Working Papers
Unemployment and Violent Extremism: Evidence from Daesh Foreign Recruits
No.
1293
Date
February, 2019
Topic
Z1.
F5. International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy
E2. Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy
Transnational terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State (also known as Daesh) have shown an ability to attract radicalized individuals from many countries to join their ranks, and perpetrate attacks around the world. Using a novel data set that reports countries of residence and educational levels of a large sample of Daesh’s foreign recruits, we find that a lack of economic opportunities – measured by unemployment rates disaggregated by country and education level – explains foreign enrollment in the terrorist organization, especially for countries that are geographically closer to Syria.
