Eli Berman
Eli Berman | |
---|---|
Born | 1960 (age 63–64) Ottawa, Ontario, Canada |
Known for | Rational models for behavior of extremist groups |
Eli Berman (born 1960) is the Research Director for International Security Studies at the
Research
On violent radical religious groups
Berman argues that economics can provide a significant insight into the vulnerabilities of radical and terrorist organizations, although not only because of the common assumption that cutting their funding is key to their defeat. Instead Berman says that "terrorist organizations are terribly vulnerable to defection, the same way that firms are vulnerable to workers stealing trade secrets, or just shirking on the job." He further argues that the economics of religion can provide explanations for the way in which "radical religious communities organize mechanisms to control defection in order to successfully conduct mutual aid—which they tend to be quite effective at."[3]
Using
Many commentators assume that people willing to join extremist groups are irrational, motivated only by extreme hate or abstract ideas of rewards in the afterlife.
Berman does not ascribe suicidal terrorist acts to fanaticism or desperation, but instead he argues that these tactics are used "when the terrorist group begins to encounter hard targets, like American military bases, that are impervious to everything else." To support this thesis, Berman gives the Taliban as an example of a group that switched from traditional guerrilla-warfare techniques they used against the Northern Alliance to suicide bombings used against the Americans and other Westerners, as the only means, Berman argues, to make a significant impact against their new and more technologically advanced adversaries.[7]
Berman argues that "Islamic fundamentalism" is a misnomer when applied to modern movements, and he prefers the term "Radical Islam", reasoning that many post-1920s movements starting with The Muslim Brotherhood, practice "unprecedented extremism", thus not qualifying as a return to historic fundamentals. He also approves of scholarship that argues that "the sanctification of political violence as Jihad by radical Islam is a recent phenomenon, a break with mainstream Muslim theology".[4]
Berman attributes the birth of the
In his 2009 book, Berman writes that "four radical religious organizations, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban, and the Mahdi Army, continue to surprise established militaries with both their resilience and their lethality." He credits the Hezbollah for being those "who invented the modern high-casualty suicide attack in Lebanon in 1982". Berman's book seeks to address the question: "Why are religious radicals, who often start out appearing benign and charitable and generally avoid conflict, so effective at violence when they choose to engage in it?"[8] Previously, Berman drew other parallels between Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban:
All three formed from affiliates of venerable nonviolent radical Islamic organizations, Hamas from the [Muslim Brotherhood] and the Taliban from the
Shia holy cities in Iraq and Iran. All three movements arose in environments with weak local public good provision by government and responded by providing local public goods. Each developed into extremely effective insurgent organizations which produced specific local public goods (security) using violence. All three received generous subsidies from abroad, whether for geopolitical reasons, out of ideology, or in return for services. Younger members undergo some costly personal sacrifice in the case of the Taliban and Hamas (we know less about initiation of Hezbollah fighters). All three groups changed their ideologies drastically: Hamas in choosing armed conflict, the Taliban in deciding to protect Bin Laden and Hezbollah in shifting from a rebellion against Israeli occupation to an ethnic militia/political party after Israel's withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000. There are differences: Hamas view most Palestinians as potential members, as Hezbollah regard Lebanese Shia, while the Taliban treated most Afghans as a conquered people. Yet the common elements, and especially the common puzzles, seem to justify analysis in parallel.[6]
Berman argued that such parallels were common to other radical religious groups.
On Ultra-orthodox religious groups
Berman has also done field work among
On the relationship between unemployment and insurgency
Berman's NBER paper Do Working Men Rebel?, co-authored with Joseph Felter and Jacob N. Shapiro,[10] drew the counterintuitive conclusion that reducing unemployment does not reduce insurgency-related violence. In an interview, Berman explains the findings as "insurgencies are very small organizations which need very few fighters to keep them going, and are often not constrained by a lack of recruits—and even if they were there's nothing to stop young men from working by day and planting roadside bombs by night."[3]
Personal life
Berman was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He describes his parents as "middle-of-the-road North American Jews."[2] In 1981, Berman became an Israeli citizen, saying that he had "thought the Jewish experience would be more interesting in Israel".[2] He then participated in the 1982 Lebanon War.[2] Berman is now a US citizen.[1] He is married and has two children.
Education and academic career
After leaving the
Selected publications
- Berman, Eli; Felter, Joseph H.; Shapiro, Jacob N. (2018-05-13). Small Wars, Big Data. ISBN 9780691177076.
- Radical, Religious and Violent: The New Economics of Terrorism (MIT Press 2009), ISBN 978-0262026406
- Berman, Eli; Laitin, David P. (2008). "Religion, terrorism and public goods: Testing the club model" (PDF). S2CID 1698386. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2010-06-09. Retrieved 2010-11-10.
- "Religious Extremism: the good, the bad and the deadly," (with Laurence R. Iannaccone), Public Choice, 128(1–2), 109–129, (2006).
- "Is Skill-Biased Technological Change Here Yet: Evidence from Indian Manufacturing in the 1990s," Annales d'Economie et de Statistique 79/80, 2006.
- "Language-Skill Complementarity: Estimated Returns to Immigrant Language Acquisition," (with Kevin Lang and Erez Siniver), Labour Economics, 10 (3), (June 2003) 265–290.
- "Environmental Regulation and Productivity: Evidence from Oil Refineries," (with Linda Bui), Review of Economics and Statistics, August 2001.
- "Environmental Regulation and Labor Demand: Evidence from the South Coast Air Basin," (with Linda Bui), Journal of Public Economics, February 2001.
See also
References
- ^ a b c d "Eli Berman Curriculum Vita" (PDF). University of California, San Diego. Retrieved 10 November 2010.
- ^ U-T San Diego, December 20, 2005. Accessed February 24, 2013. "Berman, who was born in Ottawa, Canada, and brought up by parents he describes as 'middle-of-the-road North American Jews,' graduated from Ottawa's Gloucester High School in 1979.... So he made one of his first 'crazy uncle' decisions, and decided to become a citizen of Israel. 'I thought the Jewish experience would be more interesting in Israel,' he said."
- ^ a b "Special Guest - Eli Berman". Bellum. The Stanford Review. Archived from the original on 28 July 2011. Retrieved 10 November 2010.
- ^ a b c d Berman, Eli (2005). "Hamas, Taliban and the Jewish Underground: An Economist's View of Radical Religious Militias" (PDF). Working Paper 10004.
- .
- ^ S2CID 1698386. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2010-06-09. Retrieved 2010-11-10.
- ^ a b c d e Terrorism Studies by Nicholas Lemann, The New Yorker, APRIL 26, 2010
- ISBN 978-0-262-02640-6, p. 2
- .
- ^ Berman, Eli; Felter, Joseph; Shapiro, Jacob N. (2009). "Do Working Men Rebel? Insurgency and unemployment in Iraq and the Philippines" (PDF). NBER Working Paper No. 15547. Retrieved 10 November 2010.
Further reading
- Leonard Stern (May 29, 2010) Terrorist do-gooders, The Ottawa Citizen
- Aziz Huq (04/22/10) Book Brief: Do Religious Organizations Enable Terrorists?, Brennan Center for Justice
- Devin Leonard, (February 6, 2010) Terrorism and the Pocketbook, The New York Times
- The Australian Financial Review
- David Lehman, Rational Choice and the Sociology of Religion, chapter 8 in ISBN 1-4051-8852-9
External links
- Berman's home page
- Official web site for his book and free 1st chapter
- "Eli Berman on Religious Terrorism". Research on Religion (researchonreligion.org). August 3, 2010. Podcast interview with Berman