THE SECRET SOCIETY AND THE SOCIAL DYNAMICS OF TERRORIST BEHAVIOR

Jürgen Mackert *

Abstract: The article argues that individualist accounts cannot adequately explain the social dynamics of terrorist behavior as they turn analyses of terrorism into analyses of terrorists. A relational approach that concentrates on the social relations between terrorist organizations and their members would be able to do this, however. Therefore, the article presents a formal analysis that makes the “secret society” of terrorists the lynchpin of an explanation of how terrorist organizations shape the behavioral conditions of volunteers and suicide terrorists in a manner that triggers a type of behavior we might call terrorism. Keywords: terrorism, suicide terrorism, secret society, relational sociology, Georg Simmel.

LA SOCIÉTÉ SECRÈTE ET LES DYNAMIQUES SOCIALES DE L’ACTION TERRORISTE

Résumé : Les approches individualistes ne parviennent pas à produire d’explications satisfaisantes des dynamiques sociales qui sous‑tendent les actes terroristes puisqu’elles ne fournissent pas d’analyses du terrorisme, mais des analyses sur les terroristes. C’est pourquoi cet article s’appuie sur l’analyse formelle de la « société secrète » telle que l’entend Simmel pour développer une explication sociologique qui éclaire la manière dont les relations sociales au sein des groupes terroristes façonne des structures d’oppor‑ tunité de sorte à déclencher un acte qui peut être caractérisé de terroriste. Mots‑clés  : terrorisme, terrorisme suicidaire, société secrète, sociologie relation‑ nelle, Georg Simmel.

* Jürgen Mackert, born in 1962, is professor of sociology at the University of Potsdam, Germany. His research focuses on sociological theory and methodology, on the sociology of violence, and on political economy. He has recently published “Social Closure” in Manza Jeff, ed., Oxford Bibliographies in Sociology, New York, Oxford University Press, 2012. Address : Universität Potsdam, Wirtschafts‑ und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät, Lehrstuhl für Allgemeine Soziologie, August‑Bebel‑Straße 89, D-14482 Potsdam (juergen.mackert@uni‑potsdam.de). Revue de synthèse : tome 135, 6e série, n° 4, 2014, p. 331-359.

DOI 10.1007/s11873-014-0261-z

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DIE GEHEIME GESELLSCHAFT UND DIE SOZIALEN DYNAMIKEN TERRORISTISCHEN HANDELNS

Zusammenfassung: Individualistische Ansätze können die sozialen Dynamiken terro‑ ristischen Handelns nur unzureichend erklären, da sie keine Terrorismusanalysen, sondern Analysen von Terroristen liefern. Der Aufsatz geht deshalb von Georg Simmels formaler Analyse der „Geheimen Gesellschaft“ aus und entwickelt auf dieser Grund‑ lage eine soziologische Erklärung dafür, wie die sozialen Beziehungen innerhalb solcher Gruppierungen die Opportunitätsstrukturen ihrer Mitglieder so strukturieren, dass ein Handeln entsteht, das wir als terroristisch bezeichnen können. Schlagworte: Terrorismus, Selbstmordterrorismus, geheime Gesellschaft, relatio‑ nale Soziologie, Georg Simmel.

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Cet article est une contribution à une sociologie générale de la violence, et plus spéci‑ fiquement à l’explication des dynamiques sociales de l’acte de violence terroriste. L’auteur considère que les approches explicatives de type individualiste qui dominent le débat sociologique autour du terrorisme et du terrorisme suicidaire ne parviennent pas à atteindre la force explicative à laquelle elles prétendent. C’est pourquoi, dans un premier temps, cet article dénonce, au nom de son caractère arbitraire et hypothétique, la quête fréquente dans cette tradition scientifique des motivations et des intérêts des acteurs individuels. Il analyse les problèmes suscités par l’ignorance des contextes et des conditions de l’action sociale pour finalement critiquer la manière dont les tenta‑ tives d’explication de type individualiste négligent les processus d’escalade, et par conséquent, les dynamiques sociales. Au vu de cet arrière‑plan scientifique, l’article considère dans la perspective du relationnisme méthodologique que le terrorisme, aussi bien que le terrorisme suici‑ daire, doivent être conçus comme des relations sociales et qu’ils ne peuvent être inter‑ prétés que comme conséquences d’une multitude de processus d’interactions. Cette contribution se concentre sur les processus et les dynamiques qui opèrent à l’inté‑ rieur des groupes terroristes pour comprendre et expliquer l’action terroriste d’acteurs sociaux. En effet, les structures d’opportunité générées en leur sein aboutissent à ce que l’acte terroriste devienne une option envisageable pour l’action. La perspective relationnelle développée par cette contribution s’inscrit dans la continuité de l’article de Georg Simmel « Secret et sociétés secrètes ». Partant de là, l’auteur ne s’inscrit pas seulement dans le sillage de l’un des pères de la sociologie relationnelle, il place surtout au cœur de la discussion la caractéristique de tout acte terroriste – pour ainsi dire presque totalement ignorée par le débat sociologique sur le terrorisme jusqu’ici : le fait que cet acte soit planifié dans le secret et que chaque groupe terroriste s’organise nécessairement clandestinement. C’est pourquoi ces groupes terroristes doivent être appréhendés, dans la continuité de Simmel, comme des sociétés secrètes. Pour développer cet argument, l’auteur reconstitue les jalons de l’analyse simmelienne qui conçoit le secret, plus précisément l’acte secret comme fait sociologique primaire. L’analyse formelle de la « société secrète » à laquelle procède Simmel exhume les différents aspects qui sous‑tendent également la conception de l’acte terroriste. La « société secrète » est envisagée comme une forme spécifique de socialisation au sein de laquelle les relations réciproques qu’entretiennent ses membres sont déterminées par le secret partagé. Dans la mesure où le secret devient central pour un groupe, ses membres sont en contact permanent, régulier voire quotidiennement, alors qu’à l’exté‑ rieur tout le monde ignore leur existence. Le secret devient l’essence même du groupe, et les relations sociales qui l’organisent influent sur ses membres et leur action. L’analyse formelle montre en outre que la signification centrale du secret génère des conditions d’une grande instabilité puisque la société secrète risque toujours d’être découverte ou trahie, ce qui s’avère extrêmement problématique notamment lorsqu’on a affaire, tout comme dans le cas d’un groupe terroriste, à une « bande de brigands » au sens où l’entend Simmel. Une stabilisation des relations sociales est donc néces‑ saire dans les sociétés secrètes, elle procède de la structure hiérarchique et de rituels spécifiques qui lient les membres au groupe et les contraignent autant que leur chef

