that these early rebuffs marked “the starting point for a deep mistrust between the Brotherhood and the RCC, particularly between al- Hudaybi and ‘Abd al-Nasir” (2008, 30). Inside the Society, Hudaybi’s decisions split the organization into two factions, one that supported the government, and one that supported
84 Accounts of how this event unfolded vary greatly; thus I chose to present only those facts that could established by historical records. For a summary of the different explanations, see Zollner (2008). 74
Hudaybi (Mitchell 1993). Conflict between the Supreme Guide and the government reached the point-of-no-return when Hudaybi refused to join the “Liberation Rally,” the body designated to represent the Egyptian people after the RCC dissolved all other political parties. The Society’s refusal to come under the RCC’s “big tent” made them appear to the Free Officers as competition for public support. For almost a year, Nasir tried to rid himself and the RCC of Hudaybi by sowing discord within the Society. Working with Hudaybi’s staunchest detractors, Nasir orchestrated a series of “no confidence” votes against the murshid. Each time, Hudaybi prevailed, repeatedly winning an oath of loyalty for life from the Society’s rank and file. Zollner writes that it quickly became clear to Nasir that a clandestine “divide and conquer” scheme was never going to succeed; thus, he was forced to take a more direct approach (Zollner 2008). For the first 18 months of their reign, the RCC had feared taking direct action against the Society because of its unrivaled political power. As such, the Society was caught off-guard when, in January 1954, the RCC declared it an illegal political party and ordered its dissolution (Mitchell 1993; Paison 2009; Pargeter 2013). According to Gordon, the policy change “can be traced to Hudaybi’s success in securing his position as leader of the movement”85 86 (1992, 102). When certain Brothers “whom the officers considered supporters of the regime... appeared to be closing ranks behind [Hudaybi],” the government decided it could no longer trust the Society to oust its problematic leader (Gordon 1992, 102). Within hours of the government’s announcement, over 400 Brothers were arrested, including the Supreme Guide. The shock of the widespread loss initially paralyzed the organization’s operations (Mitchell 1993). Within weeks, however, the Society had regrouped under interim leadership and was holding (clandestine) meetings to organize support for the families of those in prison (Zollner 2008). Despite its severity, “the crackdown was more a propaganda campaign against Hudaybi and his allies than a concerted effort to destroy the Brotherhood. Official communiques and personal statements by the officers criticized the general guide and his ‘deviate’ rule, not the movement’s aims as given life by Hasan al-Banna” (Gordon 1992, 103).
85 This point is refuted by Zollner, whose thesis is that Hudaybi’s inability to consolidate authority was the cause of the organization’s subsequent collapse. 86 Hindsight suggests that Nasir used this episode to project an image of strength to the U.S. and British governments during the negotiations for the 1954 evacuation agreement (see Gordon 1992, 168). 75
A few days after the initial strike, Nasir approached the Society with the conditions for restoring the organization’s legal status: dissolution of the Special Unit; cessation of all religious activity, especially recruiting, within the army and police; and replacing Hudaybi as Supreme Guide (Gordon 1992; Zollner 2008). The Brothers, however, rejected Nasir’s overtures and instead reached out to the Prime Minister (and Nasir’s chief political rival) General Muhammed Naguib. At the time, Naguib, the face of the revolution, and Nasir, the real power behind it, were engaged in a power struggle that “threatened to tear the [RCC] apart and bring its rule to an end” (Gordon 1992, 112). The Brotherhood, in part due to Hudaybi’s personal issues with Nasir, had been outspoken in their support of Naguib. Thus, after Nasir dissolved the Society, Hudaybi published an open letter to the Prime Minister asking him to release the imprisoned Brothers and restore Parliamentary governance to Egypt (Gordon 1992; Mitchell 1993). Naguib, in a show of solidarity with the murshid, asked the Society’s interim leader to join him on stage at a pro- democracy (pro-Naguib) rally, which included hundreds of Brotherhood members and supporters (Gordon 1992). Realizing his attempts to remove the Supreme Guide had failed and concerned about a Naguib/Brotherhood alliance, Nasir met with Hudaybi in March of 1954. According to Gordon, in exchange for the Society’s “ambivalent public stance toward the legalization of the political parties,” Nasir agreed to release the remaining Brothers—civilian and military—and restore the organization’s legal status (1992, 133). Furthermore, Nasir agreed to “clarify publicly the government’s position” regarding the dissolution order (Gordon 1992, 133). In the weeks that followed, the political struggle between Naguib and Nasir, known as “The March Crisis,” repeatedly reached near-catastrophic levels. Ultimately, Nasir emerged victorious; he stripped Naguib of everything but his title. Thus, while Naguib was “President,” Nasser was in charge. One notable organizational change effected by the January dissolution was the reconstitution of the Special Unit, albeit under new leadership that was loyal to Hudaybi (Gordon 1992; Mitchell 1993). Although the extent of Hudaybi’s direct involvement with the paramilitary force remains unclear, what is indisputable is that he appointed a new commander, Yusuf Tal’at, and gave instructions for the unit to resume recruitment and training (Mitchell 1993; Zollner 2008). Hudaybi also instructed Tal’at to “[make] the secret apparatus something other than what it had been in the past,” (Mitchell 1993, 147). In an effort to carry out the murshid’s orders, Tal’at restructured the organization’s chain of command, “believing... that this would facilitate his ‘conquering’ of the secret group” (Mitchell 1993, 148). The Unit was essentially split into 76
three branches: civilian, army, and police, each with its own commander. A “higher committee,” comprised of the three commanders, as well as at least one member of the Guidance Council and the head of the General Headquarters, was established to “advise” the Unit (Gordon 1992; Mitchell 1993). Nevertheless, in spite of these (alleged) ties to the Society’s central leadership, the Special Unit “operated with relative autonomy from Hudaybi and the Guidance Council” (Gordon 1992, 180). From the March Crisis to the Mansheya Incident For a short time after the March Crisis, relations between the government and the Society were amicable. This detente also quieted the internal dissent that had plagued the organization since the selection of the new Supreme Guide nearly three years earlier (Gordon 1992). The “new era of cooperation” between the Society and the RCC halted, however, when Nasir reneged on the agreement he made with Hudaybi just weeks earlier and brought several members of the Brotherhood to trial for their roles in the March Crisis (Mitchell 1993). In addition to rekindling the feud with the government, Nasir’s actions had serious internal consequences for the Society. Opponents of the murshid pointed to this as another “failure” and used it to revive the debate regarding Hudaybi’s leadership (Wickham 2013; Zollner 2008). This time, the organization divided into three factions, each competing for control of the Shura Council. Opponents of the murshid “vouched for closer cooperation and for reconciliation with the RCC and with... Nasir. In their view, Hudaybi had led them into a dead end” and the only way to recover was to work with the regime (Zollner 2008, 45). Hudaybi’s supporters shared his vision of the Society as a non-partisan pressure group and supported the organization’s continued opposition to the RCC and its agenda. The third faction, led by the Deputy Guide, deemed itself “neutral” and refused to align with either of the other blocs (Pargeter 2013). After a failed attempt to negotiate the release of the imprisoned Brothers, Hudaybi, believing “his presence constituted the main obstacle to an amicable solution between the regime and Brotherhood,” departed for a two-month tour of the Middle East (Zollner 2008, 35). His exit, however, failed to stop the impending clash with the government. Furthermore, it plunged the Society deeper into confusion and disorder. Not only did Hudaybi leave the Society without any guidance or direction regarding the RCC, his absence created a power vacuum, exacerbating the organization’s civil war (Gordon 1992; Salwen 2011).
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Although relations had been strained for months, “the Brotherhood’s vocal opposition to the [Anglo-Egyptian Agreement of 1954] signaled the end of its truce with the government” (Gordon 1992, 176). From his post in Lebanon, Hudaybi expressed his fierce disapproval of the new agreement, arguing, “the treaty of 1936 would have expired in less than two years, whereupon the British would have been required to evacuate... and would have been left without any legal foundation on which to return” (Mitchell 1993, 136). In Cairo, the Special Unit, already engaged in an intense “campaign of secret pamphlet warfare” (Mitchell 1993, 136), “began to turn their sights away from clandestine propaganda and consider more extreme tactics. Discussions wavered between peaceful demonstrations, an armed uprising, and assassination of CCR members” (Gordon 1992, 180). In response, the RCC launched a two-part counteroffensive. First, they began a relentless anti-Society press campaign, in which they branded the organization—and Hudaybi—an enemy of the state, and accused it of being determined to bring down the government (Wickham 2013). Second, in an effort to “prove” the above claim, the RCC began to “tighten up security” in reaction to several “incidents of aggression against the police and the people” (Mitchell 1993, 139). Dozens of Brothers were arrested and hundreds more detained for “their suspected involvement in a national plot” against the regime (Mitchell 1993, 140). In reality, writes Mitchell (who was a witness to one such event), the “incidents” were, at a maximum, petty skirmishes, several of which were provoked by the police themselves (Gordon 1992; Mitchell 1993). Interestingly, Mitchell explores the possibility that the RCC’s media campaign was the first step in their plan to eliminate the Society. Nasir was well aware of the damage the press campaign was having on Hudaybi’s leadership and hoped that the internal fighting would lead to the murshid’s dismissal (Mitchell 1993). According to Mitchell though, the campaign had an additional aim. Having learned from the recent past, the RCC knew that if it was going to order the dissolution of the Society it had to first “prepare” the public. He quotes Anwar Sadat, who claimed that the RCC had seen “the basic fickleness of the people in matters like this, for whenever the Society had been suppressed it won the sympathy of the nation at large” (Mitchell 1993, 143). Mitchell concludes that “the press campaign would discredit Hudaybi and his policies; the incidents would dramatize the ‘aggression’ of the Society against ‘the people’ and sensitize them to the need for appropriate action” (Mitchell 1993, 143). Mitchell posits this as
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one explanation for the regime’s decision not to dissolve the Society at this point, despite its inflammatory behavior and weakened state. Upon his return, Hudaybi was confronted by his critics inside the Society who demanded that he answer the charges leveled by the regime. In one of his last public appearances, Hudaybi gave a speech in which he refuted the government’s indictments of the Brotherhood and reiterated his opposition to the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty (Zollner 2008). Within days of the speech, Hudaybi, fearing arrest or assassination, retreated to Alexandria with his closest advisors, once again leaving the Society without any clear leadership (Zollner 2008). “His absence... brought the confusion within the organization to a peak” and set off a series of debilitating internal crises that left it weak and vulnerable to Nasir’s impending attacks (Zollner 2008, 36). At the Society’s annual meeting in September 1954, the anti-Hudaybi faction tried to force yet another vote of no confidence against the Supreme Guide (Mitchell 1993; Zollner 2008). Additionally, they challenged the legitimacy of the murshid’s decisions, including the expulsions of Ashmawi and al-Sanadi, arguing that according to the constitution, ultimate authority regarding such matters rested with the Shura Council and not the Supreme Guide (Mitchell 1993). Such a challenge represented a major break for an organization that had been founded on the twin principles of obedience to and confidence in its Supreme Leader.87 Nevertheless, the murshid was able, once again, to stave-off the attempts to remove him. Holding the majority within the Guidance Council, his supporters swore a third oath of loyalty-for-life to Hudaybi, called for the dissolution of the current Shura Council, and amended the constitution “as regards... the authority and responsibility of the Guidance Council” (Mitchell 1993, 145). They also called for organization-wide elections, seeking to replace the current “rebellious” Shura Council. Although the New York Times reported that the September meeting had resolved the conflict inside the Society, what actually followed was total organizational chaos (Doty 1954b). Just weeks after the general meeting, members of the anti-Hudaybi and neutral factions, led by Deputy Guide Khamis Humayda, staged a coup within the Society. They “formed a new body that promptly placed Hudaybi on indefinite leave and revoked the expulsions of those members he had ousted in 1953” (Gordon 1992, 179). They also nullified all the resolutions passed at the
87 A more detailed analysis of this point is presented in the following chapter. 79
annual meeting (Mitchell 1993). Within hours, Hudaybi’s supporters flooded the General Headquarters, and an open “brawl” ensued (Mitchell 1993; Zollner 2008). Humayda, who was, according to Mitchell, “merely avoiding an open break,” tried to appease all sides by disbanding the existing Guidance Council and constructing a new one with representatives from each faction (1993, 149). The new Council was set to meet in late October; in the meantime, several of Hudaybi’s foes made repeated visits to members of the RCC with the hope they could restore the peace between the Society and the government (Gordon 1992). That meeting never happened, however, due to the actions of the Special Unit, which immediately brought to an end any possibility of peace between the Society and the regime. At this point, it must be noted that most of what is known about the events surrounding the attempted assassination of Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasir, including the subsequent court cases, is reconstructed from the public records of the Brothers’ trials and/or contemporary press accounts. This “evidence” must be considered carefully and critically, because as Gordon writes, “unlike previous show trials staged by the military regime, the People’s Tribunal pursued its charge without hesitation or pretense of equality” (1992, 178). For example, “Among other breaches of judicial process, the court attributed false testimony and confessions to comrades not present to refute them” (Gordon 1992, 178). Nevertheless, these remain the best and most comprehensive sources of information regarding these events. While the rest of the Society’s leadership was consumed by the internal battle for control of the Shura Council, the Special Unit’s commanders88 were developing a plan to assassinate Nasir (Gordon 1992; Mitchell 1993). As stated supra, the Special Unit had been reactivated following the January dissolution, albeit under the command of Yusuf Tal’at, a Hudaybi loyalist. Between January and July of 1954, the activities of the Special Unit were limited primarily to pamphleteering. By the late summer, however, the Unit was actively discussing the assassination of RCC members (Gordon 1992). Nevertheless, it was not until early October that “what was later called without clarification ‘the leadership’ of the secret group decided to assume ‘terrorist orientations’,” or more specifically, to assassinate Nasir (Mitchell 1993, 150). Nasir signed the Anglo-Egyptian Evacuation Treaty on October 19, 1954. That same evening, Mahmud Abd’ al-Latif, a tinsmith and member of the Special Unit, accepted the
88 There is still some question as to which commanders were involved with or even knew of the plot to kill Nasir. 80
mission to assassinate him (Gordon 1992; Mitchell 1993; Rogan 2012). One week later, crowds in Alexandria gathered to hear celebratory speeches honoring the RCC’s “triumph” over the British. “Nasser [sic] had scarcely begun his speech when... al-Latif... fired eight shots at him from point blank range,” (Gordon 1992, 177). Nasir, untouched by a single bullet, paused only briefly and then shouted, My countrymen, my blood spills for you and for Egypt. I will live for your sake, die for the sake of your freedom and honor. Let them kill me; it does not concern me so long as I have instilled pride, honor, and freedom in you. If Gamal Abdel Nasser should die, each of you shall be Gamal Abdel Nasser... (Rogan 2012, 288). Within hours, the sound of the shots and Nasir’s “impromptu” response had been broadcast across Egypt and around the Arab world (Kepel 1985).89 Not only did the “Mansheya Incident,” as it is commonly called, solidify Nasir’s position as the one true leader of the Egyptian people, it also gave him an indisputable reason to crush the Society of Muslim Brothers. The Great Mihna The RCC wasted no time with its reprisal for the attempt on Nasir’s life. In less than 72 hours, hundreds of Muslim Brothers were arrested, including nearly every member of the Special Unit and Hasan Hudaybi, who was in hiding at this point (Zollner 2007). The precision and speed with which the military and police struck suggests that this was a well-planned operation, which some have argued lends credibility to the Society’s claim that the entire episode was orchestrated by Nasir himself.90 Regardless, even if the organization’s claims of innocence were/are true, “the essential fact remains that the assailant was a Brother” (1992, 178). Thus, there was no circumstance under which the Society of Muslim Brothers was not “going to be the object of a bloody purge by the ruling military junta”(Doty 1954c). The regime also intensified its media offensive against the Brotherhood. The blitz began with a nationwide rebroadcast of Nasir’s remarks following his “narrow escape from death.” Its effect was immediate: within 24 hours of the shooting, the Society’s General Headquarters in Cairo was destroyed by crowds protesting the assassination attempt (Doty 1954a). For the next
89 Gordon notes that the post-assassination remarks were “so compelling that his opponents later asserted it had to have been orchestrated” (1992, 177). 90 See, for example, Zollner (2008); Ghazali (1994). Other “facts,” including that Nasir was wearing a bulletproof vest are often cited as “evidence” that Nasir staged the incident in order to rid himself of the Brotherhood.
