Terrorism and Borum’s Pathway and Sageman’s Four Prongs

Mind of a Terrorist
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Mind of a Terrorist
At present, the biggest threat to American national security is terrorism. It is critical to comprehend this threat, but comprehending terrorists' motivations and thought processes is also necessary to comprehend their acts (CRS, 2021). Contrary to popular assumption, a terrorist's mentality is complex and entails much more than just being a schizophrenic who likes chaos and bloodshed, according to Corner and Gill (2022). Terrorists do not just decide one day when they wake up that enough is enough. Instead, becoming radicalized is a process that takes time and involves several behavioral and psychological elements. Furthermore, someone can distance themselves from terrorism just because they choose to become involved in it (Altier et al., 2020). It is necessary to comprehend the mechanisms that caused a person to become involved in terrorism in the first place to comprehend why they would decide to stop. This essay will explore and contrast two specific models of radicalization, Borum's Pathway and Sageman's Four Prongs, as well as the behavioral and psychological components of each. The behavioral and psychological aspects of psychological and physical disengagement will also be addressed. Finally, we will contrast counter-radicalization and deradicalization procedures that are particular to each other.
There are several justifications for radicalization and the actions that lead to it. In politics especially, radicalization means becoming radical. Brennan et al. (2022) state that radicalism is the support for big changes to beliefs, traditions, surroundings, or institutions that most people agree on. While some models have some things in common, most of them are different in how they show how people become radicalized. By breaking down the steps to radicalization into several steps, Borum's Pathway model shows how the effects of many factors add up over time. This way of thinking says that becoming transformed is a process, not a snap decision. Borum's four-stage model, which was only meant to be academic and not based on real events, was meant to help police understand how radicalization works (Pascal, 2021). The model's primary theoretical goal was to illustrate how resentment toward a specific group might be transformed into hatred. Pre-radicalization variables include identity crises, grievances, and exposure to extremist beliefs that people may first experience. It brings about the exploration phase, during which would-be terrorists become enmeshed in radical discourse and social dynamics.
Sageman's Four Prongs model, in contrast, adopts a viewpoint that is more network-oriented. According to Clemmow (2020), Sageman identified four non-linear factors: moral anger, personal experience resonance, frame utilized for interpretation, and mobilizations through networks. A person's reaction to circumstances is known as moral anger (Carpenter et al., 2020). It would include an individual's feelings toward an