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lui‑même. Le cloisonnement de la société secrète qui résulte des processus de ségré‑ gation sociale ne sert pas seulement à protéger le secret en différenciant radicalement les membres de ceux qui ne le sont pas, il a pour autre conséquence sociale de générer auprès d’eux la conscience de former une élite. En contrepartie, le degré de liberté morale obtenu dans une « bande de brigands » tel que le groupe terroriste, à travers l’acte sans scrupules et le mépris des normes morales qui sont cultivées par le reste de la société, se monnaie, toutefois, au sein du groupe lui‑même par une insertion très stricte, tant structurelle que culturelle, étayée sur la hiérarchie et les rituels. Tous ces éléments sociologiques constitutifs de n’importe quelle société secrète sont ensuite appliqués, dans la logique de cette analyse, au cas des groupes terroristes et exemplifiés. L’argumentation théorique tout comme la discussion de cas empiriques prouvent que l’importance du secret à l’intérieur du groupe terroriste est telle que sa trahison aurait des conséquences imprévisibles pour tous ses membres. Des structures hiérarchiques rigides et des rituels contraignants, comme le serment d’obéissance prêté à un chef, souvent charismatique, contribuent à la stabilisation de ces groupes. Les processus de ségrégation sociale génèrent, d’une part, parmi les membres du groupe terroriste, une représentation de soi fondée sur le sentiment de former une élite et, d’autre part, ils permettent de séparer les membres des adeptes ou des initiés, dont l’intégration au groupe n’est que partielle et qui forment l’environnement du groupe. L’article met en évidence que, pour comprendre et expliquer l’acte terroriste, on ne peut pas simplement examiner les motivations et les intérêts d’individus isolés, mais qu’il faut considérer et faire ressortir les contextes dans lesquels se déploie leur action, prendre en compte les relations sociales structurelles et culturelles qui s’orga‑ nisent au sein de la société secrète et, partant de là, l’élaboration des opportunités d’un acte caractérisé de terroriste. Ces conditions structurelles et culturelles spéci‑ fiques qui gouvernent la société secrète de terroristes induisent des conditions de vie et d’action contradictoires pour chacun de ses membres isolés. En effet, la société secrète, contrairement à la société elle‑même, met en jeu l’individu tout entier, et non pas le rôle particulier qu’il remplit ; les processus de ségrégation ainsi que l’exercice d’obligations contraignantes en marge de la « vraie » vie permettent de comprendre que l’intégration à la structure rigide de la société secrète génère des conditions spéci‑ fiques d’action qui se différencient fondamentalement de la vie en dehors de celle‑ci et peuvent entrer en contradiction avec elle. L’immense liberté de chacun des membres vis‑à‑vis des normes sociales se monnaie par l’obligation de l’individu vis‑à‑vis du groupe ou d’un chef, et suscite l’émergence d’une contre‑culture qui implique la soumission absolue de ce dernier, a de larges conséquences : en termes de hiérarchie, culte de la personnalité, pouvoir illimité du chef, discipline rigide, de même que les principes d’ordre et d’obéissance génèrent auprès de chacun de ses membres des processus de « dessaisissement de soi » et de désindividualisation qu’il est impossible à la perspective individualiste de concevoir de manière satisfaisante. Enfin, tous ces processus génèrent une irresponsabilité d’origine structurelle qui permet à l’individu isolé de justifier son propre acte terroriste.

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I

n the first decade of the twenty‑first century, terrorism as a political strategy has yielded suicide missions as the most characteristic violent tactic in asymmetric political conflicts. It is difficult to understand why and under what circumstances young people in particular are willing to sacrifice their lives in the name of a political or religious idea, while at the same time attempting to kill large numbers of innocents. Meanwhile the social sciences have produced an enormous body of literature on this puzzling social phenomenon. In most of these analyses, the question “what motivates suicide bombers?” appears to be the most pressing one; thus, not surprisingly, a large number of scholars concentrate on the personalities, minds, and psyches of the suicide attackers 1. To focus on the perpetrators is evocative of debates in the 1970s and 1980s when social revolutionary terrorism struck Western European societies and it resembles the explanatory strategies of that time that often turned analyses of terrorism into debates on terrorists. On the grounds of micro‑sociological or even psychological approaches, these concentrated on the apparently insane “brutes” who had declared war on democratic societies 2. This statement reminds us that neither terrorism nor suicide terrorism are just acts of individuals who make their decisions autonomously. Rather, both terrorism as a political strategy and suicide attacks as a specific tactic are phenomena of collective violence. In the conclusion of a comprehensive analysis on the subject, Diego Gambetta argues that “all SMs (suicide missions – J.M.) have been decided by and executed with the support of an organization 3.” Taking this assertion seriously makes the social relations within terrorist groups the most important aspect of an explanatory account. Such a relational perspective departs from the assumption that people “develop their personalities and practices through interchanges with other humans, and that the interchanges themselves always involve a degree of negotiation and creativity 4.” People’s imaginations, ideas, and motives will only have meaning in continuing social interactions. Nevertheless, more than a few of the most prominent recent analyses concentrate on individuals and their alleged motives and interests or even dispositions. Recently, in this vein, Jessica Stern 5 interviewed many former religious terrorists and combined the results with her own observations in order to explain terrorism, while Louise Richardson 6 concentrates in her interviews on the personality of terrorists in an attempt to come to terms with the phenomenon. Notwithstanding the differences in their approaches to explaining terrorist behavior, what Stern and Richardson have in common is that individual stories and interpretations are at the heart of their analyses. But one may doubt that this kind of explanation is as convincing as it seems. Can we really be sure that former or detained terrorists will not necessarily interpret both the situation and their own conviction during these interviews very differently than at the time when they were active terrorists? Motives and interests may change in the course of events; new experiences can lead people to unexpected decisions and new interpretations of what they 1. See Crenshaw, 1998; Merari, 1998 and Atran, 2003 for a critique of psychological or psychopathological accounts to terrorism. 2. Scheerer, 1988, p. 75. 3. Gambetta 2005a, p. 260. 4. Tilly, 2003, p. 5‑6. 5. Stern, 2003. For a thorough critique of this kind of analysis, see Tilly, 2005a. 6. Richardson, 2006.

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once believed. Further, there may be differences between those who still support their organization, its aims and tactics after they were arrested, or survived a terrorist or even suicide attack, on the one hand, and those who then distance themselves from organization, aims, or tactics on the other hand. The world today may seem very different to them than what they previously supposed it to be like. As we know, people impute motives into their behavior retrospectively if asked why the acted the way they did 7. Following Robert Merton’s argument, I will refer to some of their findings by discussing them within continuing social interactions, i.e., by putting them in the context to be developed in this article 8. However, most of the sociological approaches that discuss terrorist behavior argue explicitly from an individualist perspective in order to reflect upon the causes and reasons, the motives and interests that allow us to understand why some people become terrorists or even suicide attackers. Certainly, in this debate, Jon Elster has made the strongest plea for analyzing suicide missions individualistically and, his theoretical considerations are certainly the most sophisticated. He argues that in order “to make sense of these missions, we can adopt the usual explanatory machinery of the social sciences, the key elements being the motivations and beliefs of actors, attackers, and organizers, and the constraints they face 9.” Looking for the causes of suicide terrorism, Elster rejects the usual variable sociology and distinguishes between suicide attackers and their individual reasons and causes on the one hand, and the organizers and their motivations and beliefs on the other hand. He then deploys a number of individualist mechanisms and assumes the impact of frames and mental models on the decisions of the organizations in order to come to terms with the “sense” of suicide missions. Given all this, we should question the conviction that the “usual explanatory machinery” of imputing motivations and interests into people and organizations is as helpful as it is claimed to be. I want to raise three objections to this “standard” approach to suicide terrorism in sociology: 1. The search for motives and interests of the perpetrators seems to be rather hypothetical and arbitrary. It is not without reason that Elster himself seems to be skeptical about this strategy in the face of people who blow themselves up 10. We can only hypothesize what turns people into members of terrorist organizations or even into perpetrators, we can impute motives and interests into their behavior, but we have no way of knowing whether these assumptions are true or false. Thus, we should not start with motivated individuals who have certain interests in order to explain suicide terrorism. 2. Elster is perfectly right in distinguishing between two levels of investigation— actors and organizations—in his explanatory approach 11 but although he seems to agree with Gambetta, who argues that organizations are more important than individual motives or interests in order “to make sense of suicide missions 12” his individualist  7. Merton, 1936.  8. I would not argue that we should reject terrorists’ explanations and justifications of what they did. Rather, it depends on the methodological perspective we use in order to come to terms with such explanations.  9. Elster, 2005, p. 233. 10. Elster, 2005, p. 256. 11. Elster, 2005. 12. Gambetta, 2005a, p. 260.