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two days, mobs (led by the National Guard) attacked member and Society-owned businesses in cities around the Suez Canal (Mitchell 1993). Once the arrests began, the pages of Egypt’s daily and weekly publications were filled with “reports of arrests and confessions,” as well as “detailed and gory elaborations” of the Brotherhood’s alleged conspiracy to overthrow the government (Mitchell 1993, 152).91 A “People’s Tribunal” was convened specifically to hear the Brothers’ cases. “From the very beginning it was clear that the last thing the government intended was to clarify the case and assess individual guilt” (Mitchell 1993, 155). Gordon adds, “Among other breaches of judicial process, the court attributed false testimony and confessions to comrades not present to refute them” (1992, 178). These “show trials,” largely staged for the benefit of the Egyptian people, had two aims: first, to convince the public that “the assassination of the prime minister was to be the signal for a ‘bloody insurrection’ designed to overthrow the regime,” (Mitchell 1993, 157); second, to “prove” that ultimate responsibility (and blame) for the Special Unit and its activities, including the attempt on Nasir’s life, rested with Hasan Hudaybi. Both charges, however, are refutable by examining the internal dynamics of the Society at the time. “The evidence not only accumulated against the possibility of an official order to kill, but also pointed to a situation in which the leadership of both the open and secret organizations was no longer in control” (Mitchell 1992, 158). Simply put, the Society of Muslim Brothers was not adequately organized to plan and then attempt to carry out a coup d’état. In large measure, this ineptitude was due to Nasir’s plan to sow internal strife. “The plan to discredit Hudaybi’s leadership… had, as a concomitant effect, the discrediting of the entire leadership” (Mitchell 1993, 147). The consequence of dividing the organization into competing factions was the breakdown of command and control due to members’ uncertainty about where their loyalties should lie. Authority, at least among certain blocs, and certainly within the Special Unit, was no longer a sacred and dogmatic thing. Rather, “who in fact was running the organization was a question the answer to which depended on the prior question of loyalties. The related question: ‘from whence came the orders?’ was therefore also obscured” (Mitchell 1993, 147). Thus, this
91 For a comprehensive overview of the government’s anti-Society propaganda, see Mitchell (1993), especially pages 152-153.
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same evidence challenges the government’s claim that Hasan Hudaybi “had personally ordered the assassination” (Gordon 1992, 180). While the murshid accepted responsibility for the existence of the Special Unit, he denied having any knowledge about its internal workings (Gordon 1992; Mitchell 1993). Aside from Gordon,92 scholars of the affair agree that Hudaybi was most likely unaware of the Special Unit’s operations (Mitchell 1993; Wickham 2013; Zollner 2008). In fact, most find that it is more likely that the assassination attempt was the result of a lack of leadership and inaction, rather than a direct order of a clear and indisputable leader.93 Despite all this, on December 4, the People’s Tribunal sentenced seven Brothers to death by hanging, including Hasan Hudaybi, Yusuf Ta’lat, and the would-be-assassin, Latif (Love 1954). Hudaybi’s sentence was immediately commuted to life in prison. Officially, the regime pardoned him “because he was an old and sick man who was under the influence of terrorists,” (Love 1954). Later, however, one of the Tribunal judges “admitted to a U.S. embassy officer that the [RCC] spared Hudaybi to avoid making him a martyr” (Gordon 1992, 181). The other six met their fate a few days later (Special to the New York Times 1954). Between November and December of 1954, the People’s Tribunal sentenced over 800 Muslim Brothers (Mitchell 1993; Zollner 2008). Although nine other death penalties were issued, all were commuted to life sentences (Associated Press 1954). Added to this count were another 100 convictions by the Military Court, which had jurisdiction over Brothers serving in the Army. Finally, more than 1,000 Society members were arrested and jailed without ever facing trial (Zollner 2008).94 After the Mansheya incident, the Society effectively went dark. “Silence is the most remarkable feature of the years until 1957. There are no signs of any organizational structure or of any activities... There is also no relevant information available on activities or discourse among the Brothers” (Zollner 2008, 39). Unlike the 1948 dissolution, there was no secret underground movement to support a reorganization effort. That is because, unlike the government in 1948, Nasir took steps to ensure that Society members could not maintain formal
92 Gordon argues that, at a minimum, Hudaybi “acquiesced passively” to the use of violence against the regime. He states that when Hudaybi fled to Alexandria in September 1954, “he retreated into the arms of his loyalists, who ran the secret organization,” thus, there is no way Hudaybi could claim complete ignorance of The Unit’s activities (Gordon 1992, 181). 93 For similar conclusions, see Mitchell (1993), Zollner (2007, 2008), and Wickham (2013). 94 These numbers are estimates, as different sources give different numbers. See, for example, Mitchell (1993); Salwen (2011); Kepel (1985) 83
associations inside or outside the prisons. For example, in order to break the chain of command, Brothers were distributed among multiple prisons according to rank. “Generally speaking, younger and lower ranking Brothers were sent to regional prisons... The leadership... such as members of the Guidance Council and those considered key actors, were detained in Liman al- Turra prison” outside Cairo (Zollner 2008, 38). Furthermore, for those few Brothers who had managed to evade arrest, reports of the horrific conditions inside Nasir’s prisons, including routine bouts of torture, along with increased monitoring by police, appear to have deterred them from trying to connect in anything more than informal ways (Ghazali 1994). “Nasser [sic] also took an additional, critical step that the British and the previous Egyptian government had not. He nationalized the Brotherhood’s social service provision network and operated it as part of the Egyptian government” (Berman 2009, 126). Both Gordon and Munson find that the decision was motivated, at least in part, out of fear for what might happen in the rural areas—traditional Brotherhood strongholds—if the services were stopped completely. At a minimum, the regime would suffer a loss of support from the citizens who depended most on the Brotherhood’s outreach, but the greater concern was that such an action would cause widespread civil unrest (Gordon 1992; Munson 2001). Irrespective, “without its schools and clinics, the vast organization withered... [and] the threat to Nasser’s [sic] government dried up with it” (Berman 2009, 126). Indeed, Nasir’s repression “was so severe and the dismantling of the leadership so successful that, for three years, the Muslim Brothers seemed to fade away completely” (Salwen 2011, 25). Reorganization: 1957-1973 The next few sections will examine the reorganization of the Society of Muslim Brothers that occurred between 1957 and 1973.95 Despite the organization’s forty additional years of history, I have chosen to close with this period because it represents the most dramatic recovery the organization has made to date. In other words, never before or again in the organization’s history was it closer to collapse than after the 1954 dissolution. Thus, there is no better example of the Society’s ability to reorganize than this.96
95 Despite numerous works dedicated to this period of the Brotherhood’s lifecycle, there is very little that focuses on the organizational aspects of its recovery. Moreover, there is not a definitive work, such as Mitchell’s, for this era. 96 Please note that because this period is full of important developments, it was necessary to omit details that did not directly apply to the group’s reorganization. 84
The period between 1957 and 1965 marked a turning point in the Brothers’ organizational fate. During this time, multiple factors converged to alter the trajectory of the Society’s fate. First, the atmosphere surrounding the Society changed. “After the Suez Crisis of 1956, the British presence in Egypt came to an end, representing a major victory for Nasser [sic]. Nasser... felt less threatened by the Ikhwan and began releasing some young, low ranking members from prison” (Salwen 2011, 26). Nasir also released Hasan Hudaybi, whose health had suffered while he was incarcerated, and instead placed him under house arrest. Second, the Muslim Sisters, a traditionally peripheral section of the Society, filled many of the critical voids left by the absent Brothers. Working both inside and outside the prisons, the Muslim Sisters reestablished communication among the scattered Brothers by serving as critical links between groups of members, including the leadership and those living in exile (Ghazali 1994; Kepel 1985). The women’s group also used existing Brotherhood social services structures to set up a mutual aid service that provided moral and financial support to members’ families, and later, to the newly released but destitute Brothers (Ghazali 1994). Finally, the ideas of Sayyid Qutb, widely considered the second-most influential figure in Society history (after al-Banna), began permeating the Brothers’ discourse.97 More important to this study than the specific content of those ideas are the ways in which they were circulated to and among the Brothers. Along with most of the Society’s leadership, Qutb was condemned to hard labor following his trial. Due to his chronically poor health, he spent most of his sentence inside the prison hospital, one of the few places Brothers could converse openly (Zollner 2007). “Qutb used the shared space of the hospital to... communicate his thoughts with prisoners who had been transferred from other detention centers for the period of their treatment. Upon their return to their various prisons, Qutb’s conversationalists began to engage in discussion groups and propagate his new approach” (Zollner 2007). His message reenergized the group’s disheartened membership and motivated them to rebuild the organization (Zollner 2007). Within a year of Nasir’s preliminary prisoner release, there were clear signs of life from the once moribund Brotherhood (Kepel 1985; Zollner 2007).
97 Qtub’s ideology, its specifics, merits, and faults, as well as those of its coinciding publications are beyond the scope of this dissertation. What is important to this study is that his ideas—good and bad—reenergized the Society’s members and motivated them to rebuild the organization. 85
Organization 1965 In early 1958, two groups of Brothers emerged and, independently, began reaching out to other Society members around Egypt (Zollner 2007). Eventually, the groups merged under a common leadership with the aim of reconstituting the Society of Muslim Brothers, marking the first real post-repression reorganization effort (Zollner 2008). Aided by Zainab Ghazali and the Muslim Sisters, funded by exiled Brothers, and inspired by Sayyid Qutb, Organization 1965 spent the next few years building a network of independent cells across Egypt, based almost entirely on personal relationships. “With this network in place, the committee of Organization 1965 approached Qutb and asked him to support the reformation of the Brotherhood by drawing up an educational programme” (Zollner 2008, 42). Following his release from prison, Qutb joined the other members of Organization 1965 and began “to conduct [religious] study sessions... while also discussing political matters and their experiences under the Nasser [sic] regime” (Al-Arian 2014, 28). In 1965, Nasir launched a new wave of persecution against the Brothers, and everyone known or believed to be associated with Organization 1965 was arrested or detained, including Hasan Hudaybi and Sayyid Qutb (Pace 1967). The Brothers were charged with high treason and accused of plotting to assassinate Nasir and overthrow the government (again) (Smith 1966). When the verdicts were announced, Qtub, Hudaybi, and five others were sentenced to death. As before, Hudaybi’s sentence was commuted a life-term and he, along with more than 300 other Brothers, was sent back to Nasir’s “concentration camps” (Kepel 1985). In August 1966, the other six conspirators, including Sayyid Qutb, were hanged. Still, even after losing their revered ideologue, the mood within the Society was far from depressed. Rather, “disillusionment and remorse had been replaced by a new spirit of Brotherhood activism” (Zollner 2008, 43). Importantly, not everyone agreed about the best form for that activism to take. Not long after the Brothers’ arrival at the Liman al-Turra prison, “a fierce dispute over ideological differences broke out” (Zollner 2007, 419). On one side were the Qutbists, those who not only subscribed to Sayyid Qutb’s theories, but also believed they were the true heirs to his legacy (Salwen 2011; Zollner 2007). On the other side were Hudaybi and several members of the “old guard,” who took a more moderate, though, importantly, no less “Islamist,” stance. In fact, the underlying disagreement was not about the end goal, an Islamic
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state; it was, rather, “whether members of the Brotherhood defined the vision of the organization as radical or moderate Islamist opposition” (Zollner 2008, 45). The radical[s]... took the view that jihad as an offensive method and the establishment of an Islamic state was an immediate duty... and... [they] see it as a necessity to use revolutionary and militant means to bring about the... Islamic state. The moderate counterpart, however, argued that an Islamic State needs to be brought about through a gradual change of society. This is to be done through education (ta’lim) and missionary engagement (da’wa)98 (Zollner 2008, 46)
Hudaybi and other key members of the Guidance Bureau recognized the significance of the moment. They knew that nothing less than the future of the Society of Muslim Brothers was at stake, and in order to prevent the radicals from hijacking the Brotherhood, Hudaybi needed to reestablish his authority as Supreme Guide (Zollner 2008). To this end, Hudaybi began holding informal meetings with the other incarcerated Brothers, speaking directly to them, and answering their questions and requests for advice (Salwen 2011; Zollner 2008). It was also at this time that someone in Hudaybi’s inner circle recognized the need for the Supreme Guide to produce his own comprehensive strategy for the organization. Thus, work on “Preachers Not Judges,’ Hudaybi’s most significant work and one of the current fundamental doctrines of the Society, began. Nasir’s humiliating defeat in the 1967 “Six Day” war with Israel solidified the divide between the mainstream Brothers and the Qutbists, causing the latter to split from the Society and form the terrorist group al-Jihad. For the next few years, Hudaybi would continue his efforts to thwart the spread of radical, violent Islamist thought, using his position as murshid to legitimate his message of moderation. Although he would not live to see it, his goal would be fulfilled. By the next decade, the Society of Muslim Brothers had solidified itself as the largest, most influential moderate organization in the worldwide movement known as Political Islam. Release and Rebuild 1971 marked the beginning of the Brotherhood’s official rebuilding effort. Nasir’s unexpected death in 1970 pushed his vice-President, Anwar Sadat, into office. Sadat, wanting to distance himself from Nasir’s failures including his nationalist/socialist policies and the 1967
98 The term “da’wa” is translated differently depending on the author and the context. In general, it means “the call to Islam,” which can encompass religious education, missionary work, outreach, etc. For the Brotherhood, it most often refers to their central message, which urges Muslims to embrace Islam into all parts of their (everyday) life. 87
war, capitalized on Egypt’s “Islamic Resurgence” by presenting himself as the “Believer President” (Rogan 2012). As part of this initiative, he granted a general amnesty to the Muslim Brotherhood and began releasing its members in 1971; by 1975, the last group of members had been freed (Al-Arian 2014). Sadat needed the influential organization to counter the leftist/communist blocs that he believed posed the greatest threat to his presidency (Ranko 2015; Wickham 2013). While he did not go so far as to reinstate the organization’s legal status, he gave the Brothers a wide margin of freedom, which they used to reorganize, increasing their numbers and widening their influence. “The Ikhwan’s reconciliation with the Sadat regime and its commitment to work within legal channels laid the foundation for the organization’s expansion in the following decades” (Salwen 2011, 34). Over the next ten years, the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt rebuilt the organization that Hasan al-Banna had so carefully crafted four decades earlier. A new generation of leaders, committed to al-Banna’s original vision of a society of preacher-teachers but open to the opportunities offered by a new political and social environment, reclaimed the Society’s status as the most influential mainstream Islamist organization in the world. In his 2014 book, “Answering the Call,” Abdullah al-Arian makes the case that the Society’s return to power was due in large part to its ability to adapt its structure and policies to the changed/changing environment its leadership found themselves in when they were released from prison. He writes, “Following an intricate yet at times inexact process of reappraisal and adaptation, this period resulted in a Muslim Brotherhood that was well-suited to operate within a new set of constraints and tack the pressing issues of the day” (Al-Arian 2014, 75). In this way, the Society’s reconstruction followed a pattern similar to its original construction, a series of reorganizations that reflected the group’s internal and external circumstances. After their release, the Society’s leaders were confronted with several significant obstacles to their rebuilding effort. First, what little remained of the Society’s membership was, quite literally, devastated. The psychological and physical consequences of the prison years caused many Brothers to flee Egypt after their release and those few members who remained were more focused on personal matters than on reorganizing the Society. Furthermore, none of the bodies within the Society’s hierarchy of authority—the Constituent Assembly, the Shura Council, nor the Guidance Bureau—existed. Nasir’s repression had broken the Society even at its most basic level: the family system, which was designed to withstand such efforts, had 88
eventually collapsed given the overwhelming number of imprisoned Brothers. In short, after “nearly two decades since the last round of internal elections, and with no membership or institutional structure to speak of, the Muslim Brotherhood could not be reconstituted through a simple resumption of its internal mechanisms for the selection of leadership and secretarial positions” (Al-Arian 2014, 95). Second, the few leaders that remained were divided as to how the organization should be reconstituted. According to al-Arian, two opposing viewpoints emerged. In one bloc were those who believed that “the Islamic movement had appeared to outgrow the need for a centralized organizational structure such as that offered by the Muslim Brotherhood” (Al-Arian 2014, 95). With the existence of so many other Islamist groups, this bloc argued that it was Brotherhood’s message that needed to spread, not its membership. Thus, they advocated for a new kind of Society, one that focused on da’wa, especially among the new generation, where the Brothers would work within existing organizations, serving as educators and indoctrinating the Egyptian youth through open lectures and publications (Al-Arian 2014; Wickham 2013). The second perspective was diametrically opposed to this idea and called for a restoration of the Brotherhood’s rigid organizational structure, including a highly centralized leadership and strong chain of command and control. Members of this bloc contended that the Brotherhood could not reclaim its position as the preeminent Islamist organization in Egypt without a well- educated, disciplined membership and the Special Unit. “The lesson of the Nasser period, they argued, was that a strong internal organization was absolutely critical as an anchor for the endurance of Islamic activism. A mission that was purely outward and public could be easily washed away by the recurring tide of state repression” (Al-Arian 2014, 98). Moreover, this bloc did not share the optimism of the others regarding the new generation of Islamists. Rather, they viewed them as uneducated and reckless, which they claimed only further illustrated the need for an organization with a clear chain of command and control. Ultimately, the group opted for a third perspective, driven by ‘Umar Tilmisani, the Brotherhood’s de facto front man since the aged and ill Hudaybi had retreated into the background. Tilmisani recognized that if the group was to operate as “The Society of Muslim Brothers,” it needed equal parts strong organization and public presence. He agreed that without a strong organization, the Brotherhood could not withstand another round of state repression. He
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also believed, however, that highly public activism would serve to protect the group against the regime as well. The more deeply entrenched it was in social institutions, from schools and mosques, to factories and hospitals, the more difficult it would be for the regime to take action against it. The more visible it was in the hearts and minds of Egyptians, the more impossible it would be for Sadat to erase its presence (Al-Arian 2014, 100).
