Analysing a leaked cache of Islamic State’s personnel records that was recently made available to researchers, a new World Bank analysis has found the factors most strongly associated with foreign individuals’ joining the organisation have to do with lack of economic and social inclusion in their country of residence. The analysis finds that terrorism cannot be associated with poverty or low levels of education.
It found strong association between a country’s male unemployment rate and the propensity of that country to supply the IS recruits, but could not detect any robust correlation between the propensity to be a supplier of recruits and the measures of socio-economic diversity such as the Gini coefficient (measures income inequality) and measures of fractionalisation that capture ethnic, linguistic, or religious diversity. Wealthier countries (as measured by their per capita GDP) are more likely to supply foreign recruits. The researchers found similar patterns on using the Human Development Index as a proxy for economic development.
The dataset that covers the period from early 2013 to late 2014 has basic socio-economic information on 3,803 unique foreign recruits of the organisation including country of residence, citizenship, marital status, age, education, skills, self-reported knowledge of religious teachings, previous jihadist experience and knowledge of Sharia. The analysis published last month in a World Bank report was prepared by a team of economists led by its Chief Economist of the Middle East and North Africa Region, Shanta Devarajan.
“We find that Daesh (IS) did not recruit its foreign workforce among the poor and less educated, but rather the opposite,” the researchers wrote. “Policies that promote job creation, therefore, not only benefit young people seeking jobs, but may help thwart the spread of violent extremism....”
IS’s recruits came from all continents. The top five countries supplying recruits were Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Morocco, Turkey and Egypt. Among the non-Muslim-majority countries, Russia, France, and Germany supply the largest numbers of IS’s foreign workforce.
The average age of foreign recruit in the data was 27.4 years old. The youngest recruits were from Libya (23.7 years of age on average) and the oldest were from Indonesia (33.5 years of age on average). Sixty-nine per cent of the recruits reported at least a secondary education. Only 15 per cent left before high school and less than 2 per cent were illiterate. Foreign recruits from West Asia, North Africa and South and East Asia are significantly more educated than what is typical in their region, though the researchers leave open the possibility that recruits could be overestimating their education.
During interviews, of the 30 per cent of IS recruits who declared their preferences, 1.9 per cent said they preferred to work in administrative positions, 17.2 per cent as fighters, and 11.7 per cent in suicide operations.
Aspiring administrators were relatively more represented among Sub-Saharan African and South and East Asian countries. Fighters are most common in Eastern Europe and non-European OECD countries. North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia produce the largest proportions of suicide fighters.
Recruits who reported not working or being in the military before joining IS were the most prone to choosing “suicide fighter” as their preferred option.