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account makes no attempt to explain how and why the social relations within a terrorist group will shape the behavior of its members. Too little importance is attached to context and conditions of behavior in individualist accounts. 3. First and foremost, both terrorism and suicide terrorism should be understood as an outcome of processes of escalation. They are the consequences of long‑lasting political conflicts and therefore highly dynamic social phenomena. Individualist approaches do not adequately take this into account. Rather, once we have imputed motives and interests into a perpetrator, we have explained the puzzling phenomenon. Contrary to this individualist perspective, I start from the assumption that terrorism can be understood as a mode of collective violence that “amounts to a kind of conversation, however brutal or one‑sided that conversation may be 13.” Such a view concentrates on the relations between social sites and brings the dynamics and processes of terrorism between them into focus. Such a kind of analysis starts from three assumptions: First, terrorism and suicide terrorism are specific types of social relations. Therefore, explanations of the behavior of terrorists should not focus on the motives and interests of individuals. Instead, the analysis has to concentrate on the specificity of the relations inside a terrorist group that will trigger individual behavior. Second, a proper explanation has to distinguish between levels of investigation, but it must not stop here. Rather, the analysis should not only break down the phenomenon of suicide terrorism and distinguish different levels of investigation but also exhibit their relations 14. If we concentrate on social relations, the crucial problem is to explain how an organization creates opportunity structures for individuals, i.e., we should ask how the social relations within the terrorist organization channel the behavior of its members. Third, motives and interests can change dramatically in the course of events. Conflicts within terrorist organizations on the one hand and between terrorist organizations and their enemies on the other hand may generate secondary motives that might become more important for understanding perpetrators’ behavior than those behind volunteers joining the organization 15. To put the analysis of both terrorism and suicide terrorism in a relational perspective, three elements are of utmost interest: first, the social relations of terrorist groups in the surrounding environment, i.e., with the community, with other (terrorist) groups, with supporters and with the wider public; second, the relations between a terrorist group and its basic enemy; third, the social relations within a terrorist group, i.e., the social relations between its members that are structured by the organization’s structure 16. In this paper, I restrict the analysis on the third aspect and focus on this last set of social relations as it is crucial if we want to understand how and why normal people 13. Tilly, 2003, p. 6. 14. Bunge, 1997, p. 458. 15. In the face of violent clashes, the social relations between a terrorist and his or her enemy will change and revenge may come to be the very motive to keep on fighting while other motives that may have driven volunteers to the organisation attenuate. 16. Of course, all three types of social relations are crucial. A more encompassing analysis that is beyond the scope of this paper would also have to consider both the social relations and the embeddedness of terrorist organizations on regional, national or even inter‑ and transnational levels.

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act in way that we call terrorism or even suicide terrorism. If we want to understand how and why normal people join terrorist groups, why they engage in new social relations, why they dissociate to a certain degree from their previous social circles and become part of a group in which membership is characterized by a torment of secrecy, we have to analyze the ways that such groups impinge on the lives of their members. More precisely, I take the presumably most significant aspect of terrorist groups as the starting point of the analysis: their secrecy. Surprisingly, although scholars have repeatedly mentioned this aspect of any kind of terrorism 17 – be it “old” or “new,” national, international, or transnational – only recently, Donatella della Porta and Martha Crenshaw 18 have discussed both meaning and effects of clandestinity of terrorist groups in more detail. Nevertheless, secrecy has not been made the lynchpin of an analysis of terrorist behavior so far. Thus, the thesis of the article is that a formal analysis of the social relations within what Georg Simmel 19 called a “secret society” will help us to understand and explain the behavior of terrorists and even suicide attackers. Since presumably none of the scholars working in this field has ever visited a terrorist group for organizational analysis, I argue that a formal analysis of “secret societies” will go beyond mere descriptions of terrorist groups, organizations, networks or hybrid structures, since it allows ut to not only understand the dynamics within such groups but also the ways in which the specific setting of the members of the secret society of terrorists will trigger a form of violent behavior that we call terrorism. Obviously, we still know little about terrorists and terrorist groups. Thus, we should refrain from both hypothesizing about individuals’ motives and interests and from developing something like a sociological theory of terrorism. Instead, we should approach terrorism by using a number of general sociological tools that may help us better understand and explain this social phenomenon. Instead of using the “usual explanatory machinery” of an individualist sociology, Simmel’s formal analysis of the secret society will help exhibit the relations between the different levels of organization and individual behavior. Such an analysis implies taking a relational perspective towards terrorism. The article develops a theoretical argument while empirical examples are illustrative, and it proceeds in three steps. First, it discusses the main aspects of Georg Simmel’s analysis of the secret society as a form of association. Second, it takes the main elements of this analysis in order to outline both the organizational structure and the cultural traits of the secret society of terrorists. Third, it analyzes the way the secret society’s social relations channel terrorists’ behavior. GEORG SIMMEL’S FORMAL ANALYSIS OF THE SECRET SOCIETY

Georg Simmel’s formal analysis of the secret society enables us to explain and understand both the way terrorist groups are organized and how this impinges upon the behavior of their members. Thus, the analysis does not start from the individual and his/her motives and interests but from the theoretical position that human behavior is structured by the social relations in which social actors are embedded. Further, to take Simmel’s analysis seriously means to not only insist on the very general fact that social 17. See e.g., Smelser, 2010, p. 91. 18. Della Porta, 2012; Crenshaw, 2012. 19. Simmel, 1906.

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relations are crucial to understanding how and why people behave the way they do but to take one specific aspect of terrorist organizations – their secrecy – as the lynchpin of the analysis of terrorist behavior. Simmel conceives the formation of a secret society as a form of association (Vergesell‑ schaftung). While recent contributions to organizational forms of terrorism distinguish between terrorist groups, organizations, or networks, etc., in Simmel’s perspective, they all have to be analyzed as types of association. Admittedly, a secret society’s essential aspect is the secret shared by its members that is fraught with consequences: “So soon, however, as a group as such seizes upon secrecy as its form of existence, the sociological meaning of the secrecy becomes internal. It now determines the reciprocal relations of those who possess the secret in common 20.” The idea of reciprocity is critical as it makes the social relations of actors the basic unit of the analysis and the starting point of the dynamics of the social processes that characterize these relations. With respect to a secret society of terrorists, we can go one step further and define another aspect of this kind of association: “Its elements may live in the most frequent commerce, but that they compose a society – a conspiracy, or a band of criminals, a religious conventicle, or an association for sexual extravagances – may remain essentially and permanently a secret 21.” A terrorist group, organization, or network can be understood as a secret society insofar as its members may be in permanent, regular, or even daily contact with each other, while beyond the boundaries of the association no‑one might know that it even exists. The essence of such a society is defined by the secret itself, and this essence may endure. The specific feature of being an association that operates in secrecy points to two vital aspects that characterize a secret society, regardless of its mode and purpose: the social relation of its members must be based on confidence. This confidence is inevitable, since the purpose of secrecy that follows from this leads to the protection of both the secret society and its members 22. Obviously, to be so extremely dependent on the confidence of all members of a secret society is a double‑edged sword. Over time, members of a secret society might become disappointed either with the goals that have been achieved or with their comrades; in the case of a secret society of terrorists, they may be horrified by the violence, the tactics, or the modified aims of their group; some members might feel tempted to leave the organization in the face of a state’s opt‑out scheme, etc. The indispensable confidence that guarantees secrecy turns out to be the secret society’s Achilles heel at the same time: “The keeping of the secret is something so unstable, the temptations to betrayal are so manifold, in many cases such a continuous path leads from secretiveness to indiscretion, that unlimited faith in the former contains an incomparable preponderance of the subjective factor 23.”

20. Simmel, 1906, p. 470. 21. Simmel, 1906, p. 470. Simmel mentions a second type of secret society that is not of relevance to our analysis. It is the reverse case, i.e., an association that is well known, while both its purpose and members remain concealed. 22. Simmel, 1906, p. 470. 23. Simmel, 1906, p. 473.