Thus, the decision was made to reconstitute both the body and spirit of the Society of Muslim Brothers. Importantly, however, Tilmisani demanded that the Brotherhood—no matter how risky it may have been to do so—should not accept large groups of new members haphazardly. To the contrary, time and again the decision was made to forego rapid admission and instead return to the intense process of recruiting, training, and then accepting new members. Similarly, Tilmisani mandated that there would be no reconstitution of the Special Unit or any other clandestine wing. Both of these measures were taken to guard against Sadat potentially perceiving the Society as a threat and taking actions against it. In the end, however, that is exactly what happened and the Brotherhood’s leadership was again rounded up and imprisoned. This time, however, they had ensured their survival by establishing themselves as a legitimate political actor, most notably by winning seats in open elections, an accomplishment that even al-Banna could not achieve. It would take another forty years, but the Brotherhood would move out of opposition and become the ruling party in Egypt. Organizational Structure A great deal of scholarship attributes the Society’s rise to power to al-Banna’s novel ideology and/or personal charisma; however, little attention has been paid to the role of the organization itself, or to the importance al-Banna placed on it.99 In fact, there is much within the historical record to indicate that al-Banna understood that he could not create or sustain a community without simultaneously building a well-structured organization to support it (Al- Banna 1981; Al-Banna and Wendell 1978). This evidence, including quotes from al-Banna himself, suggests that the Society was intentionally organized to withstand government
99 The exception to this is Lia (2006), who does make this association; however, because his analysis ends in 1942, he does not include two critical documents, which appear in 1945 and 1948. 90
repression. It would seem that the past 80 years confirms that this well-structured organization is indeed the source of the Society’s staying power (Eisenhart 2010; Trager 2011; Wickham 2013). Most of what we know about the organization of the Society of Muslim Brothers comes from the group’s internal documents, primarily its “general laws.” The structure/design, division of powers/responsibilities, committees, and procedures for recruiting, membership, religious training, and social welfare were defined in the Society’s first set of codified bylaws, the “General Law of the Society of the Muslim Brothers” (Qanun Jam’iyyat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin al-‘Amm), which al-Banna drafted in 1934.100 Although a new set of general laws, “The Fundamental Law of the Organization of the Muslim Brothers” (Qanun al-nizam al-asasi li- hay’at al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin al-Amma), was adopted in 1945, and another set, “The Basic Law of the Society of Muslim Brothers,” was ratified in 1982, very little regarding the group’s fundamental structure or practices has changed101 (Muslim Brotherhood: Structure & Spread 2007). The basic organizational design of the Society has always been a pyramid, and its administrative structure a hierarchy, with orders passing from the highest levels down to individual members through a strict chain of command (Bylaws 2011). What is unique about the Society’s hierarchy is its federated structure, with semi-autonomous sub-units and a strong, highly centralized leadership (Munson 2001). This combination, the result al-Banna’s careful engineering, ensures that the organization continues to function during times of repression. “We are combining the advantages of complete ‘centralization’ (close supervision and the power invested in one body, the [Guidance Council]) with the advantages of ‘decentralization’ (every deputy is given full freedom to act independently in fulfilling his mission)” (al-Banna (1940) as quoted in Lia 2006, 189). Examining the Society from the bottom-up, the most basic and, “arguably the most essential,” unit in the hierarchy is the “family” (usra), which consists of 5-7 individual members, including a leader (Trager 2011, 3). It is within this small group that a member will begin his 5-8
100 There are references to an earlier set of general laws, but no copy has been found. Additionally, Mitchell (1993) notes that the 1934 document merely formalized what had been in practice since the group’s founding. 101 This is true for every iteration of the Society’s “constitution”: Although there have been some important qualitative changes to the organization, its basic structure and fundamental operating procedures are original.
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year journey toward becoming a fully participating member of the Society (Trager 2012). Multiple families (usually 5-6) within a set geographic area102 report to a branch (sh’uba), the first administrative unit in the hierarchy. Each branch is governed by a board of directors103 comprised of the leaders of its associate families and a chairman, who is selected by the General Headquarters (Bylaws 2011). Two or more branches constitute a district (manatiq), which has its own administrative body consisting of “a chairman, who [is] the chairman of its leading branch or a member appointed by the Guidance Council; the heads of all the branches in the district; visitors from the branches and administrative offices, who have no vote; and representatives of the district’s most important activities” (Mitchell 1993, 176). Each district is part of an “administrative area” (al-maktab al-idari), which is the largest administrative unit outside the central leadership (Mitchell 1993). Similar to the other divisions in the hierarchy, each “area” is governed by a council whose members are heads of districts, members of the Guidance Bureau from within that district, as well as an “advisor” from the Guidance Bureau (Mitchell 1993). Administrative areas report directly to the General Guidance Bureau, one of the three pillars of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s central leadership structure. From the top-down, the foremost position in the Society is the Supreme Guide.104 In addition to serving as the organization’s “spiritual guardian,” the Supreme Guide is also its chief executive, and serves as the head of the Society’s executive branch, the General Guidance Bureau,105 and its legislative branch, the Shura Council106 (Bylaws 2011). These three principal organs of the Society’s central leadership are based out of the Society’s General Headquarters in Cairo. Although the official position of the Society is that its primary decision-making body is the Guidance Council, in reality, the Supreme Guide (al-murshid al’amm) wields absolute authority over virtually every aspect of the organization (Bylaws 2011). “The [Supreme Guide]
102 All units in the Society, except the central leadership, are “grouped” geographically. 103 The boards of directors at every level in the administrative hierarchy include a chairman, at least one deputy, a secretary, and a treasurer. The number of additional voting and non-voting seats varies. 104 In recent documents, this position is referred to as “Chairman” or “General Chairman.” 105 Also referred to as “The General Guidance Council,” “The Guidance Office/Bureau” and the “General Executive Bureau. 106 Also referred to as “The Guidance Council,” or the “General Advisory Council.” 92
is the movement’s overall leader...[and] is expected to supervise the entire group’s units, give advice, guidance, and direct officials and hold them accountable for every fault, failure, corruption, deviation or disregard and neglect of the rules according to the group’s regulations” (“Bylaws of the International Muslim Brotherhood” 2011, art. 12–A). al-Banna deliberately vested the office of the Supreme Guide with absolute powers after a series of challenges to his authority were posed in the years immediately following the group’s founding (Landau-Tasseron 2010; Lia 2006). al-Banna has been accused of assuming the Society would not survive beyond his death; however, the fact that he established a process for selecting his successor suggests that he at least considered the possibility (Landau-Tasseron 2010; Lia 2006). According to the Society’s 1948 constitution, “The Fundamental Law of the Organization of the Muslim Brothers,” the Supreme Guide is elected by an absolute majority of the Shura Council, who vote on candidates proposed by the General Guidance Bureau. To be eligible for the position of Supreme Guide, a Brother must: 1) be at least 40 years old; 2) served at least 5 years on the General Guidance Council; 3) “possess the attributes of learning, morality, and practicality” (Mitchell 1993, 165). Following his election, the new Guide takes an oath of allegiance to be a “faithful guardian over the principles of the Muslim Brothers, their Fundamental Law, and to pursue the Society’s interests according to the Book and the Sunna” (Mitchell 1993, 165). In the event the Supreme Guide dies while in office, or is removed for “violat[ing] his duties or los[ing] his qualifications,” his chief deputy assumes the authority (although not the title) of the office until new elections can be held (Bylaws 2011; Landau-Tasseron 2010; Mitchell 1993). The other two principal bodies in the Society’s central leadership are the General Guidance Bureau and the Shura Council. The Shura Council (majlis al-shura) is composed of 100-150 members who are “selected”107 for four-year terms from among the Society’s lower councils (Bylaws 2011). The Shura Council approves the annual budget and elects the organization’s Secretary-General and Treasurer.108 Its primary responsibility, however, is to debate and decide questions of policy.109 Once these have been addressed, they are forwarded to
107 Exactly how the members of the Shura Council are selected and/or who selects them is unclear. 108 These are chosen from the nine Cairo-based Guidance Bureau members. 109 It is unclear which body currently creates new policy. In theory, it is the Shura Council; however, recent scholarship suggests that the Shura Council exists in name only and, therefore, it is the Constituent Board and/or the Supreme Guide who dictates policy. 93
the Society’s chief executive body, the General Guidance Bureau, to be executed through its chain of command (Muslim Brotherhood: Structure & Spread 2007). The General Guidance Bureau (maktab al-irshad) is comprised of 12-14 members elected by (and from within) the Shura Council, plus the Supreme Guide (Bylaws 2011). The Guidance Bureau oversees all of the “sections” and “committees” of the Society of Muslim Brothers, which are the operational—as opposed to administrative—units of the organization. These include Propagation of the Message, Students/University, Family, Professions, Education, and Press and Translation (Bylaws 2011).110 The entire Guidance Bureau stands for election every four years, and members are chosen by secret ballot in the Shura Council (Bylaws 2011; Masoud 2013). To be eligible for a position in either the Shura Council or the Guidance Bureau, a Brother must first rise through the ranks of the Society’s extremely demanding, multi-tiered111 membership structure (Eisenhart 2010; Munson 2001; Trager 2011). The system that exists today is virtually identical to the one introduced by al-Banna in 1935, with the exception of the rank of mujahidun, which was eliminated when the Special Unit, the Society’s armed wing, was disbanded (Landau-Tasseron 2010; Lia 2006). When an individual decides to join the Society, he is considered a muhib, or follower, and is expected only to pay dues and attend family meetings regularly (Bylaws 2011). If the member demonstrates sufficient faithfulness, a working knowledge of the organization, and an understanding of basic Islamic texts, he is promoted to muayyad, or supporter. For a minimum of three years, the muayyad must engage in a rigorous religious education curriculum; he must also fulfill certain organizational duties, including teaching and recruiting (Trager 2011). If the muayyad successfully completes his education and training and passes his assessments, he is promoted to the level of muntasib, or associate member. “This step lasts a year and is considered the first step toward full membership” (Trager 2011, 3). During this time, the muntasib may work in one of the Society’s official divisions (such as Education, Family, or Laborers), and is required to give a portion of his earnings (5-8%) to the Society. Eventually, the muntasib can assume a low-level leadership position, such as forming a Family or overseeing a branch, and then he is considered a muntazim, or organizer. This is
110 It is difficult to find a complete and accurate list of the various sections and committees, primarily due to differences in translation, as well as the Society’s unwillingness to share their leadership structure. 111 There is some discrepancy as whether there are three or four levels of membership. 94
perhaps the most critical and difficult step toward full membership, as a muntazim must memorize the Quran, the sayings of the Prophet, and the basic laws of the Society. It is also at this level that the leadership “tests” the member’s loyalty to the organization and obedience to his superiors (Munson 2001; Trager 2011). Such “tests” usually involve requests to participate in activities that require (or may incur) a high degree of personal sacrifice (Berman 2009; Trager 2011; Wickham 2013). Finally, if the member satisfies the leadership that he is trustworthy and loyal, fulfills all of his religious training, and has not had a violation of his membership duties, he becomes an ach’amal, or “working member” (Mitchell 1993; Trager 2011). An ach’amal “can vote in all internal elections, participate in all of the Brotherhood’s working bodies, and compete for higher office within the group’s hierarchy” (Trager 2011, 3). At this point, the member has “plunged their entire lives into the ideology and activities of the organization” (Munson 2001, 499). Because of this, “there is a great disincentive to buck the Brotherhood leadership’s commands since doing so risks alienation from their closest friends and mentors” (Trager 2012, 2). The organizational design and membership structure clearly illustrate that the Muslim Brotherhood is heavily imbued with several of the core principles of a Weberian bureaucracy. Although some of these principles had to be modified or abandoned due to its need to remain clandestine, especially after the Society began engaging in violence against the state, many of them, including hierarchy, stable, learnable, and universal rules, clearly delineated chain of command, and authority vested in the office—and not the individual—remained intact, even when the organization was operating as an illegal and underground group. As I discuss below, this bureaucratic organization was not an accident, nor was it the result of a “modernization” process occurring late in the Society’s life. To the contrary, although they were reinforced throughout the lifecycle of the organization, these principles were part of the Society of Muslim Brothers’ founding. Bureaucratic Development When the Society was first founded, branch112 leaders were given near-absolute autonomy regarding the format and operation of their executive and administrative bodies (Al-
112 At the time of its founding, the Society consisted exclusively of branches, with the Cairo branch serving as the “main” or “head” branch. 95
Banna 1981; Mitchell 1993). As the Society expanded, however, its structure took on a clearly hierarchal shape and policies were formalized. In 1934, after a series of challenges to his authority, Hasan al-Banna initiated the first comprehensive reorganization of the Society, which resulted in the establishment of the General Guidance Bureau, the 1934 General Laws, and the formal recognition of al-Banna as Supreme Guide (Lia 2006; Mitchell 1993). This was his first effort toward strengthening the central leadership vis-à-vis the branches, a process that would continue in each of the subsequent reorganizations. In 1936, the General Guidance Office was separated from the Cairo branch, effectively creating the General Headquarters, and the branch/district/area hierarchy was formalized, laying the foundation for the administrative structure that exists today (Lia 2006). In 1939, al-Banna undertook the second all-encompassing reorganization. At the branch and district levels, he eliminated local elections and placed all real executive power in appointees of the General Guidance Council (Lia 2006). At the central level, he established the Constituent Assembly, a consultative body comprised of 100 “hand-picked” branch, district, and area representatives. This precursor to the Shura Council replaced the original 1931 General Assembly, whose members had been locally chosen representatives of each of the branches (Lia 2006). Furthermore, he issued a new set of comprehensive guidelines that more clearly articulated the roles, duties, and powers of each of the field subunits, “thereby increasing the ability of each body to act independently” of each other, and from the center (Lia 2006, 189). Thus, the 1939 reforms had two distinct purposes. First, they continued to enhance the center’s command and control over the subunits. Second, and more importantly, they ensured that local branches would continue to function should the Society’s central leadership be compromised (Mitchell 1993; Munson 2001). Not surprisingly, these organizational changes coincided with the Society’s decision to engage in politics, and, consequently, its first encounters with government repression (Mitchell 1993). At this time in Egypt’s history, it was customary for local politicians and/or dignataries to hold positions of leadership in Islamic social welfare organizations (Lia 2006; Wickham 2013). When the conflict between the Society and the government began, many of these branch leaders abandoned the group, leaving it vulnerable to arrests and forced closures (Lia 2006). By replacing elected leaders with appointees, al-Banna ensured that authority was vested in only those who were loyal to the Society (and to him). Importantly, al-Banna did not make these 96
appointments based solely on informal or personal relationships. To the contrary, the principle of “promotion based on merit” was fundamental in the ideology and policies of the Society (Landau-Tasseron 2010; Lia 2006). As noted above, only after a lengthy period of indoctrination, education, and training could a member achieve the status necessary for such an appointment, even if that member had personal ties to al-Banna. The last of al-Banna’s major reorganizations included the establishment of the “Family System” in 1943.113 An even tighter-knit, more cellular structure, its sole purpose was to insulate the group from the effects of leadership loss (Mitchell 1993; Zollner 2008). In this system, the “family,” a smaller, more intimate grouping, replaced the branch as the fundamental unit in the hierarchy (Trager 2012). Unlike branches, the purpose of the family was education and indoctrination, not administration. “Al-Banna did not call his cells ‘families’ by accident—it was his intention to bind men emotionally as well as organizationally” (Masoud 2013).Weekly family meetings were inside the homes of members “where [members] stud[ied] religious texts, discuss[ed] politics, organize[ed] local Brotherhood activities, and share[d] their private lives with one another” (Trager 2012). In effect, the family system “enmeshes members in each other’s lives and in the life of the Brotherhood,” insulating the member from external forces and potential competitors (Masoud 2013). Al-Banna also recognized the strength of this particular structure as a means of withstanding government coercion. Traditional social networks were maintained and incorporated into the individual units, allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to... keep lines of communication and authority open... in order to protect the larger organization from periodic government crackdowns, police raids, mass arrests, and infiltration... events that effectively eliminated many other opposition groups in the country (Munson 2001, 498).
