Recruitment or enlistment? Individual integration into the Turkish Hezbollah

Abstract

Radicalization and pathways to terrorism have been issues of dispute which owe their complexity to multiple dimensions and perspectives from different disciplines at different levels. This study focuses on the two competing perspectives on joining violent radical groups represented in the Hofman-Sageman debate: recruitment/facilitation or enlistment. It also elaborates on affiliative factors (kinship/first-circle-peers) and religiosity to analyze the conditions under which university students were drawn into Turkish Hezbollah (TH), a terrorist organization in Turkey. By using individual-level self-report data this study finds that kinship structures had a determinative impact on individuals’ enlistment through ‘Social Learning,’ specifically, on embracing TH membership as a ‘favorable definition’ and/or a ‘norm’ within their original habitat. Yet, weakened ‘Social Control/Bond’ from home/original habitat made students significantly more vulnerable to TH’s recruitment structures. This study argues that both approaches-recruitment and enlistment-have substantial explanatory power; however, under certain underlying sociological conditions. In that while weakened social bonds supplement recruitment, having militants in kinship structures particularly make young college students vulnerable to be drawn into violent radical networks through enlistment. This study also asserts that neither the religiosity of militants nor that of their families had a statistically significant effect on their integration into TH.