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A secret society is based on a precarious balance. While concealing its existence and its purpose of association, it depends on the discretion of its members as the only possible protection; betrayal potentially threatens its existence. Just how dangerous it will be for a secret society to be either betrayed or discovered depends on both the interest of association and the precautions taken in order to stabilize the social relations within it. Based on these essential features, we can follow Simmel’s analysis and take a closer look at four aspects that characterize a secret society in more detail. First, a certain purpose of association (Vergesellschaftungszweck) is of interest; second, the relationship between the members of the secret society has to be specified; third, we have to analyze the association’s behavioral demands upon its members; and, finally, as a secret society generates a social circle of association (Vergesellschaftungskreis), we have to examine certain processes of closure. Generally speaking, any association, be it secret or not, is characterized by a certain purpose of association and, at the same time, relies on a number of preconditions of faith. In many cases, there is no reason to keep the purpose secret. For example, national communities are based on a sense of national belonging, political parties are founded on shared political convictions and programs whereas the European Union claims to based on a common project – but while none of these associations attempts to keep its purpose secret, what they have in common is that all the different convictions are supposed to generate faith among their members. However, there are in fact many associations that do keep their purpose secret and although there may be quite a number of reasons for doing so, Simmel formulates the general proposition that “the secret society emerges everywhere as correlate of despotism and of police control. It acts as protection of defense and of offense alike against the violent pressure of central powers. This is true not only in political relations, but also within the church, the school, and the family 24.” It is important that Simmel refers to any secret society’s efforts to avoid the pressure of central powers. But as this may be the case with any kind of secret society, it is a different matter altogether when it comes to the case of terrorist groups. Interestingly, in the definition of the secret society referred to above, Simmel introduces the type of a criminal band. Whatever these bands do, be it infringement of the law, intimidation of people, protection rackets, etc., in all these cases we observe a distinctive “radical break with moral imperatives 25.” Like any other criminal band that keeps its purpose secret, a terrorist group is characterized by an attempt to avoid oppression and by both dissociation from the moral convictions of the wider society and deliberately breaking its shared moral rules. As soon as this break occurs, keeping the secret has far‑reaching consequences for both the group and its members: “When the society becomes secret, however, there is added to the confidence determined by the peculiar purposes of the society the further formal confidence in ability to keep still – evidently a faith in the personality, which has, sociologically, a more 24. Simmel, 1906, p. 472. 25. Simmel, 1906, p. 473.

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abstract character than any other, because every possible common interest may be subsumed under it 26.”

Thus, the members of a terrorist group do not only have to conceal the purpose of their secret society but they will also protect it by concealing the violation of fundamental moral convictions. Such a type of criminal band depends on its members’ secrecy to the highest degree. At the same time, this is not easy to accomplish. In order to understand why the members of a terrorist group usually behave accordingly and keep the secret, we cannot simply examine their respective motives but have to analyze the crucial principles that are part of the secret society’s structure and make it possible to both understand and explain its members’ behavior. The discussion of the characteristics of a secret society shows that it is usually typified by a precarious balance as it has to conceal the secret society and its purpose of association while also depending on the discretion of its members at the same time. Thus, the sociological fact may not be underestimated as its consequences for the members of a secret society might trigger consequences that can threaten a terrorist group’s existence, as shown by Alison Jamieson for the Italian Red Brigades: “The restrictions of clandestinity created personal and political crises which deepened after 1978, when the battle between state and terrorists intensified. The greater commitment required of members made dissent and exit correspondingly more traumatic. In the end, attempts to preserve unity by increasing discipline proved to be counterproductive 27.”

Given that both the consequences of secrecy for the terrorist group’s cohesion and the fragility of faith among its members threaten its existence, it necessarily has to be stabilized. Two principles enable the secret society to solve this problem: in order to oblige its members to adhere to the purpose of association and keep the secret, hierarchy and ritual are both vital. Hierarchy The hierarchical structure of secret societies is important as it points to a rigidly organized association and helps us understand its internal division that has consequences for both the members’ specific tasks and the problems to be solved. A closer look at the secret society’s structure reveals that “[it] is the principle of the hierarchy, of graded articulation, of the elements of a society 28,” that characterizes it. Three aspects further specify the significance of a hierarchy in a secret society: the process of gradually including new members, a given division of labour, and the society’s rationalist constitution. These aspects point to the fact that secret societies may be seen as a kind of artificial society in contrast to the wider society: members have to be included under specific circumstances, they have to be assigned a certain position in the hierarchy and 26. Simmel, 1906, p. 473. 27. Jamieson, 1990, p. 1. 28. Simmel, 1906, p. 478.

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the society itself has not developed in a historical process but is constructed on the rationalist idea of its founders. While the secret society’s hierarchy is its crucial structural feature, certain rituals can be seen as its cultural trait. Ritual Rituals are essential for a secret society in two respects: they strengthen and reinforce the ties between its members and they separate the members from people outside the association: “There is perhaps no external tendency which so decisively and with such characteristic differences divides the secret from the open society, as the valuation of usages, formulas, rites, and the peculiar preponderance and antithetic relation of all these to the body of purposes which the society represents 29.”

While this kind of rituals characterizes any secret society, it is of particular interest in the case “of the most notorious criminal bands 30,” since they call the social and moral foundations of the wider society into question. Quite a number of rituals are related to the secret society’s hierarchical structure like, for instance, that of admittance to the secret society and the inclusion of new members into its structure, or that of performing certain practices in order to flank the society’s rationalist construction help to further strengthen the structural stability of the society and to bind together its members with respect to both the hierarchical social order and the horizontal perspective among equals, monitoring and controlling each other: “That which is striking about the treatment of the ritual in secret societies is not merely the precision with which it is observed, but first of all the anxiety with which it is guarded as a secret – as though the unveiling of it were precisely as fatal as betrayal of the purposes and actions of the society, or even the existence of the society altogether 31.”

While both structure and culture are key to developing a real comprehension of the secret society, it is the practices that are linked to the concealment of both the secret society and the ritual itself that give a valuable insight into how a secret society impinges on the behavior of its members. In developing and performing all the kinds of forms of the rituals and through the absorption “of a whole complex of external forms into the secret, the whole range of action and interest occupied by the secret society becomes a well‑rounded unity 32.” It is this unity that imposes specific behavioral demands on its members. Against this background, we see that there is not only a major difference between modern society as primordial and a secret society as rationalistic but also a difference with respect to their impact on individuals’ agency. While individuals play different social roles in modern society, in secret societies, the individual as a whole takes centre 29. Simmel, 1906, p. 480. 30. Simmel, 1906, p. 480. 31. Simmel, 1906, p. 480. 32. Simmel, 1906, p. 481.

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stage. Therefore, the “secret society must seek to create among the categories peculiar to itself, a species of life‑totality 33.” Like a religious community, a secret service, or the military, the secret society of terrorists is an organization that makes demands on the individual as a whole while it has to conceal its factual purpose in particular. This characteristic trait of the secret society has consequences for its members, since “[o]ne of its essential characteristics is that, even when it takes hold of individuals only by means of partial interests, when the society in its substance is a purely utilitarian combination, yet it claims the whole man in a higher degree, it combines the personalities more in their whole compass with each other, and commits them more to, reciprocal obligations, than the same common purpose would within an open society 34.”

This obviously points to a specific idealization of the secret society. It detaches itself from wider society while it develops its own structures and rituals and claims to be much more significant than any other area of its members’ lives. This claim to absoluteness raises serious consequences for the secret society’s members as it generates a specific structure of social relations that triggers complex and contradictory behavioral codes for its members that cannot be reduced to individual dispositions and beliefs. However, the secret society not only detaches itself from wider society, it also closes itself off from it and shows specific traits of closure processes fraught with consequences for its members. SOCIAL CLOSURE

No kind of association is perceivable without processes of social closure 35. Thus, like secret societies in general, a secret society of terrorists in particular depends on such processes. Social closure implies that the association in question monopolizes a certain good that in the case of a secret society is the monopolization of the knowledge about both its existence and its purpose. A terrorist group closes itself completely off from the outside, thereby creating a community of adepts who will protect their monopoly. Unlike with other circles, groups, or organizations, closure of the secret societies is complete, since keeping the secret of its purpose of association guarantees its existence. The closure of the secret society to exclude outsiders is a necessary and characteristic feature of such a society. A number of rituals such as taking an oath or vow, or making a pledge of loyalty or a commitment strengthen and confirm the secret society’s purpose. This means that we can define them as the crucial mechanisms of social closure that increase the level of concealment and advance processes of closure against the wider society. However, at this point of the analysis, it is not only the process of closure that is critical. In addition to this, Simmel’s formal stipulation is extremely helpful: “Moreover, through such formalism, just as through the hierarchical structure above discussed, the secret society constitutes itself a sort of counterpart of the official world 33. Simmel, 1906, p. 481. 34. Simmel, 1906, p. 481. 35. Weber, 1978; Mackert, 2012.

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with which it places itself in antithesis. Here we have a case of the universally emerging sociological norm; viz., structures, which place themselves in opposition to and detachment from larger structures in which they are actually contained, nevertheless repeat in themselves the forms of the greater structures 36.”