The Role of Social Services The one constant throughout the dramatic history of the Society of Muslim Brothers is its provision of social services.114 Indeed, even at its most incapacitated, the Society offered some level of charity, aid, and/or education to its constituents. One purpose of this case study is to look for causal mechanisms that link my hypotheses to the outcome of organizational endurance. In
113 It also included the establishment of the “Special Unit,” which is discussed in detail intra. 114 For an-depth examination of the Society’s development and growth as a social welfare organization, see Eisenhart (2010). 97
the next two sections, I illustrate that Society’s endurance is a function of its social welfare provision. By building a vast network of deep, complex, and highly personal connections within every socio-economic class across the country, the Society of Muslim Brothers embedded itself into the social, political, and economic fabric of millions of Egyptians’ lives. First, I review the evolution of the services provided by the Society, illustrating that the types of assistance offered were a reflection of the organization’s capabilities, as well as the changing needs of its constituents. Then, I illustrate the singular role that providing social welfare has played in the Society’s lifecycle. Specifically, I show how delivering public welfare facilitated the group’s early expansion, protected its operations during times of repression, and, provided a foundation for its reconstruction. I conclude with an examination of the consequences of Society’s social services network for the state, especially in its attempt to marginalize or eradicate the group through leadership decapitation. Types of Social Services The types of social welfare services offered by the Society of Muslim Brothers reflects both their organizational capabilities and the needs of those they served. As these internal and external factors changed, so did the services offered by the Brothers. As I have already stated, the purposes of providing services were multiple. Not only did it ease the group’s integration into a new community, it served as their primary recruiting tool, and it “helped overcome free-rider problems within the organization, as resources such as schools and clinics served as selective incentives for Muslim Brotherhood members” (Munson 2001, 501). Finally, being able to deliver these services reliably and efficiently gave legitimacy to the group’s promises of change through their espoused ideology, a problem all ideological organizations face and few are able to overcome (Crenshaw 1985; Wilson 1974). As the Society grew in size and strength, so did the type and number of social and public services they offered. The Society’s use of social services to recruit members and raise funds began shortly after its founding in Ismailia. Its first project, the building of a mosque, broke ground in 1929; it took almost two years to complete and cost significantly more than anticipated (Lia 2006). In order to complete the project, al-Banna had to seek patronage from individuals who, in return, wanted to exert influence inside the Society (Lia 2006; Mitchell 1993). The project’s success not only established the Society’s presence in Ismailia, it also solidified its status as a legitimate social welfare organization. More importantly, it raised al-Banna’s awareness of the need for the 98
Society to be as self-sufficient as possible, and, if external support was necessary, to raise the funds from parties who were not in a position to wield their influence within the Society. The mosque project—or rather the concept behind it—became the model for the founding of all future branches: “The establishment of the headquarters was followed by the creation of some project or another—a mosque, a school, a club, or a small home industry—which came to serve as a focus for the interest or activities of the community” (Mitchell 1993, 9). However, in its earliest years, the Society’s activities were limited by its small size and modest treasury. Thus, between 1930 and 1933, the Brothers focused their energies on establishing personal relationships by performing social and educational work in their host communities with the goals of raising awareness of the organization and filling its membership ranks (El-Awaisi 1998; Lia 2006). Other examples of their work at this time include teaching Islamic studies classes, organizing projects to collect and distribute zakat, the Islamic alms tax, and providing basic necessities to the poor and destitute. While some of the more established branches did undertake larger projects such as repairing mosques, establishing workshops, and building factories and schools, most of the branches could not afford to do so until a few years later (Mitchell 1993; Wickham 2013). Between 1933 and 1936, the Society’s rate of growth rose exponentially, with the number of branches increasing from 15 to 150 (Mitchell 1993). As the Society expanded, so did its social services provision. Not only did the Society increase and improve its existing education and welfare services, it also added several new and important programs. Chief among these was the Brothers’ establishment of a pharmacy in 1933. “This was the beginning of an impressive increase in the Society’s health care provision not only for its own members but also for the general public” (Lia 2006, 111). By 1935, several branches had opened hospitals, clinics, and ambulance services; three years later, at least one branch was providing free health care. Also in 1933, the General Guidance Council created a Student Section, devoted to outreach, recruitment, and service of the growing student movement within Egypt’s universities (Mitchell 1993). The primary service the Brotherhood offered the students appears to have been “organization.” The Brothers helped the students organize protests, rallies, and unions to fight the injustices the students felt they were being subjected to by the university administration. al- Banna had a particular fondness for students and would give weekly student-only lectures, often inviting some of them to his home for dinner and additional conversation. He also provided 99
“tutoring” for any student who was believed to be unable to pass his exams. By 1940, the Student Section had become the largest and arguably most influential in the General Guidance Bureau. Although it suffered under Nasir, the Society’s relationship with Egypt’s student movement would prove critical in later periods of the organization’s life. Despite the onset of WWII, the Society continued to expand its social services, and thus its influence throughout the 1940s. As I will discuss extensively in the next section, the Society’s status as a social welfare organization allowed it to continue its operations unabated, even under martial law. Thus, the devastation of war combined with the suppression of its rivals opened a host of opportunities for the Society to offer new services to people who had previously been supportive of rival groups. In the late 1930s, when it became clear that war was imminent, the Society founded a School for the Defense against Gas and Air Attacks where it trained patrols to assist and educate the public about how to protect themselves in the event of such strikes (Lia 2006). During the war, “the Society made important efforts to relieve the suffering of the victims of the Axis bombings of Egyptian cities” (Lia 2006, 259). In addition to escalating their existing medical and charitable endeavors, “all branches were instructed to keep their promises open to people who had lost their homes as a result of the air raids” (Lia 2006, 259). In 1942, when massive food shortages combined with widespread malaria, the Brothers’ medical facilities and food pantries were essential to the country’s stability and survival (Mitchell 1993). Most importantly, however, it was during the war that the Society expanded their services to nearly every provincial town and village in Egypt (Lia 2006; Mitchell 1993). The Society continued to build primary and secondary Quran schools for children. These schools, though independent from the state’s administration, operated in conjunction with the national school system (Mitchell 1993). For young primary students, both urban and rural, the Brothers emphasized religious and moral training; older students were taught basic literacy skills and took classes on the Quran. They also initiated a state-wide “Fighting Illiteracy” campaign, often using members of the armed forces as instructors (Mitchell 1993). However, the most impressive development to the Society’s educational services were the diverse and highly specialized adult education programs they offered. Mitchell writes, The training in the schools of the Society had a variety of purposes. In the rural areas farmers received agricultural guidance as well, with the help of students
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from the university colleges of agriculture. Similarly, urban workers received supplementary instruction in matters pertaining to unions and labour [sic] from students of economics…Finally, the society offered special kinds of schooling, such as the tutorial service for perspective applicants for the civil-service examinations and for students whose success in university examinations was in doubt. For all of these operations the Society called upon its members for instruction—university professors, teachers in primary and secondary schools, and students—each of whom contributed his work freely for the cause of the literacy and for that of the Society (Mitchell 1993, 276).
After the war, the Brotherhood once again dramatically expanded their welfare provision, this time focusing on efforts to combat the widespread unemployment created by the closing of wartime establishments and a high rate of post-war inflation (Mitchell 1993). The most significant addition to the Brotherhood’s services were in the area of industry and labor. In an effort to meet the needs of its working-class members, which had from its start been the organization’s core constituency, the Society founded several small businesses. The Brothers’ companies encompassed everything from spinning and weaving, to prêt-à-porter clothing lines, to advertising (Mitchell 1993). They also opened the Company for Islamic Transactions in an attempt to provide the means for gain within the framework of Islamic principles. In addition to providing interest free loans, the bank’s mission was to protect the money of the poor and destitute, giving them a far greater return on investment than traditional banks were offering
(Walsh 2003). The Labor Section served as an employment clearinghouse, where members could seek employment through the Society’s close ties to public and private industry. It also “retained a panel of lawyers who were specialists in labor affairs to deal with individual issues as they arose… and conducted a ‘labor school’ designed to instruct workers in ‘their rights’ and to explain labor legislation” (Mitchell 1993, 280). When the government issued the first dissolution order in 1948, the Society had grown to nearly 2,000 branches and approximately 500,000 members (Mitchell 1993; Munson 2001). Moreover, the Society’s Welfare and Social Services Section had over 500 of its own branches, which provided schooling, medical care, vocational training, job placement, and even banking and insurance services (Mitchell 1993; Munson 2001). The Society’s provision of social services allowed it to attract members from every region, occupation, and class of Egyptian society. “More important, it made effective inroads into the most sought-after… groups—the civil servants and the students—and the most neglected
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but potentially powerful, the urban laborers and the peasants” (Mitchell 1993, 12-13). Their status as a social welfare institute protected them from the state’s repression and allowed their network of welfare institutions to grow when other organizations were shuttering. Although it would suffer tremendous losses from the dissolutions of 1948 and 1954, the Brotherhood was able to reorganize in the 1970s by reestablishing contact with these key groups and, more importantly, by resuming their unmatched provision of social welfare to them. How social services enabled them to do these things is the focus of the next section. The Function of Social Services The previous section reviewed the types of services provided by the Muslim Brotherhood at various points in its lifecycle. In this section, I examine the function of the Society’s social services provision: how providing welfare programs enabled the organization to endure despite repeated exposure to leadership decapitation. I illustrate that the Society used its social welfare status to build a vast grassroots network of welfare institutions115 by establishing deep, complex, and highly personal ties within every geographic region, economic sector, and social class in Egypt. The extensiveness, embeddedness, and efficiency of this network was what enabled the Brothers to survive repeated bouts of state repression. The Society’s provision of social welfare contributed to its endurance in three ways. First, due to its status as an Islamist welfare organization, the Society was given entrée to new communities via an extensive (and existing) network of traditional and religious institutions. “The existence of mosques and places of prayer in every village provided the Muslim Brothers with access to a respectable pulpit and attractive audience” from which they, but not their political rivals, could recruit members (Lia 2006, 132). However, it was the Society’s ability to put their ideology into practice—via good works in the community—that distinguished it from the other many welfare societies also present in these towns. According to Munson, the Society’s social welfare projects “created an institutional infrastructure in which the Society could demonstrate its ability to deliver on promises of social and economic change to the Egyptian people” (2001, 501). This was especially critical during its early years, when the Brotherhood could not yet rely on its reputation. A service project gave the Society a reason to be active in the
115 I use the term “welfare institutions” here as a reference to both the brick-and-mortar hospitals, schools, workshops, etc., and to the services they provide. 102
new community; it also gave them a sense of legitimacy, and a means by which to raise funds and recruits. Once the project was completed, the Society would arrange a visit from al-Banna, during which he would meet with key individuals within the community, especially imams, sheiks, and other religious figures. al-Banna recognized the importance of reinforcing newly established personal connections, especially with “key persons in the local community—the shopkeepers, the teachers, the religious shaykhs and the like—whose traditional links with their social inferiors—the peasants, the workers, the small tradesmen—could facilitate the mobilization of a mass following” (Lia 2006, 130). In an effort to further ingratiate the Society into a new community, al-Banna would always travel with a group of prominent Brothers, “preferably members of local origin who knew the idiosyncrasies and traditions of the villages” (Lia 2006, 131). This pattern of embedding themselves into the local social, economic, and political structure through the provision of social services proved very beneficial for the Brotherhood. By 1940, it had grown from 3 branches in the Canal Zone to over 500 branches dispersed throughout every part of Egypt, as well as in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Palestine116, Lebanon, and Morocco (Lia 2006). Second, as a registered social welfare organization, the Society117 was afforded a certain degree of protection from the state, even during periods of severe repression (Lia 2006; Munson 2001). During WWII, Egypt was placed under martial law; while other political opposition organizations were being heavily monitored and/or shut down, the Society was able to continue its operations because as “a religious welfare society, the Muslim Brothers operated mainly through local grass-root networks of mosques, welfare institutions, and branch organizations, not through traditional political channels where surveillance was stricter” (Lia 2006, 257). The Brothers’ ability to continue to meet inside the “safe zones” of traditional and Islamic institutions proved vital to the organization’s survival following the first dissolution and the ensuing assassination of Hasan al-Banna. In 1948, there was an active underground movement working to restore the Society; the Brothers’ activities, however, were closely monitored and thus highly
116 This branch was the precursor to Hamas. 117 Prior to 1945, the Society as a whole was a registered, legal social welfare organization. Following Law 49/1945, Hasan al-Banna established the “Social and Welfare Services Section” a purportedly distinct organization with its own administration. The Social and Welfare Services Section, however, was part of the larger Society and operated under supervision of the General Guidance Bureau and the Supreme Guide. 103
limited. “Mosques were the only forum in which the government would permit large congregations of people… [they] were also relatively safe from police raids or even obnoxious government intervention in the conduct of the [prayer] services” because “even the state had to play by the rules in the mosques” (Munson 2001, 502). As Zollner writes, “the Friday prayers, after which it is customary to sit and chat, were used as an opportunity to exchange news. As such, frequenting certain mosques by the Brothers made it possible to maintain a loose network” (2008, 38). Thus, the safety of a soup kitchen, hospital, relief agency, or mosque allowed members to congregate without drawing attention to their “meeting.” Finally, when the Society needed to rebuild (after both the 1948 dissolution and The Great Mihna), they were able to do so using the bones—or tracks—of the network they had built during their expansion. This endeavor was less challenging after the 1948 dissolution in part because the period of closure was shorter (two years versus twenty) but also because much of the Society’s highly-decentralized infrastructure had remained operational, albeit at a much lower level (Mitchell 1993; Munson 2001; Zollner 2008). When the Society’s top leadership was removed, al-Banna’s organizational safety measures engaged and “the Muslim Brotherhood survived in an environment of tactical retreat and secrecy” (Zollner 2008, 16). “The established network of… political and personal relations spun in the 1940s were vital for the continuation of the Society underground. The complex set of connections, both between individual brothers and with influential public personalities enabled the organization to cope with the pressure of the official ban” (Zollner 2008, 16). Munson echoes this, finding that although the government dissolved the Society, seized its assets, and shuttered its headquarters, “the U.S. State Department received reports of secret mass meetings, Society organizing in mosques, and pamphleteering throughout Egypt during this time” (2001, 499). Furthermore, once the leadership was released, the fact that they did not have to rebuild (much of) the Society’s infrastructure meant that they could turn their attention to the more pressing issues of legality and succession. Nevertheless, despite his efforts to legally separate the Section of Social and Welfare Services from the main organization, the 1948 dissolution damaged many of the Society’s social service programs. While only a few of the Society’s welfare institutions were actually closed, the government seized the Society’s assets and shut down many of the companies that funded the group’s programs and institutions (Mitchell 1993). Moreover, they dismantled the Society’s 104
Rover Scouts, the organization’s primary messengers and service deliverers. Some service programs were unable to recover; the Society’s labor section, for example, did not regain its pre- 1948 level of influence until the 1980s. Other programs, such as education and healthcare, were able to rebound quickly, largely because the government did not take over the hospitals, schools, or other “critical” institutions.118 Mitchell writes despite that “most of the equipment and material of the clinics and dispensaries was confiscated” in 1948, the Brothers were able to resume activity by 1950 (Mitchell 1993, 290). “In fact, in 1953, it was claimed that each province of Egypt had at least one dispensary and that sixteen clinics in Cairo had treated over 100,000 patients” (Mitchell 1993, 290). After the 1954 dissolution, however, the task of reorganizing was far more difficult. First, by the time Sadat granted the Society a general amnesty in 1975, the Society’s leadership had been in prison for over twenty years. Second, during that time, Nasir had nationalized many of the organization’s social services programs as part of his “Arab socialism” reform policies. Those he could not take over, such as the Quran schools, he “controlled” through repressive policies (Berman 2009; Goldschmidt Jr. 2004; Mitchell 1993). Importantly, however, Nasir did not shut down the vast majority of the Society’s institutions: “State department records indicate, in fact, that the system was so large that the government was forced to fund and continue staffing the Society’s extensive network of services after the organization was dissolved…for fear that their collapse would lead to widespread unrest” (Munson 2001, 501). That some of their original welfare institution infrastructure remained intact proved critical to the Brothers’ ability to take the next step toward reorganization. As was discussed previously, the success of the Society’s post-Nasir reorganization was largely the result of its ability to adapt to a new environment. More specifically, the organization’s survival was facilitated by its absorption of the leading Islamic Student Movement group, al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya119 (GI) into its ranks. Once the first wave of student leaders became Brothers, they set about forging ties to the wider Student Movement; meanwhile, the
118 One reason this did not happen is because the government was in a state of crisis and could not provide these critical services. Foreshadowing what was to become the norm for the next sixty years, the government’s efforts to crush the Society were hampered by its need for the group’s continued provision of social welfare. 119 This group is not the same as (but is often confused with) the violent Islamist group, al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, which was responsible for several terrorist attacks inside Egypt in the 1990s. 105
elder Brothers focused on reconstructing their extensive social welfare network. Having refilled the chain-of-command with the former GI members, the Brothers were able to effectively and efficiently deliver on their promises of books, financial assistance, housing, and training. Ultimately, “the Brothers’ popularity lay not only in their ability to provide good quality services, but also in the effective manner of their provision. The Brotherhood would not have been able to provide effective services without reliance on its organizational network” (Al- Awadi 2009, 217). Importantly, however, the “legitimacy of the Muslim Brotherhood did not simply stem from the provision of services, but more importantly came from the effective and organized manner in which the services were delivered… The [Society’s] organization… provided the necessary condition for coordination and exchange of skills and expertise to take place between the different members” (al-Awadi 2009, 219). Thus it was not only the fact that the Brotherhood provided services to students, but also that the services were delivered in an efficient and reliable manner that that enabled them to coopt the Student Movement into the Society’s ranks, and thus become the preeminent Islamist organization in Egypt during the 1970s (Al-Awadi 2005, 2009). Conclusion This chapter aimed to examine in detail a case of leadership decapitation for evidence of the causal mechanisms at work between my proposed (explanatory) attributes and the deviant outcome of organizational endurance and, subsequently, to generate testable hypotheses from that evidence. Based on my analysis, I conclude that the proposed attributes, bureaucratization and the provision of social services, reduced the Society’s dependence on any single individual to perform the functions necessary to survive, including several that are traditionally considered the exclusive domain of “the leader.” Specifically, I found the following: Current theories regarding the criticality of leaders, especially founders and/or charismatic figureheads (such as spiritual guides), to an organization’s survival are flawed. While the Society experienced temporary operational setbacks following the loss of its founder, it did not collapse. It suffered even less after the loss of its “charismatic” spiritual guide, and was able to regroup more rapidly. Furthermore, with each loss of leadership, the Society learned how to function in an environment of repression. Not only did it adapt its structure and policies to overcome the loss of any one leader, it developed new routines for operating underground. Finally, while the imprisonment of a majority of its leadership (and its membership) coincided 106
with the Society’s near collapse, the evidence suggests that the latter was due more to the internal turmoil leading up to the mass incarcerations than the actual loss of any “key” individual(s). Nasir was able to weaken the organization from within using a divide and conquer strategy that pitted various factions against each other and resulted in widespread mistrust and a breakdown of authority The Society of Muslim Brothers’ endurance is a consequence of its social services provision. Providing public assistance created a vast network of deep, complex, and highly personal ties to nearly every socio-economic class in Egypt, thereby embedding the Society, literally and figuratively, into the social, political, economic, and religious fabric of hundreds of thousands of Egyptians’ lives. Consequently, the state’s efforts to marginalize or, at times, eradicate the Society via repression were ineffective. Equally important to the Brothers’ survival was the ability to provide these services in an efficient and effective manner. The group’s unrivaled operational capacity was due to its bureaucratic organization—its structure and policies—which were designed specifically to allow the Society’s critical processes to continue by distributing the power and functions of “the leader” both horizontally and vertically to various authoritative bodies within the organization. In the next chapter, I restate these findings as specific hypotheses and discuss in detail how I determine their significance to the effectiveness of leadership decapitation as a counterterrorism tactic.
