The Organized Nature of Suicide Missions: A Comparative Study.

Suicide terrorism is rising around the world, but there is a great deal of uncertainty as to why. Existing accounts of suicide terrorism focus on personal alienation, economic and poverty indicators, religious extremism and psychological theories that tackle individual explanations of the phenomenon. However, such individual and psychological accounts of suicide bombings while provide an extremely valuable insights, cannot really explain the specificity and proliferation of suicide terrorism, which is an organizational phenomenon. This paper analyzes the formation of violent dissent movements, specifically the phenomenon of suicide bombings, as an extreme strategy for organized national liberation. It looks at historical precursors to the collective organized suicide missions since 1981 in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq with particular focus on the investigation of potential factors that led to the organizational promotion and execution of suicide missions. From the organizational perspective human body is merely a functional vessel that can be detonated at a carefully planned location and with precise timing, in order to cause the most damage, and attract attention towards specific political and national goals. I apply Alexander Bogdanov's systems framework of organizational theory that views organizations as complex, dynamic and goal-oriented vehicles that frame issues, organize infrastructure, recruit and implement, and Robert A. Pape's "the strategic logic of terrorism" rational choice approach which views suicide mission organizers as rational actors who choose suicide missions as a tactic that is financially feasible, simple, and is designed to intimidate carefully selected local and international audiences. Comparing organizational nature of suicide missions across cases I find that suicide missions are more likely to be endorsed by organizations as a specific political tactic under conditions of: 1) foreign occupation; 2) presence of religious difference between occupier and occupied; 3) presence of ethnic and national strife, as competition between different groups for political and ideological direction of the country is taking place. This paper provides detailed comparative analysis of the organized nature of suicide missions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]