Although closure generates the development of structures within the secret society that correspond with that of the wider society enclosing it, it is crucial that the closed secret society aims to be an “antithesis” to the official world. This may be much more obvious in the case of Simmel’s criminal band, since in this case being an antithesis refers to the secret society violating the basic rules and norms of the wider society. However, this breaking of fundamental rules and norms follows from the shelter provided by the secret society. This link plays the all‑dominant role: it allows for an emerging freedom of the individual that is beyond all moral and lawful regulation of his or her behavior. “Whether the secret society (…) complements the inadequate judicature of the political area; or whether, as in the case of conspiracies or criminal bands, it is an uprising against the law of that area; or whether, as in the case of the ‘mysteries,’ they hold themselves outside of the commands and prohibitions of the greater area – in either case the apartness (Heraussonderung) which characterizes the secret society has the tone of a freedom. In exercise of this freedom a territory is occupied to which the norms of the surrounding society do not apply. The nature of the secret society as such is autonomy. It is, however, of a sort which approaches anarchy. Withdrawal from the bonds of unity which procure general coherence very easily has as consequences for the secret society a condition of being without roots, an absence of firm touch with life (Lebensgefühl), and of restraining reservations 37.”

Contrary to an individualist approach, Simmel’s considerations show how the social organization of peoples’ lives both shapes and transforms the conditions of their behavior. From this perspective, it is clear that new opportunity structures allow for a certain behavior that was not previously conceivable. “Freedom” in the sense of a release from moral and lawful constraints of the wider society is crucial here. We will not be able to understand terrorist behavior unless we take into consideration that the secret society’s closure and detachment in fact generates a kind of autonomy that might trigger violence and lead to anarchic features. But this autonomy is only one side of the coin since it is accompanied by enormous follow‑up costs for the individuals involved. They are confronted with feelings of uprootedness, a lack of stability, and the loss of any normative support in life. While this contradictory and morally highly dilemmatic situation without any doubt triggers serious consequences for the affected individuals, Simmel assumes that the secret society’s ritual will operate as a kind of buffer, to the degree that members of the secret societies and even terrorists remain in a state of tension caught between freedom and normative standardization. The ritual has a compensating and stabilizing function: “With the 36. Simmel, 1906, p. 481‑482. 37. Simmel, 1906, p. 482.

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ritual the secret society voluntarily imposes upon it a formal constraint, which is demanded as a complement by its material detachment and self‑sufficiency 38.” THE KEY FEATURES OF THE SECRET SOCIETY OF TERRORISTS

So far, I have at times referred to terrorist groups as a model of a secret society, more particularly as a band of criminals in Simmel’s sense. In more detail, we can now apply the crucial aspects of the formal analysis of secret societies to terrorist groups, i.e., we have to specify their purpose of association, the necessity of secrecy, the significance of the secret society’s structure (hierarchy) and culture (ritual), and, finally, the consequences of processes of social closure and the secret society’s detachment from the wider society. In order to specify a terrorist group’s purpose of association, two definitions of terrorism 39 will be helpful. First, following Henner Hess “terrorism is a series of intentional acts of direct physical violence executed in the context of a political strategy. It is executed both unpredictably and selectively but, at the same time, systematically in order to deploy psychical effects upon others besides the victims suffering physical harm 40.” Here, it seems obvious that suicide terrorism can be regarded as a subdivision of a more encompassing social phenomenon. While terrorism as such may be seen as a political strategy, suicide missions may be considered as a chosen tactic. Thus, in contrast to the terror of a state, that can be understood as a political strategy “from above,” terrorism is a political strategy “from below.” As a means of the weaker side in a violent conflict, this strategy might include the tactic of suicide missions. Gambetta argues: “The standard case of an SM (suicide mission – J.M.) that we consider consists of a violent attack designed in such a way as to make the death of the perpetrators strictly essential for its success 41.” Mia Bloom emphasizes the phenomenon’s political character by defining suicide bombing “as a violent, politically motivated attack, carried out in a deliberate state of awareness by a person who blows himself or herself up together with a chosen target 42.” A number of scholars refer to clandestinity as a characteristic aspect of terrorist groups’ activities. Bruce Hoffman, for example, refers to secrecy as a pure necessity, given the asymmetry between these groups and the military apparatus of a state that leaves them “no choice but to operate clandestinely, emerging from the shadows to carry out dramatic (in other words, bloody and destructive) acts of hit‑and‑run violence in order to attract attention to, and ensure publicity for, themselves, and their cause 43.” Mostly, analyses restrict the significance of clandestinity or conspiracy to 38. Simmel, 1906, p. 483. 39. Definitions are neither true nor false, but they provide starting points for an analysis. However, defining terrorism seems to be a big problem for many scholars. There is a broad debate about normative or political considerations. I do not share these reservations. Even if the terms “terrorism,” “terrorist,” or “suicide terrorism” are used in public debates to discredit one’s political rivals, it is legitimate to propose a working definition of the terms and concepts. 40. Hess, 1988, p. 59 – my own translation. 41. Gambetta, 2005b, p. VI. 42. Bloom, 2005, p. 76. 43. Hoffman, 2006, p. 26. See also Smelser, 2010.

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the fact that terrorists’ attacks must happen unexpectedly and out of the blue in order to have the intended effect upon the enemy 44. However, clandestinity or conspiracy – secrecy in Simmel’s words – is of much greater significance as it lies at the heart of a secret society’s purpose, thus triggering critical consequences for its members’ opportunity structures. The shared secret of those who participate in such a society in one or another way must be kept, the terrorists must have confidence in one another in order to keep it and protect the secret society. Just as concealment follows from the purpose of association, the characteristic trait of a secret society of terrorists is the violation of basic moral principles and standards. This violation, killing people who are both involved in an existing conflict and detached from it, cannot be legitimized; the attack affects peoples’ lives and their right to physical integrity in a way that disrupts the wider society’s “social ties.” If the members of the secret society keep what is happening confidential, the terrorists will have confidence in one another, perhaps even more confidence after a successful attack, and they will keep the shared secret that is essential for the group, thus protecting the secret society from being discovered. However, since the members necessarily know that their secret society’s practice breaks fundamental rules of social existence and that they therefore have to conceal the radical violation of both human rights and the victims’ right to physical integrity, what is afforded is an increased degree of confidence among them. As we have seen, confidence is always fragile and treason always feasible in secret societies. An attack with many innocent victims, or the experience of losing comrades, may be a shock to one or another of the terrorists. Even further experiences may shake their confidence in the just cause of their group or cell. Given the fundamental and serious violation of moral rules, we can assume that faith within the secret society of terrorists will necessarily require a particular stabilization by the secret society’s structure and culture in order to countervail anarchic processes that would threaten the very existence of the secret society. The recent debate on terrorist organizations as networks 45 should not conceal the fact that even these supposed network configurations are not allegories of an “ideal speech situation” but still rigidly organized groups. Hierarchical structures, the principle of order and obedience, even in less hierarchically structured organizations, and – especially in terrorist organizations 46 – the leaders’ charisma seems to be of the utmost importance for both social revolutionary terrorism and religiously inspired terrorism 47. In many cases, these structural traits complement each other. Further, this specific feature is combined with the secret society’s cultural aspect, i.e., its rituals, that on the one hand are related to either inclusion or specific activities that commit the members to one another and institutionalize regularities, reinforcing both their ties and their mutual monitoring. On the other hand, a cult of personality, a specific ritual, will effectively bind the individual member to the terrorist group. Thus, 44. This is part of the debate on terrorism as an asymmetrical conflict or even war. As terrorists are on the weaker side, they necessarily have to turn to clandestine attacks. But this is just a self‑evident aspect of both terrorism in general and suicide terrorism in particularly that can be applied to the Zealots‑Sicarii, the Thugs and Assassins as well as to today’s groups. See Rapaport, 1984. 45. Mayntz, 2004. 46. Crenshaw, 2011, p. 106‑107. 47. Post, 2006, 2007; Hassan, 2006.