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Chapter Five: Quantitative Analysis Introduction The purpose of the quantitative portion of a mixed-methods research design is to build on the findings of the qualitative analysis. Specifically, the quantitative analysis is used to “test elements of an emergent theory resulting from the qualitative phase and... to generalize qualitative findings to different samples” (Creswell 2008). As I stated in chapter three, I have two goals for this chapter: first, to identify basic patterns among the variables identified in the qualitative phase120 and, second, to determine if the relationships I suggest between my variables of interest and the observed outcome of leadership decapitation are significant. Variables in the Equation Dependent Variable: The Effectiveness of Leadership Decapitation The dependent variable for the statistical analysis portion of this project is the effectiveness of leadership decapitation. To operationalize this variable, I will first examine each of its conceptual components (leadership, decapitation, and effectiveness) separately; afterwards, I will explain my coding strategy for the operationalization of this variable. By definition, all organizations have an ordered distribution of power with some form of leadership at the top.121 The specific shape leadership takes - an individual, co-leaders, or small group - affects organizational behavior by creating different opportunities, incentives, and constraints for those in power. For example, Kent Oots discusses how different leadership structures can affect the process and outcomes of bargaining with terrorists. Oots finds that “decision-making costs, those costs necessary to secure agreement, increase as the number required to make a decision increases,” (Oots 1990, 148). Consequently, costs are lower “if the group has an authoritarian leadership structure with a single decision maker. If, on the other hand, the group must reach a consensus, the decision-making costs will increase” (Oots 1990, 148). Some groups have clearly identifiable popular, and sometimes even highly recognizable
120 One of the primary aims of my descriptive statistical analysis is to determine the frequency with which the core elements of a Weberian bureaucracy are present among the universe of cases in my dataset. 121 To be clear: “top” here is not meant to imply a hierarchic organizational design, such as a pyramid. Rather, “top” refers to the highest level of authority, power, control, oversight, etc. As will be illustrated, many organizations can have a flattened, decentralized organizational design, however, the degree of authority, control, oversight, etc., can vary among sub-units. 108
leaders. Yasir Arafat, Gerry Adams, and Osama bin Laden are all examples of this type of leader. However, identifying the “ultimate decision maker” for a terrorist group is not always so straightforward (Hudson 1999; McCormick 2003). First, terrorist organizations tend to be clandestine because they are illegal and revelations about their membership - especially their leaders - would certainly produce unwanted consequences from the state. Second, as is the case with many non-violent organizations, terror groups may appear to have a certain “leader” or “leaders,” when, in fact, these individuals are leaders in name only. Universities, hospitals, philanthropic organizations, and economic firms all have hierarchic organizational designs with a specific leader (e.g., the President, Chair, Chief Executive Officer, etc.) at the top. In many cases, however, this “top” position is largely symbolic with very little real power. Instead, the actual locus of power that has the ability to decide, to control information, to allocate and to disperse resources is found at a lower level (e.g., the Board of Directors, Chief Operating Officer, etc.). In these cases, it is necessary to recognize that the group’s leadership is separate from its leader. Such is sometimes the case with terrorist organizations. Decapitation is defined as the death (by natural causes, accident, or assassination) or capture (followed by long-term arrest) of an active leader or leaders.122 Some studies have differentiated between death and capture in an attempt to distinguish which is more effective in terms of defeating a terrorist organization (Cronin 2009; Jones and Libicki 2008; Mannes 2008). Overwhelmingly, these studies found no statistically significant difference between death and capture in terms of real, long-term effect on organizational endurance. As such, I chose to not code these as separate events. Unlike other studies of decapitation, I decided to include death by natural or accidental causes for two interrelated reasons. First, the purpose of this dissertation is to study the effects of leadership loss on terrorist organizations, irrespective of how the leader was lost. Thus, cases where death was not the result of assassination are still valid. Second, there are cases where the death of a leader by natural causes resulted in organizational collapse. By excluding these cases, the study would suffer from selection bias in that only cases of state initiated leadership decapitation would be studied. Including these cases may actually produce a
122 I did not count cases of leadership loss, even founder loss, if there was evidence that the individual was no longer the active leader. Additionally, I only included leadership decapitation events that occurred while the group was still an active terrorist organization; if they had transitioned out of terrorism when the event occurred, I did not count it. 109
stronger model for identifying the variables that are most significant for determining when a leader is (or is not) important. Assessing the effectiveness of any single counterterrorism strategy poses a unique challenge to policymakers and analysts. First, policymakers and analysts have yet to identify the metrics by which “effectiveness” can be determined (Lum, Kennedy, and Sherley 2007; Perl 2007; Price 2009). Given that different terrorist groups present different risks, counterterrorism strategies “could potentially cover a wide range of phenomena, seek a variety of outcomes, and involve multiple points at which effectiveness could be measured” (Lum, Kennedy, and Sherley 2007). Second, aside from the practical difficulties associated with ascertaining the operational status of terrorist organizations, the long-term effects of leadership decapitation may not be initially apparent and may differ significantly from those observed in the immediate aftermath. For example, Crenshaw notes that many groups’ initial response to the threat of organizational collapse is “fighting” (Crenshaw 1985, 1991). In such cases, there may be a substantial increase in the number of attacks immediately following the loss of a leader, even though the group is actually in the process of collapsing. In contrast, other groups go dormant in the wake of a leadership loss (Crenshaw 1991; Enders and Sandler 2002; Price 2009). This lack of activity is often mistaken as collapse, when in reality it is a period of reorganization and rehabilitation. In a stunning oversight within the literature, most studies of decapitation do not even consider “boomerang effects” of leadership targeting and fail to code for any type of positive group outcomes (Ganor 2008). Finally, a reliance on quantitative rather than qualitative analysis may give a false picture of effectiveness by omitting certain (potentially significant) results of leadership decapitation because they are beyond the scope of the variables being quantified. For instance, if a researcher is only coding for collapse, she would not report if the loss of a leader weakened the support/recruiting base of the group; caused a marked increase in the defection, capture, or death of group members; caused the group to enter/exit negotiations; changed the stated goals of the group; or caused the group to change targets, tactics, or structure. Keeping in mind that the effects of leadership decapitation can take many forms, some of which can easily be missed or mistaken, I used the results of the questionnaire to sort groups in to one of four categories: strengthened, no effect, declined, or collapsed.
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Figure 1 Classification of Groups by the Effectiveness of Leadership Decapitation Strengthened No Effect Decline Collapse
Strengthened: I classified a group as strengthened if, after experiencing leadership decapitation, there is evidence that the negative consequences for the state were greater than those for the group, what Boaz Ganor refers to as a “boomerang effect” (Ganor 2008). These consequences can manifest in many ways including (but not limited to), an increase in the group’s popularity and/or recruiting, increases in the number and/or lethality of attacks over a sustained period of time, the transition from a marginal actor to a central or primary actor, or winning popular elections. No effect: I classified a group as not affected if there is no discernible effect to the group’s activities (i.e., no marked increase or decrease in attacks, lethality of attacks, success of attacks, or overall significance.) Groups were considered not affected if there was no change in targets, no decision to enter or exit negotiations, to enter or exit legitimate political process, etc., and/or if there was no evidence or reports of internal effects such as infighting, splintering, or capture or defection of members. Decline: I classified a group as experiencing decline if there is evidence of a marked decrease in the number, lethality, or success of attacks, or if the group’s ability to recruit new members was weakened. Additionally, groups are classified as “in decline” if decapitation led to a change in targets, decisions to enter or exit negotiations, decisions to enter or exit legitimate political process, or if there are reports of negative internal effects such as infighting, splintering, capture of members, or defection of members. Collapse: I classified a group as collapsed if all significant activity ceases within the four-year timetable. Significant activity is defined as sustained, lethal, and disruptive acts of terrorism (as defined supra). Note: In cases where decapitation led to splintering, I code the parent organization as collapsed if, after leadership loss, the group was so fragmented that it ceased all
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significant activity. Contrarily, if the parent group was still active in its own right, I classify it as declined. In order to obtain more accurate and efficient estimates, I collapsed the above categories and coded groups as either strengthened/no effect or declined/collapsed. Thus, for the quantitative portion of my analysis, effectiveness of leadership decapitation is coded as a dichotomous variable. Figure 2 Coding for Dependent Variable Effectiveness of Leadership Decapitation 1 Strengthened/No Effect 0 Declined/Collapsed
Key Independent Variables: Bureaucracy Score and Provides Social Services This dissertation argues that two key variables explain the variation in the effectiveness of leadership decapitation on terrorist organizations. These key variables are the level of the organization’s bureaucracy score and provides social services. Provides Social Services is a dichotomous variable, and was coded as either present or absent. For most cases, this was a rather straightforward exercise: if there was evidence that the organization provided some type of social or welfare service, such as education, healthcare, job placement, etc., to either its host community or another identifiable community (i.e., religious, ethnic, regional), provides social services was coded as present. Bureaucracies are defined by the presence of specific organizational characteristics.123 A comprehensive review of the Organizational Studies literature yielded the following list of the most commonly cited dimensions of bureaucracy:124 (1) a centralized leadership whose authority is derived from its position in the organization; (2) stable, learnable, impersonal, and universal rules; (3) a strict hierarchy of command and control; (4) a specialized division of labor; (5)
123 Most definitions of a bureaucracy include Weber’s three main “ideal type” attributes; hierarchy, standard operating procedures, and division of labor (functional specialization). Beyond this, however, the dimensions of bureaucracy vary widely. 124 Lists of these attributes vary in the Organizations Studies literature. For example, many authors include redundancy and fixed salaries as bureaucratic attributes. For a review of this see (Hall 1963).
