Violent Extremism Research Group. He is frequently consulted by law enforcement and national security agencies, and he has testified before Congress. His many books include The Psychology of Terrorism (second edition, 2014) and Divided We Stand: The Strategy and Psychology of Ireland’s Dissident Terrorists (2012).
Horgan applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, Terrorist Minds: The Psychology of Violent Extremism from Al-Qaeda to the Far Right, and reported the following:
I’m a psychologist who has spent twenty-five years studying the behavior of people who engage in terrorism. This book is the culmination of what I have learned in that time. It’s about who becomes a terrorist and why. Page 99 will land you in the middle of the book, about half-way through a journey into what chapter 4 calls the terrorist mindset. By "mindset," I mean the ways in which terrorists think and talk about themselves and their actions. On this page, the reader is presented with a summary of what terrorists have in common. Those features include a widely shared, deep-rooted desire to correct an injustice against what they feel is an oppressed community. The impulse to act, using violence against civilians to promote their aims, is what separates the mere radical from the terrorist. Though many people who engage in terrorism belong to groups or organizations, the decision to engage in an act of violence is the culmination of a gradual process that leads someone to consider the pros and cons of what they are about to do. We know from interviews with terrorists that would-be “fighters” are aware of the profound risks (to themselves) associated with what they do. And yet, they are not deterred. On the contrary. Spurred on by moral outrage, self-righteousness, and a firm belief in the effectiveness of their actions (at least in the short term), they find themselves in a psychological space where wanting to fight alongside their fellow believers, on behalf of a community to which they might not even belong, becomes impossible to resist. What appears in page 99 is the culmination of an argument that terrorist behavior is acquired. It is learned. Nobody is born with a terrorist mindset. It takes time, effort, and work, to acquire, nurture and sustain it. What follows page 99 is how that process unfolds, and, for many, eventually ends.Learn more about Terrorist Minds at the Columbia University Press website.
The Page 99 Test: Divided We Stand.
--Marshal Zeringue
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