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for example, not everybody could easily become a member of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), since “(active) fight is not something to be taken up by everybody; on the contrary, the ritual acceptance into the movement is quite tough and elaborate, it is a society in itself 48.” Strong discipline, swearing an everyday oath to the leader Velupillai Prabhakaran as well as wearing a capsule of cyanide were important rituals for the relation between members and their leader 49. And even for the elected members of the LTTE. the way to become a Black Tiger followed a prescribed ritual as the cadre had to apply in writing to Prabhakaran who then decided, after careful inspection 50, whether a person would be allowed to become part of the organization’s elite troops, the Black Tigers, who might then launch suicide attacks. There are numerous examples of this cult of personality in terrorist organizations, with rituals serving to establish an imagined personal relation between leader and member that strengthens the latter’s faith and confidence by transforming it into a personal dependence on the charismatic leader. Thus, the structural characteristics of hierarchy and the effectiveness of rituals fulfill the function of stabilizing the secret society of terrorists, since they are crucial for the interactions between the members of the group of terrorists on the one hand, as they both stabilize the social relations and generate a specific dynamics that counteracts the secret society’s fragility; on the other hand, structural and cultural traits of the secret society of terrorists generate specific opportunity structures that channel and constrain the alternatives for action of its members. Finally, with respect to the effects of social closure 51, we observe an increasing level of concealment with respect to terrorist groups. We have already seen that in the case of terrorism, the shared knowledge among the members has to be profoundly exclusive. However, and even more importantly, Simmel’s deeper insight that to be a member of a criminal band implies a specific freedom from moral bonds is critical. What happens to the members of a terrorist group, given an autonomy that as a consequence of social closure and detachment is structurally and culturally reinforced by the secret society? We can suppose that such a kind of autonomy might easily turn into anarchy, but it might then also serve as a means of legitimization in the sense of a suspension of moral obligation – for the individual to a kind of self‑justification of taking part in an extreme act of violence in the course of a terrorist attack. This brief analysis of the specific aspects of the secret society of terrorists illustrates how critical the social relations within the band of criminals become for understanding the behavior of terrorists. “Immensely strong forces promote cohesion and uniformity in such primary groups. Having entered a world of conspiracy and danger, the members are bound together before a common threat of exposure, imprisonment, or death. Theirs is truly a common fate. Each is responsible for the survival of the others and the group 52.” 48. Hellmann‑Rajanayagam, 1994, p. 66. 49. Hopgood, 2005, p. 66. 50. Elliott, 2003. 51. Neidhardt, 1981. 52. Crenshaw, 2011, p. 107.

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Thus, searching for personal motives or interests will not suffice. Instead, it is the dynamics that develop from an anarchic freedom and the stabilizing rigidity of rituals and hierarchies that are of importance. This is no contradiction, since to the extent that the society of terrorists ignores existing laws, moral rules, and their victims’ right to physical integrity, it is in need of some form of regulation with respect to the interest of the association, its concealment, the confidence the members have in one another, and the protection of the secret society that individuals perceive as their obligation. Hence, we should no longer look for personal characteristics or motives of terrorists but instead examine the specifics of the secret society’s social relations. What follows from the formal definition of groups of terrorists as secret societies? What are the consequences for this type of association and what can we say about the situation of its members? THE SECRET SOCIETY OF TERRORISTS AND THE BEHAVIORAL CONDITIONS FOR ITS MEMBERS

The main thesis of this article argues that we cannot make sense of both terrorism and suicide terrorism if we stick to individualist accounts. Although methodological individualists agree that terrorists’ organizations may be more important than the individual members, they do not discuss the ways in which these organizations both open up and close certain opportunities of behavior to their members. In an illuminating article on terrorist behavior, della Porta conceives clandestinity of terrorist groups to be strategically propagated in order to “ensure the organization’s control of its members through domination on the more private aspects of their lives. The underground groups required their members to provide such extreme ‘testimony’ of commitment as the total renunciation of privacy regarding both material and affective ties 53.” Nevertheless, we have to go beyond this strategic aspect since Simmel’s analysis shows that the “secret element in societies is a primary sociological fact 54” that triggers certain consequences for understanding both the social relations within the secret society and its members’ behavior. Given that, relative to the wider society, a secret society is a secondary entity, it necessarily impinges on the consciousness of its members: “The always perceptible and always to‑be‑guarded pathos of the secret lends to the form of union which depends upon the secret, as contrasted with the content, a predominant significance, as compared with other unions 55.” It is this specific constellation, i.e., the consciousness of being a society, that “makes it easy to understand that the specifications of form in the construction of secret societies attain to peculiar definiteness, and that their essential sociological traits develop as mere quantitative heightenings of quite general types of relationship 56.” What exactly does this mean, and what specifically do we learn with respect to the secret societies of terrorists? There are two main aspects to be discussed: first, the consequences of processes of social closure for both the self‑conception of the secret society and their impact on its members’ consciousness; second, the specific configuration of the secret society of terrorists and its impact on its members’ behavior. 53. Della Porta, 2012, p. 241. 54. Simmel, 1906, p. 483. 55. Simmel, 1906, p. 484. 56. Simmel, 1906, p. 485.

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The consequences of social closure: elitism, supporters, and ruthlessness As we have seen so far, social closure plays a crucial role in securing the existence of any kind of association. However, in the case of the secret society of terrorists, i.e., a criminal band in Simmel’s sense, we have seen that closing this association not only detaches it from the wider society but also accomplishes a radical break with valid moral imperatives. Therefore, in this case, closure has certain effects that allow for a deeper understanding of the secret society of terrorists: a self‑conception of the members of a secret society as an elite group, the significance of supporters that are only partly initiated into the interest of association, and a specific ruthlessness in pursuing its goal. Elitism as a self‑conception In the case of the secret society of terrorists, social closure, detachment from the wider society, and a break with its moral imperatives, is crucial insofar as terrorists’ self‑conception usually implies that they fight for a kind of new social order that is superior to the existing one. “Terrorists of both right and left seem to see themselves as a morally superior elite to whom conventional standards of behavior do not apply. They perceive their mission as an obligation, not a choice 57.” Regardless of whether we look at religious or social revolutionary terrorism, any terrorist group claims to liberate people from (global) capitalism by establishing a socialist regime or by realizing anarchism, to bring them a social order that will be agreeable to a god or some other power. Secret societies of terrorists such as the Red Army Faction (RAF) in Germany 58 or the Red Brigades in Italy 59 as well as Hezbollah, Palestinian Organizations, LTTE, the Turkish Kurdish separatist group PKK, and, finally, al Qaeda 60 claim to know what is right and what is wrong as they turn either into revolutionaries or martyrs. They clearly separate themselves from the masses in whose name they justify what they are doing, and even the lack of support from the very same masses was seen to be “a sign of superiority 61”: “As a consequence of the fact that those who want to distinguish themselves enter into combination, there results an aristocracy which strengthens and, so to speak, expands the self‑consciousness of the individuals through the weight of their sum 62.” For Simmel, it is merely the formal fact of closure that may lead a group to see itself as elite. However, following from Weber’s logic of social closure, one should assume that this self‑conception arises from the “resource” or “good” that is monopolized by closure processes. In the case of a terrorist group, this good will certainly be the knowledge about the organization, its structure, and aims as well as being a member of a closed and elected circle following the ideas of a charismatic leader. 57. Crenshaw, 2011, p. 93. 58. Neidhardt, 1981; Hess et al., 1988; Kraushaar, 2006. 59. Della Porta, 1995; Jamieson, 1990; Maconi, 2008. 60. Pedahzur, 2005, cf. Khosrokhavar, 2005. 61. Della Porta, 2012, p. 243. 62. Simmel, 1906, p. 486.