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appointment and promotion based on specific qualifications, and; (6) codified standard operating procedures (Downs 1964; Hall 1963; M. Weber 1947, 1978).125 To determine the extent to which a group was bureaucratized, each of these attributes was treated as a unique binary variable126 and was coded as either present or absent. I also coded for regular leadership transitions, if subunits operated independently from the center and from each other, and type of organizational design. Based on the total number of present attributes, I gave each organization a bureaucracy score, ranging from 0-7, where zero (0) indicated an absence of all bureaucratic features and seven (7) indicating a highly-bureaucratized organization.127 In certain cases, these determinations were easy to make because there was a specific piece of empirical evidence that indicated the presence or absence of a variable. In other cases, however, I had to make an educated guess about the presence or absence of a variable based on the general discussion of that case. Other Independent Variables I included additional independent variables to control for other factors that might affect the effectiveness of leadership decapitation. For example, Jordan determines that an organization’s age, size, and “type” are significant determinants of when leadership decapitation will result in collapse (Jordan 2009). As was stated supra, however, Jordan’s findings may not be reliable given her use of these variables as proxies for other organizational characteristics. Nevertheless, I include the variables group age, organization size, and ideology in my analysis. Age is often assumed “an important predictor of when decapitation is likely to be effective” (Jordan 2011, 2). Determining when a group is “born,” however, is difficult: official and/or reliable information about “the founding” of terrorist groups is often impossible to find. Equally problematic is identifying exactly when a group dies. Groups are often inactive for months or even years, only to reemerge larger and more lethal than they were before their fallow
125 This list is meant to be representative only. I consulted many other sources to compile this list; however, these sources were the most definitive. 126 Some of these attributes were initially treated as composite variables but were then coded as either present or absent, based on the presence or absence of their components. For example, to determine if a group was “centralized,” I coded as present or absent the group’s dependence on the center for 1) strategic, 2) operational, 3) financial support. If two of these were present, the group was coded as centralized. 127 I did not include organizational design in the score because structure is not necessarily indicative of an organization’s level of bureaucracy. 113
period (Crenshaw 1985; Cronin 2009). “This lack of activity can be due to extended planning...reconsolidation efforts, effective counterterrorism campaigns by the state, [or] as [biding] its time until a more advantageous opportunity presents itself” (Price 2010, 8). Thus, to determine group age, I subtracted the year of their first attack from either the date of their last known/claimed attack or, if the group was still active, from 2011. Organizational size and ideology are also commonly cited characteristics of terrorist groups and have been used to predict longevity, lethality, and target choice (Asal and Rethemeyer 2008; Drake 1998; Jordan 2011; Price 2009). Despite their popularity, each of these organization-level variables is difficult to operationalize. For example, size is one of the most frequently reported statistics for terror groups. Yet there are several reasons to be wary of conclusions drawn from size-based findings. First, terrorist organizations are fundamentally clandestine and their illegality makes them reticent to (accurately) report membership information. Second, as with any organization, membership in terror groups fluctuates. Considering the intelligence on underground groups is often outdated reports of size should be viewed as “best guesses” or “estimates” simply because of groups’ dynamic nature. Finally, any figures given by the terrorist group should be treated with suspicion. Terrorist leaders are likely to give exaggerated estimates of their organization’s size in order to appear more threatening to the state (Price 2009). To code for size, I looked at estimates available from each of the open- source databases for all 138 groups. Based on my findings, I classified organizations into one of five categories: 0-100, 101-1,000, 1,001-10,000, and 10,000+. When the data was inconsistent or unknown, I coded the group as “unknown.” Several academic studies have used a similar coding scheme (Jones and Libicki 2008; Mannes 2008; Price 2009). Categorizing terrorist organizations by their ideology, the beliefs, principles, or overarching philosophy that affects—if not dictates—the organization’s stated goals or motives for using terrorism, has been a common practice since the 1970s (Ganor 2008; Piazza 2009; Schmid 2011; Wilkinson 1975). In recent years, scholars have argued that ideology is an important factor in explanations of durability and resilience (Cronin 2003; Jordan 2009; Laqueur 1999). For example, Blomberg, Gaibulloev, and Sandler argue that groups with religious organizations fare better than groups with secular political goals (Blomberg, Gaibulloev, and Sandler 2011). Jordan (2009) makes a similar argument, finding that religious groups are more
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resilient to leadership decapitation than are Marxist, fascist, or white-supremacist groups.128 In contrast, Louise Richardson claims that the lifespan of ethnonationlist groups is longer and argues this is because of their close ties to the community for which they are (or claim to be) fighting (2006). This method of classification, however, can be problematic for two reasons. First, as Jerrold Post writes, for many terrorist organizations, “the cause is not the cause” (Post 1990, 35). For example, Max Abrams finds that “some of the most important terrorist organizations in modern history have pursued policy goals that are not unstable, but also contradictory” (2008, 88). Second, many groups, such as HAMAS and LTTE, are a combination of religious and nationalistic/separatist ideologies. How one categorizes either of these important organizations can dramatically affect the outcomes of a quantitative analysis. For this project, I placed groups into one of four categories, leftist, separatist, religious, and in cases such as HAMAS, separatist + religious. For my regressions, I created a series of dummy variables, using separatist + religious as the base variable. Another factor often cited as significant to an organization’s fortitude is the presence of a state supporter (Siqueira and Sandler 2006). This is not the same as “state sponsored terrorism,” which indicates that a state is using terrorism against its own people. Rather, this variable indicates that a state is supporting a terror group that operates outside of its borders by giving it money, weapons, or harboring its remote leadership. I treated this as a dichotomous variable, and coded state supporter as present where there was clear evidence of such support. If no such evidence was found, I coded it as not present. Hypotheses two and three address queries that expand my primary research question. For each of these hypotheses, I created additional variables that were used in conjunction with those described above. A discussion of these added variables, their coding, and the logic behind their use is given following their related hypothesis. Hypotheses and Tests Using SPSS software, I ran two types of statistical tests on the data. I computed descriptive statistics to identify basic patterns among the variables that were used in the subsequent multivariate analyses. I then use binary logistic regression analysis to assess the
128 Jordan calls these groups “ideological,” and defines them as organizations [who] aim to transform society according to a political ideology. 115
significance of various independent variables on the effectiveness of leadership decapitation. The theoretical reasoning for choosing the latter was discussed in chapter three. Below I list my specific hypotheses and the statistical tests I used to evaluate each hypothesis.
H1: Groups with higher levels of bureaucracy score and who provides social services will experience fewer instances of decline or collapse as the result of leadership decapitation efforts. To test this hypothesis, I first establish a baseline rate of decline for organizations that did not experience decapitation (Table 1). I then tested the effects of bureaucracy score and provides social services (key IVs) on the effectiveness of leadership decapitation (DV) using binary logistic regression analysis.129
H2: The above will be true even if the group experiences repeated losses of leadership or the loss of a founder. Many analysts argue that the loss of a founder and/or repeated losses of leadership are more likely to produce collapse than a single decapitation event. Indeed, it is well established in Organization Studies literature that the loss of a founder causes serious organizational disruption, including collapse (Balser and Carmin 2009; Carroll 1984; Rubenson 1996; Weinberg and Eubank 1989). To test these possibilities, I regressed the variables founder decapitation and experienced multiple decapitation onto the dependent variable in order to see if effects are present, net of other predictors. As is true for so many attributes of clandestine groups, pinpointing the founder of a terrorist organization is sometimes difficult, however, there are certain cases, such as Aum Shinrikyo and the Haqqani Network, where there is ample evidence to identify the founder(s). In cases where the clearly identified founder130 was removed, by either death or long-term arrest, while still in power, I coded that group as experiencing founder decapitation. Similarly, when there was evidence to suggest that the group had lost more than one primary leader, I coded them as having experienced multiple decapitation.
H3: Repressive counterterrorism measures, such as leadership decapitation, will produce a boomerang effect (strengthen the group) when carried out against groups that provide social services.
129 Unlike other studies, I am not testing for the overall value of leadership decapitation as a counterterrorism technique. Policy choices are made for a variety reasons and it is entirely possible that the benefits of leadership targeting lie beyond its ability to cause organizational collapse. 130 Unlike Jordan, I make a distinction between a founder and the upper echelon of an organization’s leadership. 116
To test this possibility, I created a new binary dependent variable by collapsing decline, collapse, and none into the variable other and then recoded all groups as either strengthened or other. I then ran binary logistic regression to show the percentage of increased effect of social services on strengthened groups. Findings
Below are the findings of my preliminary statistical analyses of H1 and H2. Table 2 gives descriptive statistics for all variables under investigation. Please note that all data given are only for the 110 groups that experienced decapitation unless otherwise noted.
H1 suggested that organizations that provide social services to their host communities and with higher degrees of bureaucratization (bureaucracy score) will be more resistant to the disruptive effects of leadership decapitation. The dependent variable is coded dichotomously, with organizations experiencing either decline/collapse or no effect/strengthened. Using dichotomous variables allows for a percentage interpretation of the mean in the category of interest, which in this case is no effect/strengthened. For example, 85 percent of the 110 groups under investigation experienced a founder decapitation. Particularly of note is the mean for group age; when this same frequency table is run for all 138 groups, the mean remains unchanged. Results of an independent samples t-test confirm this outcome (t = -0.006; df = 136; p = .995). This suggests that, overall, leadership decapitation is not an effective counterterrorism strategy.
Table 1 Average Lifespan of Terrorist Organizations by Experienced Leadership Decapitation Experienced Decapitation N Mean SD Group No 28 18.00 14.08 age Yes 110 18.02 13.47
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Table 2 Means and Standard Deviations for All Variables Under Investigation
Mean SD
Dependent Variable Decapitation Effect: Decline/Collapse 0.73 0.45 Decapitation Effect: Remain Stable/Strengthen 0.27 0.45
Independent Variables Bureaucracy Score 3.04 2.18 Provides Social Services (1=Yes) 0.32 0.47 Organization Size 1.27 0.93 Group Age 18.02 13.47 State Supported Group (1=Yes) 0.13 0.34 Political Ideology: Separatist (1=Yes) 0.22 0.41 Political Ideology: Leftist (1=Yes) 0.33 0.47 Political Ideology: Religious (1=Yes) 0.35 0.48 Political Ideology: Separatist and Religious (1=Yes) 0.11 0.31 Experienced Multiple Decapitations (1=Yes) 0.87 0.34 Experienced Founder Decapitation (1=Yes) 0.85 0.36 Note: N=110.
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Table 3 Regression Analysis for H1 and H2 Model 1 Model 2
ß exp(ß) ß exp(ß) Bureaucracy Score 0.062 1.064 Provides Social Services 1.846 *** 6.337 Organization Size 1.573 *** 4.821 Estimated Group Lifespan -0.027 0.974 State Supported Group -1.696 * 0.183 Political Ideology: Separatist Political Ideology: Leftist Political Ideology: Religious Experienced Multiple Decapitations Experienced Founder Decapitation
Constant -1.926 *** 0.146 -2.600 *** 0.074 Chi-Square Goodness of Fit 18.411 *** 28.182 *** Nagelkerke R2 0.223 0.327 Note: N=110. *=p<.05, **=p<.01, ***=p<.001.
Model 3 Model 4
ß exp(ß) ß exp(ß)
Bureaucracy Score Provides Social Services Organization Size Estimated Group Lifespan State Supported Group Political Ideology: Separatist -0.551 0.576 Political Ideology: Leftist -1.743 * 0.175 Political Ideology: Religious -0.203 0.817 Experienced Multiple Decapitations -0.473 0.623 Experienced Founder Decapitation -0.167 0.846
Constant -0.336 0.714 -0.433 0.649 Chi-Square Goodness of Fit 8.502 * 0.630 Nagelkerke R2 0.108 0.008 Note: N=110. *=p<.05, **=p<.01, ***=p<.001.
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Model 5
ß exp(ß) Bureaucracy Score 0.015 1.015 Provides Social Services 1.576 * 4.833 Organization Size 1.463 *** 4.317 Estimated Group Lifespan -0.035 0.966 State Supported Group -1.194 0.303 Political Ideology: Separatist -0.652 0.521 Political Ideology: Leftist -2.021 * 0.134 Political Ideology: Religious -0.470 0.625 Experienced Multiple Decapitations -1.437 0.238 Experienced Founder Decapitation -0.054 0.948
Constant -0.977 0.408 Chi-Square Goodness of Fit 45.772 *** Nagelkerke R2 0.493 Note: N=110. *=p<.05, **=p<.01, ***=p<.001.
Table 3 presents the results of my logistic regressions, which empirically investigate H1 and H2. I ran a series of models, each measuring the effects of the independent variables discussed above. In the first four, I measured the effects of the variables independently, and then combined the results into a final equation in Model 5. This allows me to preserve the original results for each block while also seeing the simultaneous effects of all variables. Model One: Bureaucracy Score & Provides Social Services The results in Model 1 suggest that providing social services will increase the odds that an organization will either be strengthened or remain stable by 534%. This is by far the most significant variable in any of the five models. This finding supports my hypothesis that terrorist organizations who adopt a social services-based incentive system will suffer fewer disruptive effects following a leadership decapitation event because they do not rely on any single individual to generate and/or maintain human or financial support. This also supports the findings of other authors who suggest that providing social services is one means of increasing communal support for violent organizations whose activities may otherwise cost them the support of their host communities. In contrast, Model 1 shows that a higher Bureaucracy Score does not appear to be a significant predictor of any outcome of leadership decapitation. This suggests I may need to
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reconsider or reformulate this hypothesis for future research. I present potential explanations for this finding as well as suggestions for future research in the discussion section of the next chapter. Model Two: The Nature of the Group In Model 2, I tested the effects of organization size, group age, and state supporter on each of the 110 groups that had experienced decapitation. Of these three, only the size of the organization was significant. This finding should be interpreted cautiously, however, as the causal mechanisms between size and age are unclear and may suffer from endogeniety. As Jones and Libicki noted in their findings, “On the surface, there appears to be weak support for the argument that a terrorist group’s size may affect its duration.... However, size may be endogenous to duration.” (Jones and Libicki 2008, 41). The authors continue, “That is, groups that last longer may be larger simply because they have more time to recruit new members. In this case, duration would cause size, rather than the other way around” (Jones and Libicki 2008, 41). In an interesting twist, being a state supported terror group slightly increases an organization’s odds of decline or collapse. However, this may be a distorted effect in this reduced model, as it does not persist in Model 5. Model Three: Ideology In Model 3, I tested the series of ideology dummy variables. As I show in Table 3, being a leftist group appears to increase the odds of decline or collapse by 83%. There may be some inherent bias in these results, however, because the vast majority of Leftist groups died out in the 1980s. This finding, too, should be read with some caution, as this could be the result of the inability of the Leftist agenda to survive the end of the Cold War. In contrast to other quantitative analyses, I did not find that having a religious ideology increased the durability of a terrorist organization. Model Four: Founder and Multiple Decapitations Model 4 contains the results of the variables founder decapitation and experienced multiple decapitation. This model’s results speak directly to the “key man” logic that underlies the policy of leadership decapitation. As Table 2 clearly shows, neither of these affect the odds of collapse or decline. This finding suggests that, if its aim is organizational collapse, the policy
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of targeting terrorist leaders should be reconsidered131 and alternative counterterrorism policies, potentially those involving social services provision, be investigated. Model Five: Collective Effects Model 5 combines all of the previous variables into a single equation. In Model 5, all of the previous results remain true, except the effects of state support reported in Model 2. Providing social services is still the strongest predictor of strength and stability, increasing the odds that an organization will be strengthened or remain stable by 383%. Additional results in Model 5 suggest that the size of an organization will increase the odds that it will either be strengthened or remain stable by 332%, and having a left-wing ideology decreases the odds that an organization will either be strengthened or remain stable by 87%.
In sum, H1 and H2 are partially supported by the data, as providing social services is a significant predictor of having a group be strengthened or remain stable, even when controlling for leadership decapitation efforts, whether the group experiences repeated losses or whether the group experiences the loss of a founder. The hypothesized relationship between strength and stability and bureaucracy proved to be non-significant. Possible reasons for this finding are discussed in the next chapter.
H3: Model One
H3 suggested that repressive counterterrorism measures, such as leadership decapitation, would result in a boomerang effect, actually strengthening rather than weakening the group, when carried out against organizations that provide social services. To test this possibility, I created a new binary dependent variable by collapsing decline, collapse, and none into the variable other and then recoded all groups as either strengthened or other. I then ran a binary logistic regression to show the percentage of increased effect of social services on strengthened groups. To account for the possible effects of other group characteristics, I included the variables bureaucracy score, organization size, the three ideology variables, and group age.
131 I recognize that there may be various motivations for continuing to use leadership decapitation as a part of an overall counterterrorism strategy—revenge, political perception, and/or tangible markers to gain operational funding—which may be unaffected by the actual efficacy of the tactic. 122
Table 4 Regression Analysis for H3 Model 1
ß exp(ß) Bureaucracy Score 0.067 1.069 Provides Social Services 1.167 3.212 Organization Size 0.947 * 2.579 Political Ideology: Separatist -0.704 0.495 Political Ideology: Leftist -0.523 0.593 Political Ideology: Religious -0.602 0.548 Experienced Multiple Decapitations -0.793 0.452 Experienced Founder Decapitation 1.246 3.478
Constant -3.561 * 0.028 Chi-Square Goodness of Fit 14.600 2 Nagelkerke R .250 Note: N=110. *=p<.05, **=p<.01, ***=p<.001.
As Table 4 illustrates, only organizational size appears to be a statistically significant predictor of the dependent variable. Surprisingly, the variable provides social services was found to be nonsignificant. Notably, this finding is not in keeping with any of the findings from H1 or
H2, where provides social services was found to be statistically significant in every model, nor does it match the findings of the qualitative analysis. While it appears that my hypothesis is not supported by the data, this discrepancy may be the result of the relatively small sample size (110), or—more likely— of the even smaller number groups that actually experienced a boomerang effect (12). One of the consequences of small sample size is an underpowered regression model, i.e. one that incorrectly rejects the null hypothesis, resulting in a type II error. Models with small sample sizes often fail to detect relationships or effects of practical significance because there is not enough data to classify them as statistically significant; that is, to determine if the relationship or effect is anything other than coincidence. That eight of the twelve groups that were strengthened (66%) also provide social services suggests that H3’s model 1 suffers from a type II error.
