Why Jihadis Switch: Unpacking the Phenomena of Inter-Extremist Group Migration

• In Event: Globalizing Extremism

Abstract

What prompts individuals to leave an established extremist group to join a breakaway faction or splinter group? This phenomenon of inter-terrorist or inter-extremist group migration is woefully understudied. However, terrorists and extremists can and do migrate between groups, especially in those instances when the costs of exit are low. This article answers this question by focusing on migration events and the reasons undergirding them. Using a systematic, iterative, inductive theoretical approach merging existing theory on fragmentation and defection with insights from deep fieldwork with 12 Islamist extremist groups in Indonesia between 2010 and 2018, this article identifies four categories of switches: social relationships, ideological affinity, opportunity, and seeking knowledge about Islam and jihad as qital (battle or war). In doing so, it finds that Indonesian Islamist extremists rarely migrate for the same reason each time; instead, their decisions are shaped by relationships, opportunities, needs, and beliefs that evolve and shift over their lifecycle in that particular jihadi ecosystem. However, extremists are most likely to migrate when they have friends, mentors or family members already in the new group and when they share a common understanding of when, where and the conditions under which violence is permissible.

Author

• Julie Chernov Hwang, Goucher College