Alan krueger what makes a terrorist

While Krueger is careful to affirm that these are useful in combating many social ills, he is adamant that terrorism is not one of them. He offers skilled analysis to show that an aggressive foreign policy based on this fallacious assumption has cost several nations dearly and also warns that continuing along this course may provoke further terrorist acts.

Avoiding jargon whenever possible and defining it when unavoidable, Krueger excels in making his difficult subject easy to grasp without reducing its inherent complexity.

The occasional pop culture reference e. Highly recommended for both academic and public collections. Are the drivers primarily political or economic? Princeton economist Alan Krueger has made a great study of this question What Makes a Terrorist lacks a question mark. That's because Krueger, marshaling persuasive statistics and analysis, comes down firmly on the side of politics, noting most terrorists are middle-class and well-educated.

Barnett, Knoxville News Sentinel. Krueger's book collects comprehensive evidence. What Makes a Terrorist uses standard tools of economics and statistical analysis to get at the truth about terrorism.

Krueger finds one familiar fact in all his numbers. Countries with fewer civil liberties tend to produce more terrorists. One wishes that politicians, especially, would pay attention. Krueger shows how complex the data and issues are, the dangers of moving from correlation to cause—and how to think clearly and courageously about politically motivated violence.

Alderink, Choice. Krueger's work represents the most careful data-driven research ever done in this area. Leading politicians and scholars have argued that poverty and lack of education breed terrorism, despite the wealth of evidence showing that most terrorists come from middle-class, and often college-educated, backgrounds.

In What Makes a Terrorist , Alan Krueger argues that if we are to correctly assess the root causes of terrorism and successfully address the threat, we must think more like economists do. Krueger is an influential economist who has applied rigorous statistical analysis to a range of tough issues, from the minimum wage and education to the occurrence of hate crimes.

In this book, he explains why our tactics in the fight against terrorism must be based on more than anecdote and speculation. Krueger closely examines the factors that motivate individuals to participate in terrorism, drawing inferences from terrorists' own backgrounds and the economic, social, and political conditions in the societies from which they come.

Cover Download Save contents. Title Page, Copyright, Dedication pp. Contents pp. Introduction pp. Characteristics of Individual Participants in Terrorism pp. Economic and Political Conditions and Terrorism pp. Economic, Psychological, and Political Consequences of Terrorism pp. Questions and Answers Following the Lectures pp. Afterword pp.