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Supporters as partially included In accordance with basic insights of Max Weber’s 63 analysis of social closure in processes of social association, Simmel distinguishes different degrees of closure. Basically, the secret society completely closes itself off from the wider society. However, there are some people who are at least partly informed about the existence, interest, strategy, and practices of the secret society: “The circle of the only partially initiated constitutes to a certain extent a buffer area against the totally uninitiated 64.” In the case of the secret society of terrorists, this group can be defined as supporters who both serve as a link to members of the wider society and fulfill crucial tasks such as promoting terrorists’ ideas in public, recruiting new members, collecting money, etc. Among others, Bloom has shown how important relations to the wider society or the terrorist group’s own community will be for both its success and existence. 65 Ruthlessness as an attitude Based on the fact that the secret society of terrorists radically breaks with valid moral imperatives of the wider society and that social closure triggers an elitist self‑conception, we can observe that such a group pursues its purpose extremely ruthlessly. This radicalization in turn has consequences for its members: “For the consciousness of the individual this attitude very likely gets a moral justification from the fact that the group‑purposes in and of themselves have a super‑individual, objective character; that it is often impossible to name any individual who would directly profit from the operation of the group egoism; that conformity to this group program often demands unselfishness and sacrifice from its promoters. The point at issue here, however, is not the ethical valuation, but the detachment of the group, from its environments, which the group egoism effects or indicates 66.”

There can be no doubt that all these effects can be applied to the members of secret societies of terrorists. Moral rigorism characterizes any terrorist organization, a clear‑cut world view that distinguishes between “the good” and “the bad,” i.e., between “us” and “them,” the moral justification of the purposes of association by religion, politics, i.e., allegedly objective purposes. All this shows both the dynamics and effects that result from the specific organization of the social relations within the secret society of terrorists on the individual terrorist’s consciousness and it explains why and how terrorist groups behave, without referring to individual motives and interests 67. In sum, elitism, the partial inclusion of supporters and the secret society’s ruthlessness show that increased closure is complemented by an ever stronger integration inside the secret society that will further promote elitism, “since these are only the two sides or forms of 63. Weber, 1978. 64. Simmel, 1906, p. 489. 65. Bloom, 2005. 66. Simmel, 1906, p. 489. 67. Neidhardt, 1981.

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manifestation of one and the same sociological attitude 68.” Sociologically, this process expresses an important process of interaction (Wechselwirkung) that Simmel conceived as one of the most important social dynamics. Against this background, we can now turn to the secret society’s impact on the behavior of its members. The secret society’s triggering of conditions of behavior among it members Terrorist behavior cannot be explained by simply referring to individual’s motives and interests but from an analysis of the impacts of the specific kind of social relations of terrorist organizations. That is to say, terrorist behavior is a consequence of the structural conditions of the secret society of terrorists. As secrecy is a primarily sociological fact, it has consequences for both the secret society and its individual members. The discussion so far has made explicit fundamental differences between society and secret society, the main consequence being that the latter is a secondary entity that necessarily impinges on its members’ consciousness and behavior. It is quintessential for a secret society that it creates a system which members are unable to leave. As they are bound to one another by rituals, commitments, a distinct hierarchy, the principle of order and obedience, and the feeling of being elite and omnipotent, the secret society reconfirms itself, while its members reconfirm each other and remain loyal to their association. However, in his analysis of internal dynamics within the German RAF, Friedhelm Neidhardt has shown that these processes cannot be based solely on feelings of loyalty but need a stronger basis: “Single motives require mutual support in systems of meaning that enable the individual to both interpret his or her world relatively coherently and to legitimize his actions for him or herself 69.” Such constructions of meaning are facilitated by developing an everyday theory that explains to the members of the secret society coherently, simply, and consistently why they are doing what they are doing. Further, techniques of rationalizing make it possible to create a unitary world view, while techniques of immunizing make it possible to negate experiences that members have outside the secret society and that contradict their beliefs and activities 70. Finally, modes of neutralizing help to define an individual’s own violence as simply functional: “To have a feeling of being at war simply justifies the moral state of emergency and offers relief through reference to analogies provided in abundance by history’s battlefields. The opponent is the enemy; to kill him is a soldier’s duty. Moral consequences can be turned into technical ones. To murder then simply means ‘to inflict losses’ 71.”

Taking these consequences into consideration, we can detect further mechanisms that will explain why and how the secret society as a society in itself affects its members’ behavior. 68. Simmel, 1906, p. 491. 69. Neidhardt, 1981, p. 253 – my own translation. 70. Neidhardt, 1981, p. 253‑254. 71. Neidhardt, 1981, p. 255 – my own translation.

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Avoiding conflict and contradiction It is evident that the wider society, i.e., the market, state, family, etc., makes a great number of demands on the individual that necessarily generate conflicts and contradictions. It is well known that conflicts in role sets or among status sets are constitutive in modern societies and need to be solved through the workings of social mechanisms 72. Such conflicts cease to exist as a result of the exceptional positioning of the secret society: “In secret societies, in view of their sociological isolation, such collisions are very much restricted. The purposes and programs of secret societies require that competitive interests from that plane of the open society should be left outside the door 73.”

This is an important consideration that goes some way to explaining why it is so unsatisfactory to answer the question of how people are able to assassinate others by referring to psychopathology or by assuming the perpetrators to be barbarians. Instead, we should assume that it is the structural supersession or the secret society’s decoupling from all systemic and moral references that make the life of specialists in violence seem to be detached from “real” life. Thus, the causes can be detected in the specific structure of the social relations of the secret society that generate its specific traits which are completely opposed to those of the wider society. Sovereignty and anarchy Given the anarchic character of terrorist organizations that violate all the moral standards and rules of a society, there is a structural counterweight with respect to the type of domination within them: “Since the secret society occupies a plane of its own – few individuals belonging to more than one secret society – it exercises a kind of absolute sovereignty over its members. This control prevents conflicts among them which easily arise in the open type of co‑ordination 74.”

This unconditional domination that “requires total commitment from an inner core of militants 75” can be seen as a structural buffer against the secret society’s autonomous/anarchical character in order to generate and secure the society’s integration: “Corresponding with the peculiar degree of cohesion within secret societies is the definiteness of their centralization. They furnish examples of an unlimited and blind obedience to leaders, such as occurs elsewhere of course; but it is the more remarkable here, in view of the frequent anarchical and negative character toward all other law. 72. Merton, 1957. 73. Simmel, 1906, p. 491. 74. Simmel, 1906, p. 491‑492. 75. Crenshaw, 2012, p. 251.

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The more criminal the purposes of a secret society, the more unlimited is likely to be the power of the leaders, and the more cruel its exercise 76.”

The authority of leaders is critical as an “underground organization creates dependence on central leadership,” while the “authority of leaders within extremist undergrounds may be based on command of ideology (intellectual authority), operational expertise (military authority), or charisma (personal authority) 77.” Crenshaw’s last point is crucial for coming to terms with the role of leaders of terrorist groups if we take a look at the leader of Peru’s Sendero Luminoso (the Shining Path), for instance: “Ultimately, however, all power flowed from a single individual, President Gonzalo (Guzmán’s nom de guerre). He was the group’s founder, ideologist, strategist, and internal contradiction synthesizer, and explicitly fostered a ‘cult of personality’ within the membership. All other leaders, from the Central Committee on down, were subordinate 78.”

Beyond this undisputed role of the leader, the figure of the leader is crucial to the group’s existence, given that for “destructive charismatic terrorist movements, such as Peru’s Sendero Luminoso (the Shining Path), and the Turkish Kurdish separatist group the PKK, when the authoritarian charismatic leader is killed or captured, as was the case with Guzman of Sendero Luminoso, and Ocalan of the PKK, it is a mortal blow to the organization 79.” Particularly in the case of terrorist underground groups, we can assume a very extreme form of such a structure to the extent that this kind of a secret society detaches itself from the legitimate norms and values of the wider society, creating for itself a particular kind of freedom that has to be complemented by a strictly enforced cohesion: “The excess of freedom, which such societies possessed with reference to all otherwise valid norms, had to be offset, for the sake of the equilibrium of interests, by a similar excess of submissiveness and resigning of the individual will 80.”

Crenshaw further remarks that some “undergrounds form a kind of counterculture, resembling that of religious cults or youth gangs. Illegality isolates the members of the group from society and encourages the development of distinctive values, norms, and standards of behavior. The collectivity usually demands the complete obedience of members 81.” Again, as Post shows in a somewhat pointed way, we can refer to the leaders’ role of guiding the members of terrorist groups: “The hate‑mongering leader plays a crucial organizing role, provides a ‘sense‑making’ explanation for what has gone wrong in their lives, identifying the external enemy as 76. Simmel, 1906, p. 492. 77. Crenshaw, 2012, p. 251. 78. Palmer, 2007, p. 95. 79. Post, 2005, p. 632. 80. Simmel, 1906, p. 492. 81. Crenshaw, 2012, p. 251.