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Chapter Six: Conclusion
Introduction: The (Flawed) Logic of Leadership Decapitation The underlying logic of leadership decapitation, the killing or capture of a terrorist group’s leader or leaders, is grounded in the belief that leaders are critical to the formation, operation, and survival of terrorist organizations. Without its “key man,” this contention holds, the organization will collapse from a lack of direction, purpose, and/or resources. This assertion is not exclusive to terrorist groups; conventional wisdom about all types of organizations has long held that “if you want to kill a dog, you… cut off its head.” In fact, this principle is so entrenched that special insurance policies exist to protect businesses from the loss of an indispensable leader (Lowe 2002). In reality, however, the logic of the “key man” is flawed in two respects. First, it assumes that all groups are organized the same way—around a single, singular individual. Second, this principle assumes that the individual is irreplaceable; that his role(s) cannot be filled by another party, and/or that his functions cannot be carried out via alternative methods. The inconsistency with which leadership targeting has resulted in organizational collapse clearly illustrates these flawed assumptions. Nevertheless, the policy remains the keystone of the U.S. counterterrorism strategy. In fact, due to the Obama Administration’s expansion of the targeting program to areas beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has supplanted Israel as the world’s leading practitioner of leadership decapitation (Dear 2013). Legal and moral considerations aside, the heavy reliance on leadership targeting presents a problem for American policymakers who must somehow justify the continued use of the tactic despite its repeated failures to collapse terrorist organizations. Within academia, the growing body of evidence refuting the policy’s efficacy has forced advocates of targeted killings to find metrics of “success” beyond organizational collapse. Proponents now assert that, even if they do not result in collapse, targeted killings weaken the terrorist group by disrupting the organization’s routines, deterring future leaders, and forcing the group to divert its resources into protecting critical individuals and/or replacing those it has lost (Byman 2006; Price 2012). Those who oppose the policy note that, empirically, these claims are unsubstantiated (Boyden, Menard, and Ramirez 2009; Carvin 2012). Furthermore, critics point to the increasing number of terrorist organizations that have survived leadership loss, including al-
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Qaeda, and claim that decapitation is, at a minimum, ineffective and, in some instances, actually counterproductive (Cronin 2013; Jordan 2014). Both sides use key cases to support their argument, but neither can make any definitive statements about the practice’s efficacy. Knowledge Gaps In chapter two, I traced the development of terrorism studies through a review of the literature most relevant to this project. I noted that the logic underlying the policy of leadership decapitation was supported by early terrorism research, which focused almost exclusively on the causes of terrorism and used the individual as the primary unit of analysis. For decades, the consensus among (most) terrorism analysts was that terrorist groups were built and held together by a charismatic, albeit psychotic leader. In this way, terror groups were akin to cults of personality: members132 were drawn into the group by a magnetic, almost superhuman leader, and then stayed because of their (irrational) devotion to him. One example of this is Zawodny’s description of post-WWII terrorist organizations as “that of a solar system in which the leader is the sun in the centre [sic] and the members are like planets around, usually within the range of his direct impact” (Zawodny 1981, 26). Therefore, first-wavers argued, if its leader, or raison d’etre, was removed, the group would collapse. Consequently, the policy of targeting top terrorists essentially went unchallenged for decades despite the fact that it had no proven, consistent record of success. The extraordinary growth of the field of Terrorism Studies after 9/11 allowed scholars and policy analysts to conduct more nuanced and sophisticated research into an array of important issues. Additionally, a shift in focus to the ends of terrorist campaigns yielded new, empirically-based studies about the effectiveness of various counterterrorism techniques, including leadership decapitation. Nevertheless, the body of knowledge about the use of leadership targeting to collapse terrorist groups is still developing and, consequently, has significant voids. First, existing studies of decapitation have yielded no conclusive empirical evidence about when leadership targeting will result in organizational collapse. Second, although some work has been done on terrorist organizations’ endurance in general, an explanation of group resistance to leadership decapitation does not exist. The reasons for these gaps are
132 Members, according to first-wave scholars, joined terrorist groups because of their own mental and/or emotional deficiencies (see Post 1990). 125
interrelated, as existing studies of leadership decapitation, both quantitative and qualitative, have produced conflicting results and contrasting analyses. Consequently, many continue to tout the efficacy of leadership decapitation, grounding their explanations of its success in the concept of “leaders” and/or specific traits frequently attributed to them, most notably charisma. As such, however, they can only explain cases of organizational collapse: they offer no insight into those cases where an organization endured despite suffering the loss of a leader. To date, only a few studies attempt to explain decapitation’s varying outcomes, and, as I discussed at length in chapter two, each of these is hampered by methodological and/or theoretical limitations. Furthermore, because they are limited to cases that fit existing theory, most studies fail to consider important organizational differences among terrorist groups. Much of the research on terrorism and counterterrorism assumes that terrorist organizations are uniform in many respects. Just like other legitimate organizations, however—corporations, universities, and governments— there are notable differences in the ways in which terrorist groups are organized, e.g., their visibility, degree of centralization, access to resources, etc. Understanding how these differences affect a terror group’s behavior, specifically its response(s) to state repression, is key to determining when leadership decapitation may be effective and when it may not. This Study’s Contribution Existing research has been designed to explore if leadership decapitation can be effective as a counterterrorism technique. What is not yet understood is the relationship between leadership loss and organizational collapse; why it is effective in some cases, but not in others. This dissertation sought to fill this gap by asking why certain terrorist organizations endure despite experiencing leadership decapitation. In contrast to current studies, I conducted a study that focuses on groups that endured despite the loss of a leader or leaders. My primary goal for this study was to provide a more-complete understanding of the varying effectiveness of leadership decapitation as a counterterrorism technique. Specifically, my objectives were: 1) to determine the applicability of two existing, prima facie explanations of organizational endurance, bureaucracy and incentive-based organizational maintenance, to the question of terrorist group survival of leadership decapitation; 2) to illustrate the weaknesses of existing theories and generate new hypotheses about organizational endurance; 3) test these hypotheses using a unique dataset of 138 terrorist organizations; 4) based on the conclusions drawn from the case study and statistical analyses, present a set of alternative counterterrorism policies that 126
target groups’ social services—not their leaders—thereby reducing their ability to generate financial or human capital while simultaneously weakening the bond between the terrorists and their community. By accomplishing these objectives, this dissertation goes beyond mere observation of variation in outcome and identifies an empirically significant factor in terrorist organization endurance. Moreover, because this factor is one that governments can (to an extent) affect, it provides them with additional leverage against organizations that have proven resistant to leadership decapitation. Thus, rather than making simplistic statements about current policy, I offer viable alternatives to the status quo. Research Design Advantages To accomplish my stated objectives, I employed a sequential mixed-methods research design, combining an in-depth case study with large-n statistical analyses of data collected based on the evidence drawn from the case study. The latter is what differentiates my research design from other “multi-method”133 research designs. In this project, not only was the questionnaire I used to code the cases in the dataset designed to reflect the causal mechanisms identified in the case study, the hypotheses tested were generated from my analysis of those mechanisms, and my final conclusions were drawn from both sets of findings. In this way, I did not just triangulate my findings; in fact, as opposed to finding evidence that further supported my claims—the definition of triangulation—I determined that one of the leading explanations of endurance, bureaucracy, did not apply to this subset of organizations, i.e., terrorist groups. This suggests that a growing body of research in the field of counterterrorism may be grounded in false assumptions. Thus, while I “disproved” my own hypothesis, I also exposed a potential weakness in the extant literature. Qualitative Analysis The first phase of this study was a qualitative exploration of two existing explanations of organizational endurance, bureaucracy and incentive-based organizational maintenance, that should, prima facie, explain the ability of some terror groups to survive leadership loss. I treated
133 In mixed-methods research, the findings of one phase actually determine the data collected and analyzed in the subsequent phase. In multi-method research, two types of analysis are used to examine the same problem, but each is conducted independent of and without reference to the other. 127
the Society of Muslim Brothers (Egypt) as a deviant case to illustrate existing theories’ inability to explain outcomes of endurance and to find evidence of the causal mechanisms that link my proposed explanations (and their associated characteristics) with the observed outcome of organizational endurance. The primary goal of the case study was to generate new hypotheses about terrorist group survival that could be tested against a wider class of cases. In the first section, I reintroduce my proposed explanations and their organizational characteristics—a high level of bureaucratization and the provision of social services—and review why each should serve to reduce a terrorist organization’s vulnerability to leadership decapitation. The second section traces the Society of Muslim Brothers’ development from 1928 to 1979. In addition to providing historical context, this section clearly demonstrates that existing theories cannot account for the group’s survival. The fifty-year span I examine contains specific episodes of leadership decapitation—including the loss of the group’s founder, Hasan al-Banna, as well as President Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasir’s imprisonment of its entire leadership and hanging of its “spiritual guide”—that, according to theories of charisma, should have led to the group’s collapse. As the case study shows, however, not only did the Brotherhood survive these events, it was able to reorganize, both times emerging stronger, more popular, and more influential. The next two sections provided detailed evidence of the causal mechanisms that link my proposed characteristics to the group’s ability to survive leadership decapitation. In sum, the case study illustrates the various ways each characteristic decreased the Society’s dependence on any single individual to perform the functions necessary to survive, including several that are traditionally considered exclusive to leaders. This evidence, summarized below, also served as the basis for the three main hypotheses I test in the quantitative section. First, I suggested that a higher level of bureaucratization—that is, a larger number of Weber’s ideal-type attributes present within a group’s structure and policies—should serve to stabilize a terrorist organization against the effects of leadership loss. The case study clearly shows that the Society of Muslim Brothers is heavily imbued with several of the core elements of a Weberian bureaucracy. Recognizing that, as an illegal organization, the nature of the Society’s bureaucracy would be different than that of Weber’s ideal type, my examination of the group over five decades nevertheless found evidence of some of most commonly cited bureaucratic characteristics and their effects: 1) strong central leadership; 2) stable, learnable, universal rules; 3) hierarchy; 4) specialized division of labor; 5) promotion based on merit; 6) codified standard- 128
operating procedures. Collectively, these attributes stabilized the organization by reducing its operational dependence on any single “leader.” Specifically, the Society’s bureaucratic organization minimized its vulnerability to leadership decapitation by delegating critical tasks to subunits; dispersing administrative and operational authority both horizontally and vertically; and, most important, by establishing routines—steady, predictable, patterns of behavior134—via the group’s structure and policies. The Society’s “federated” administration was135 a hierarchal, albeit decentralized, structure of command and control. While there was a clear chain of command topped with an identifiable “leader,” authority was distributed (in varying amounts) both horizontally and vertically. This structure was designed specifically to ensure that the group’s semi-autonomous subunits (families and branches) would remain operational if the central organization was shut down. Nevertheless, these subunits were not sovereign entities. Rather, while delegation afforded them some freedom regarding the way in which they executed the center’s policy, strenuous recruiting and promotion policies and close supervision by representatives of the central leadership ensured that only the most loyal Brothers held positions of authority. Furthermore, the Society’s specialized division of labor established distinct areas of functional authority for both its administrative and operational units. By clearly delineating members’ (including leaders) duties, roles, and scope of authority, the Society’s structure ordered relations in such a way that ambiguity about who does what, who reports to whom, and who is in charge of which operation(s) was minimized. This division of labor not only made the Society’s operations efficient (a critical facet of their success in providing social services), it also reduced its dependence on any single individual to remain functional. The fixed nature of these relations was reinforced by the consistent, universal rules and standard operating procedures that prescribed nearly every action/decision taken by each member of the group. Many of the group’s most important rules, such as those regarding membership requirements and the division of authority, were codified in the organization’s “General Laws.” As the Society diversified its functions, however, it produced additional
134 Both individual and organizational behavior 135 As I noted previously, since its founding, very little has changed regarding how the Society is organized. Nevertheless, because my study of the group ends in 1979, I refer to it in the past tense. 129
guidelines for its educational curriculum, the distribution of its publications, and its religious and physical training programs. Such standardization stabilized the organization by establishing routines for daily activities such as branch council meetings, new member training, and dues collection, thereby ensuring these tasks were carried out uniformly across the group’s hundreds of subunits. These routines did more than ease everyday operations, however; they also lessened confusion during times of crisis, such as a sudden loss of leadership. This provides one explanation for the Society’s “deviant” response to the loss of its founder. Although the loss of al-Banna caused turmoil within a small cadre of the Society’s leadership, the routines created and reinforced by the group’s structure and policies allowed the vast majority of members to continue (or return to) their duties despite the absence of a murshid. Thus, instead of being paralyzed by a lack of direction, the Brothers were able to continue performing the tasks that were necessary for the group’s survival. Second, I proposed that providing social services should reduce a terrorist group’s vulnerability to leadership decapitation by creating deep, grassroots ties to its host community, and serving as a means of generating the resources necessary to operate, including members and revenue. The case study both substantiates and refines these prima facie claims, illustrating that the Society’s provision of social services was directly linked to its ability to withstand repeated losses of leadership, including its charismatic136 founder, in at least three ways: serving as the core of the group’s organizational maintenance routine, effecting its network of highly-personal ties, and allowing it to operate through a system of “protected spaces.” Of the many operations that became routinized, the most important to the Society’s survival were those related to organizational maintenance, i.e., the task(s) of securing the resources necessary to function.137 Traditionally, organizational maintenance is considered the responsibility of the leader(s)138, especially in groups for which security is a concern (Shapiro and Siegel 2011; Teles 2013). As stated above, however, the Society’s branches were designed
136 This is merely a reference to the multiple accounts of Hasan al-Banna that describe him as “charismatic,” not an endorsement of the description. 137 This is a broad definition of the term “organizational maintenance,” going beyond the more well-known definition offered by James Q. Wilson, which only referred to the task of identifying the correct type(s) of incentives needed to sustain cooperative efforts. 138 The term “leader(s)” here refers specifically to the executive leadership of an organization. 130
to be semi-autonomous and, more importantly, self-sustaining; thus, each branch was responsible for much of its own maintenance. Social welfare projects/programs proved to be an effective way for branch leaders to attract recruits, retain existing members, raise operating capital, and engender support from the local population (all of which are necessary to a terror group’s survival.) Furthermore, the Society’s use of social services—rather than the personal “charisma” of any one leader—to secure social and financial support reduced its vulnerability to leadership loss by giving the organization a means of subsistence that could be (re)created by any group of Brothers. One example of the Society’s use of social services for organizational maintenance was the group’s expansion routine. Immediately after opening a new branch, the Brothers would undertake a charitable project or program within their host community. These projects drew the attention of religious-minded locals to the newly-opened branch, creating an opportunity for the Brothers to solicit new recruits, raise funds, and establish good relations with their neighbors (Lia 2006; Munson 2001). Furthermore, they filled a need within the community, thereby giving legitimacy to the group’s motto of “deeds over words.” The group’s social programs also served as selective incentives, as existing members were induced to stay active in the organization despite the severe repercussions of doing so through members-only benefits such as job services, stock options in Society-owned businesses, and insurance for the families of those killed or imprisoned. Second, through its social welfare programs, the Society created a nation-wide network of deep, complex, and highly personal ties to individuals in every socioeconomic class in Egypt. Its unmatched provision of essential services made the Society a ubiquitous and indispensable facet of everyday life for millions of Egyptians. Among its other consequences, the Society’s embeddedness into the social, political, economic, and religious milieu made it difficult for the state to eliminate the group without creating widespread dissatisfaction or, worse, instability. Moreover, the Society’s service programs allowed it to make inroads into key political constituencies including students, civil servants, and peasants. Despite Nasir’s decimation of its organization and reputation, the Society was able to rebuild in the 1970s by resuming its efficient and effective social services provision to these same groups and then coopting them into its ranks.