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the cause, as well as drawing together into a collective identity otherwise disparate individuals who may be discontented and aggrieved, but who, without the powerful presence of the leader, will remain isolated and individually aggrieved 82.”

Given such conditions, it seems obvious to restrain from examining individuals’ ideas and motives in order to find adequate answers to the question of why some human beings kill others in terrorist attacks. The sociological analysis of the secret society’s structure shows unmistakably that while terrorists do act in a context stripped of valid norms, their operations are restricted by an extremely rigid command structure that is of utmost importance. This enormous extent of both enforcement and centralized authority is a consequence of the specific structural situation by which the criminal band is detached from other circles while at the same time surrounded by them and “when it mingles with this society in many radiations and actions, and when it is seriously threatened with treachery and diversion of interests the moment the most invariable attachment to one center ceases to prevail 83.” Self‑abnegation and de‑individualization The specific structure of both the secret society itself and its structure of domination have profound consequences for the individual member, as unconditional subordination under a centralized authority implies a process of both a loss of individuality and of self‑abnegation: “In case the society does not have promotion of the interests of its individual members as its immediate purpose, and, so to speak, does not go outside of itself, but rather uses its members as means to externally located ends and activities in such case the secret society in turn manifests a heightened degree of self‑abnegation, of leveling of individuality, which is already an incident of the social state in general, and with which the secret society outweighs the above‑emphasized individualizing and differentiating character of the secrecy 84.”

This is the very point of the analysis where it becomes clear that we cannot neglect the role of the terrorist organization with respect to its members’ behavior. The secret society of terrorists devalues the individual, turning him or her into a means to an end. This “loss of individual identity 85” that della Porta emphasizes can be seen as a “fusing of the individual to the group (…). As individual identity succumbs to the organization, there is no room for individuality – individual ideas, individual identity, and individual decision‑making while at the same time self‑perceived success becomes more and more linked to the organization 86.” This does not mean to exculpate terrorists from what they are doing or what they have done but to take this very specific structural condition into consideration in explaining the phenomenon of terrorist behavior: hierarchy, cult of 82. Post, 2005, p. 622. 83. Simmel, 1906, p. 493. 84. Simmel, 1906, p. 494‑495. 85. Della Porta, 2012, p. 241. 86. Post, 2005, p. 629.

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personality, unlimited power of leaders, discipline, the principle of order and obedience are all structural traits that prepare the ground for members of the secret society to be treated very ruthlessly, while individuality ceases to play a role. In this sense, to ask why and how terrorists could do what they did is like asking how loving husbands can be war criminals, how friendly neighbors can take part in ethnic massacres, etc. 87. However, as in the case of terrorism, we cannot explain these problems adequately by referring to individual traits, ideas, motives, or propensities. At this point, the secret society’s ritual intervenes, thereby intensifying the process of de‑individualization: “The hierarchical order admits the individual merely as agent of a definite rôle; it likewise holds in readiness for each participant a conventional garb, in which his personal contour disappears 88.” Within the despotic character of the secret society, all individuality vanishes and self‑abnegation becomes worse, while the rulers enforce a leveling of the ruled that emphasizes the brotherhood of the members. This process is a widespread feature of both religious groups and illegal secret societies 89. Simmel points to one further and important aspect related to the formal identification of the social relations within secret societies. He argues that this “depersonalizing, in which the secret society carries to an excessive degree a typical relationship between individual and society, appears finally as the characteristic irresponsibility 90.” There is a plurality of means of anonymization by which the responsibility of the individual for his or her own actions can be denied or even be made to disappear. CONCLUSION

The present article has argued that sociological explanations of terrorist behavior linked to the “usual explanatory machine” in sociology are not convincing. The search for motives and interests of terrorists will not help us adequately understand the social dynamics that might explain why these people do what they do. Starting from Georg Simmel’s formal study of the secret society, this article has made the sociological fact of “secrecy” the lynchpin of its analysis. This contribution to the wide debate on this critical and pressing question takes context seriously and argues in favor of explaining individual behavior as a consequence of opportunity structures that channel it. Both Simmel’s analysis of the secret society and his general relational sociological perspective stress the contradictions that underlie individuals’ situation and the generation of their opportunity structures. Thus, by taking secrecy seriously, the article has brought to light why terrorist behavior is such a puzzling phenomenon. Instead of asking how human beings are able to perform violent acts that we call terrorism, we should ask “how can the sociological fact of secrecy generate the social relations within a secret society of terrorists so as to produce conditions of behavior that make the triggering of terrorist behavior comprehensible”?

87. Conroy, 2000; Welzer, 2005. 88. Simmel, 1906, p. 495. 89. Simmel, 1906, p. 495. 90. Simmel, 1906, p. 496.

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Given that the secret society of terrorists creates a society or even a world in itself, a number of Simmel’s general sociological insights for coming to terms with the dynamics of the social relations in such societies come to the fore 91. With regard to terrorist behavior, the present article has discussed fundamental processes of interaction (Wechselwirkung) that are characterized by three attributes: the relational aspect, the tension between life and form, and the course of processes of interaction. 1. Relationality: Contrary to approaches that refer to either methodological individualism or even the psychology of terrorism in order to explain terrorist behavior, we should concentrate on the specific social relations within terrorist groups, i.e., between the members on the one hand and between members and leaders on the other hand. From this point of view, we then have to ask how these kinds of social interactions impinge on individuals’ autonomy and their attitudes, as well as on their emotional sensitivities. Thus, Simmel’s sociology allows us to come to terms with the individual aspect of our problem, i.e., it allows us to understand “what motivates terrorists,” without referring to a reductionist approach. 2. Tension between life and form: This second aspect of the concept of Wech‑ selwirkung refers to an essential tension that is triggered as soon as individuals strike up these social interactions. People can lead their lives only through social interactions, thereby creating specific social forms since social relations can only exist within such forms. Thus, as a social form, the secret society enables terrorists to do what they intend to do; at the same time, it imposes restrictions on their lives and the scope of what they can actually do. The social form generates a specific opportunity structure that also has serious consequences for life within terrorist groups. This basic contradiction increases over time as both, life and form, gain momentum. What people have created, for instance, a terrorist group, is inclined to develop its own life that creates new structural constraints for its members. 3. The typical course of processes of interaction: Dynamics of Wechselwirkungen are not usually linear processes; instead, they can be understood as circular processes since one element in a social process may have repercussions on the other and be the cause of the next process taking place; cause and effect may change to the opposite as these processes gain momentum. This theoretical model allows Simmel to reject simple causal arguments. With respect to an explanation of terrorist behavior, we can thus reject efforts to explain terrorists’ behavior simply by either hypothesizing about their (or their organization’s) motives or interests or the terrorists’ state of mind. Against this background, social processes of Wechselwirkungen are always characterized by opposing forces such as public and secrecy, conformity and individuality, solidarity and antagonism, assimilation and rebellion, liberty and constraint that characterize social life within a specific social form. Given that, the present contribution has taken Simmel’s analysis of the secret society as a specific social form in order to come to terms with the dynamics that can enable us to understand and explain terrorist behavior. It has specified the critical contradictions and antagonisms of social life within a secret society of terrorists as a particular social form. We might conclude from 91. See Nedelmann, 2006 for a brief analysis of Simmel’s sociology.

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this analysis that terrorist behavior is the outcome of highly complex processes within the secret society of terrorists. As we know very little about the interior life of terrorist groups, we should be careful to avoid over‑simplified explanations that do not take into consideration the specific contradictory and antagonistic forces within terrorist groups, given that secrecy is a critical sociological fact.

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The secret society and the social dynamics of terrorist behavior.

The article argues that individualist accounts cannot adequately explain the social dynamics of terrorist behavior as they turn analyses of terrorism ...
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