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Finally, the case study revealed a third (and unforeseen) benefit: the Society’s status as a social welfare organization gave it access to a network of “protected spaces” that shielded its operations from the state during periods of repression. Because it was founded as an Islamic welfare organization, the Society was able to use mosques, religious festivals, hospitals, and schools as bases of operation, which, among other things, enabled underground members to remain active even after the group had been outlawed. In 1949, mosques were one of the few places the state allowed large groups to gather; thus, members relied on Friday prayers as a way to meet and exchange news without drawing the attention of police (Zollner 2008). After 1954, the Muslim Sisters’ status as relief/aid workers allowed them to move freely between prisons, passing information between the segregated groups of Brothers and carrying messages to underground-members on the outside. Based on these findings, I formulated three hypotheses regarding the effectiveness of leadership decapitation as a counterterrorism tactic. H1 stated that groups with higher levels of bureaucracy and who provide social services will experience fewer instances of decline or collapse as the result of leadership decapitation efforts. H2 stated that H1 will be true even if the group experiences repeated losses of leadership or the loss of a founder. Finally, H3 stated that repressive counterterrorism measures, such as leadership decapitation, will produce a “boomerang” effect (strengthen the group) when carried out against groups that provide social services. Quantitative Analysis The second phase of this study used statistical analysis to test the relationships observed in the case study to determine their applicability to a wider class of cases. Using a questionnaire designed to reflect the evidence of the causal mechanisms gathered from the case study, I constructed a unique dataset comprised of 55 organization-level variables for 138 terrorist groups.139 I then ran two types of statistical tests using SPSS software. First, I computed descriptive statistics for all 138 groups and the subset of 110 groups that had experienced leadership decapitation (Subset A). Next, I ran a series of logistic regressions on Subset A, which tested the effects of select independent variables on a dichotomous dependent variable, the effectiveness of leadership decapitation; cases were coded as collapse/decline or strengthen/no
139 The use of the qualitative evidence to design the data collection instrument is an example of “mixing” methods. 132
effect. The quantitative findings supported some, though not all, of my qualitative analysis. The major results of each test are discussed below. First, I used descriptive statistics to identify basic patterns among the variables that were used in the subsequent multivariate analyses. Descriptive statistics for the dependent variable showed that the mean estimated group lifespan of all 138 groups is the same (18 years) as that of Subset A (18.02 years). In other words, on average, groups that experienced leadership decapitation “live” just as long as groups who do not experience it. To confirm this, I ran an independent samples t-test on the variables group age and effectiveness of leadership decapitation. The results of the t-test support the previous finding, which suggests that decapitation does not have a significant effect on the lifespan of terrorist organizations. This finding is consistent with several other works’ quantitative results on targeted killings; however, it is worth noting that this only establishes that leadership decapitation has little effect on the lifespan of terrorist organizations overall. It does not provide any insight into the causal relationship between the two variables. I then used binary logistic regression to assess the significance of selected independent variables on the effectiveness of leadership decapitation. Models 1-5 tested two hypotheses (H1 and H2) regarding the significance of various organization-level characteristics on the outcome of leadership decapitation (collapse/decline or no effect/strengthen). Model 1 tested the organizational characteristics associated with the two prima facie explanations explored in the case study. The results showed that providing social services was the most significant predictor of organizational survival by far, however, bureaucracy score was not a significant predictor of any outcome of leadership decapitation. These findings were consistent across all five models. Models 2 and 3 tested the significance of other organization-level characteristics widely believed to affect a group’s survival. Model 2, which tested the nature of the terrorist organization, found that size was also a significant predictor of survival. Model 3 tested the effects of a group’s ideology, and found that leftist groups were more likely to collapse or decline after leadership loss than groups with separatist or religious ideologies. Model 4 tested the significance of removing specific and/or multiple leaders. It revealed that neither removing a group’s founder nor exposing it to repeated leadership decapitation events increases its odds of collapse. Model 5, a single equation testing of all the proposed independent variables, confirmed the previous tests’ findings. 133
Finally, the results of my regression analysis for H3 indicate that size more than any other factor, including providing social services, was the most significant predictor of a “boomerang effect” (strengthening versus weakening the group) following a leadership decapitation event. Discussion The results of the binary logistic regression analysis indicate that the hypotheses generated from my qualitative analysis are partially supported by the data. First, all five models for H1 confirmed that providing social services is by far the strongest predictor of an organization’s likelihood of surviving leadership decapitation. Even when controlling for other factors such as the type of leader targeted and/or repeated decapitation events (H2), providing social services increases a group’s odds of survival by a minimum of 534%. This supports my hypothesis that an incentive-based program of organizational maintenance minimizes a group’s dependence on any single individual to generate the resources necessary to operate. The results of these models also show that there is no significant relationship between bureaucratization and organizational survival. If we accept the Organizational Approach’s contention that terrorist organizations are similar enough to other legitimate organizations, this finding suggests that decades of research on organizational endurance is incorrect. Such a conclusion, however, is not merited for several reasons. First, it is more likely that the fundamental assumption of “similarity” is incorrect, or, at the least, has greater limitations than previously suggested. In my discussion of its prima facie explanation, I acknowledged that a “terrorist bureaucracy” would not be identical to a non-violent, non-clandestine bureaucracy. As we saw in the case of the Muslim Brotherhood, the constraints of illegality and clandestineness forced the group to abandon some of its most “bureaucracy-like” routines, i.e., leadership succession. Furthermore, once the organization was driven underground, its survival depended entirely on the existence of personal relationships, the very antithesis of a bureaucracy. This finding suggests that these characteristics—and their consequences for an organization’s behavior—render terrorist groups too different from their legitimate counterparts for valid comparison. In other words, this may be a case of apples versus oranges. An alternative explanation for the finding is coding/measurement error. That is, a bureaucracy’s staying power may be less the result of the number of bureaucratic characteristics present than the degree to which their associated principles are institutionalized. Given that my coding of groups’ individual bureaucratic attributes was binary (present/not present), it is not 134
possible to determine the extent to which the attribute actually affected the group’s operations, if at all. Making such determinations, however, would require a researcher to observe the inner- workings of an organization first-hand, an almost impossible task for most terrorist organizations given their covert and dangerous natures. Second, the findings from Models 2 and 5 that size is a significant predictor of organizational survival should be interpreted with a degree of caution. While these are consistent with other studies’ conclusions, inferences about the relationship between size and endurance remain problematic because of the potential for endogeneity. That is, larger groups may be larger because they are older, not vice versa. As I noted in chapter two, there is nothing inherent about an organization’s size that would make it more or less likely to collapse following a leadership decapitation event. Moreover, arguments that size can be treated as a proxy for bureaucratization (Jordan 2009) must now be reconsidered in light of my finding for bureaucracy score. Thus, while size may, in fact, be significant to organizational endurance, the causal mechanisms in this relationship remain unclear. The same note of caution should be applied to Model 3’s finding that leftist groups are 83% more likely to collapse or decline after leadership loss than were groups with other ideologies. As I suggest in chapter five, this may reflect the “death” of the leftist ideology following the end of the Cold War rather than these groups’ susceptibility to leadership decapitation per se. Importantly, however, this finding also suggests that a religious ideology does not significantly increase the likelihood of any particular outcome, including collapse. This further undermines the “key man” logic, as violent religious groups are more likely to be organized around a single, charismatic individual than are secular groups (Freeman 2010; Mayer 2001; Varden 2011). Model 4 indicated that neither removing a group’s founder nor exposing it to repeated leadership decapitation events increases the likelihood of organizational collapse. These results directly challenge two major tenets about leadership decapitation, the importance of founders and the increasing effects of multiple strikes. This finding was in keeping with the analysis from the case study, which clearly showed that while the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood suffered significant internal and operational setbacks after the loss of its founder and the (repeated) imprisonment of its leadership as a whole, neither resulted in the collapse of the organization.
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Finally, the results of the regression analysis for H3 found that providing social services did not increase the likelihood of a “boomerang effect,” i.e., strengthening versus weakening the group. This finding is not consistent with any of the previous regression models, nor does it fit with the evidence from the qualitative analysis. The most likely explanation for this inconsistent finding is the very small number of groups that experienced a boomerang effect (n=12). The small sample size suggests that the model may be underpowered; that is, it has a low probability of detecting a relationship of practical importance, assuming that such a relationship actually exists. Implications and Recommendations for Counterterrorism Policy My findings suggest that providing social services is significantly linked to a group’s ability to survive leadership decapitation efforts. Additional findings show this to be true even when a group loses its founder and/or suffers multiple leadership losses. In fact, preliminary qualitative analysis suggests that repeated leadership strikes against welfare-providing groups may result in increased support for the organization and higher costs to the state. Rather than continuing to use an ineffective and potentially adverse tactic, governments fighting this type of terror group should pursue a multi-faceted counterterrorism strategy that includes targeting the organization’s social services programs (rather than their leaders), thereby eliminating a significant source of revenue, legitimacy, and communal support. Specifically, where possible, states should deny terrorist groups the legitimacy of operating as a legal entity, i.e., a social welfare group, religious organization, or political party. By denying legal status to terrorist- affiliated aid organizations and service programs, states eliminate one of the major impediments facing international counterterrorist financing agencies, identifying legitimate vs. nefarious “charities” (Kaplan 2006). Additionally, removing the status of legality prevents terrorists from utilizing the “protected spaces” in which legitimate religious or non-profit groups operate. My findings also suggest that states need to dismantle and, more importantly, displace140 service programs run by or affiliated with terrorist groups. Dismantling a group’s social services infrastructure will disrupt its ability to perform the tasks associated with organizational maintenance, i.e., generate members and money. This shuts down a major component of their organization and, as illustrated in the case study, reduces the group’s operating capacity.
140 For an in-depth study of the effectiveness of displacement counterterrorism strategies, see Grynkewich (2008). 136
Importantly, however, simply eliminating much-needed services may result in greater social and political discontent. Therefore, equally critical to this strategy is the state’s expansion of its own service programs and/or those of legitimate NGOs. In states that have the capacity to do so, resources should be redirected toward addressing public welfare concerns. By effectively addressing the needs of its people, the state enhances its legitimacy, strengthens the state-society bond, and reduces the need for terrorist groups’ programs. In many cases, however, terrorist groups are filling a void left by a weak, corrupt, or failed government that does not have the resources or infrastructure to provide even the most fundamental services for its citizens. This is certainly the case in Yemen, where al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has taken control of much of the country, including territories formerly held by rival group ISIS, by providing access to clean water and sanitation (Masi 2016). In such cases, outside support from the U.S. and its allies is necessary, and must include more than troops on the ground. Rather, aid packages should offer a combination of infrastructure- building, improved governance, and financial assistance to existing governmental and NGO welfare agencies, so that states—and not terrorist groups—can satisfy the basic needs of the people. Finally, in areas where an organization is established and the possibility of reorganization is a threat, such as the Society of Muslim Brothers in Egypt, states should focus on disrupting, discrediting, and displacing the organization. In this approach, resources should be directed toward intelligence gathering (through infiltration and defection, ideally), propaganda, and welfare programs rather than repressive police or military campaigns. Nasir’s 1954-1957 offensive against the Society provides one example of such a strategy. As I stated in chapter four, Gamal Abd’l Nasir’s post-1954 efforts were the closest the Egyptian state has ever come to eliminating the Society of Muslim Brothers. This was possible because Nasir launched synchronized internal and external attacks against the group, exploiting existing divisions and undermining the leadership’s authority, while simultaneously discrediting the Society’s legitimacy, all of which effectively disrupted the organization’s command-and- control apparatus, and, consequently, its ability to operate. Nasir further weakened the group by nationalizing their service programs, a step he believed was necessary to prevent backlash (or worse, bedlam), especially in rural Egypt where citizens were most dependent on the Society. Finally, in an effort to prevent reorganization, Nasir dismantled the Society’s chain of command 137
by segregating prisoners according to rank, cutting off the leadership’s ability to communicate with the rank-and-file. Had it not been for the government’s blindness to the activities of the Muslim Sisters, who kept the Society’s programs running by performing many of the roles and function of their imprisoned male counterparts, the organization may have collapsed. Questioning the Utility of Leadership Decapitation The centrality of leadership decapitation to the U.S. counterterrorism program suggests that it is our “best” (i.e. most effective) method of fighting terrorism and terrorist organizations. In practice, however, the tactic has an inconsistent track record of collapsing terrorist organizations (ceasing all meaningful activity for an extended period). This contradiction suggests that a shift in policy, such as the one outlined above, is necessary. President Obama recognized this in a 2013 counterterrorism policy speech: Our operation in Pakistan against Osama bin Laden cannot be the norm. The risks in that case were immense… the fact that we did not find ourselves confronted with civilian casualties, or embroiled in an extended firefight, was a testament to the meticulous planning and professionalism of our Special Forces – but also depended on some luck. And even then, the cost to our relationship with Pakistan – and the backlash among the Pakistani public over encroachment on their territory – was so severe that we are just now beginning to rebuild this important partnership (Obama 2013)
Despite the president’s acknowledgment of its inherent risks, the practice of targeting terrorist leaders has increased exponentially under the Obama administration, especially with the introduction of unmanned aircrafts (drones) (Zenko 2016). Putting aside the issues raised from the use of drones in general, the practice of “taking out” specific individuals believed to be responsible for a terror group’s operations, finances, communications, and/or strategic leadership raises several policy concerns, many of which President Obama listed above. First and foremost is the issue of reliability. As I have shown, the organizational outcome of removing a terror group leader is unpredictable. While the death of a critical leader is likely to disrupt the organization’s operations for a time, it may not prevent the group from reorganizing, and, in some cases, becoming stronger and more popular. Second, by killing a potentially critical individual (the only outcome possible with a drone attack), the U.S. loses the opportunity to glean valuable information about the terrorist group from him. Moreover, given previous studies’ findings that there is no statistically significant difference between killing or capturing a terrorist leader, arrest may actually prove more organizationally detrimental overall if actionable 138
intelligence is acquired.141 In fact, the strike against bin Laden was made possible because of information obtained from captured operatives regarding where he was hiding.142 Third, repeated strikes—be they air or ground—have been shown to engender frustration and hostility among local populations, especially where the attacks have resulted in the deaths of civilians (Boyle 2013). For example, of the 423 drone attacks that have occurred in Pakistan between 2004-2016, somewhere between 420 and 965 civilian casualties have been reported.143 This issue of backlash from civilian casualties is one with very real and very dangerous repercussions. As scholar Michael Boyle has shown in his research, the loss of a relative or friend is now the primary motivation of new terrorist recruits in countries where the U.S. has ordered drone strikes (2013). Fourth, while a successful joint strike against a commonly defined enemy has been shown to be the most effective means of leadership targeting, a unilateral mission into sovereign territory— such as the mission to kill bin Laden—poses an unnecessary threat to the relationship between the US and the host country (Boyle 2013; Morehouse 2011). Finally, even where the strike can be called a success by current standards (i.e., it collapsed the targeted organization), it may not equate to the end of violence. Rather, the removal of a strong leader may cause splintering or spawning through the formation of new groups by individuals with ties to the original. An associated concern for splintering and/or spawning is that successor groups are often more radical and more violent than the parent group (Cronin 2009). This has certainly been true for al- Qaeda, for which the effect of collapsing the core organization in Afghanistan resulted in the formation of dozens of AQ “franchises,” including the extremely radical and violent ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham). Suggestions for Future Research First, my findings regarding the lack of a relationship between bureaucracy and the effectiveness of leadership decapitation merit further investigation. Aside from the fact that this is one of the longest-standing explanations of organizational endurance in academia, in both my qualitative and quantitative analyses, I found significant evidence of bureaucratic attributes in
141 Nevertheless, policymakers should be equally informed about the myriad of studies that conclude that the information gleaned through the use of torture is overwhelmingly false. 142 This story is an excellent example of social network analysis. 143 Data from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/ 139
clandestine, violent organizations. For example, 82% of groups display evidence of hierarchy, 87% have distinct subunits, 61% have differentiation of roles and functions, and 71% have codified standard operating procedures. While 66% of groups were classified as “centralized,” almost half (49%) delegated tactical/operational decision making to subunits. This suggests that while the center is still responsible for strategic and financial decisions, subunits have at least some authority. Interestingly, this evidence also calls into question the popular notion of “leaderless jihad” or “netwar,” which claims that terrorism is no longer an “organized” phenomenon but rather, is conducted by a decentralized network of loosely affiliated cells (Arquilla and Ronfeldt 2001; Sageman 2004, 2008). Another reason to pursue this finding is the potentially inherent relationship between a bureaucratic structure and the ability to provide social services effectively and efficiently. Logically, the latter necessitates a bureaucratic structure and policies. Without functional specialization, division of authority/power, semi-autonomous subunits (especially at the grassroots level), etc., a social welfare organization’s operations could not extend much beyond its central office without some loss of quality or efficiency. Hesham al-Awadi observed this in his study of the Society of Muslim Brothers’ resurgence in the early 1980s: The Muslim Brothers would simply not have been able to function at such a high level… had it not been for the organized network that the group enjoyed. The Movement’s organization… provided the necessary condition for coordination and exchange of skills and expertise to take place between the different members of the Movement occupying different spaces and avenues in the Egyptian society (2009, 219). The same observation has been made about Hamas’ operations in Gaza and Hezbollah’s throughout Lebanon (Flanigan and Abdel-Samad 2011; Levitt 2004). A second opportunity for future research are the questions raised by my finding that leadership decapitation strikes against groups that provide social services do not increase the likelihood of “boomerang effect”—increased support for the terrorist group and/or higher consequences for the state. As I stated in the discussion section, it is likely that the model was underpowered due to the small number of groups that actually experienced a boomerang effect; thus, the statistical analyses may not have been able to identify a relationship if one actually existed. Given that eight out of twelve of the groups in the “strengthened” category also provided social services, it is likely that a relationship exists—one that is possible, although not statistically significant in the current analysis scenario. This is also supported by other studies’
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conclusions that repeated strikes, especially Yemen and Pakistan, are creating a backlash among the local population, which, among other things, is leading to higher recruiting numbers for groups like AQAP, the Haqqani Network, and ISIS (Boyle 2013; Kilcullen and Exum 2009). To confirm this, however, a second round of qualitative analysis, such as comparative case studies of each “strengthened” organization is needed. Conclusion This study began by recognizing that the organizational effects of leadership decapitation vary. Thus, its purpose was not to determine if the policy of leadership targeting is effective; rather, it was to provide policymakers and academics with a more complete understanding of why it was effective in some cases, but not others. Specifically, I sought to answer why certain terrorist organizations endure despite experiencing leadership decapitation by exploring two existing explanations of organizational endurance. In addition to contributing to a void within the current leadership decapitation literature, my analyses yielded important implications for current counterterrorism policy. While there may be various motivations for continuing to use leadership decapitation as a part of an overall counterterrorism strategy—revenge, political perception, tangible markers to gain operational funding—the evidence is clear that policymakers cannot rely solely (or even heavily) on this expensive, dangerous, and potentially harmful practice to collapse terrorist organizations.
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