Perish the thought that economic factors drive suicide terrorism

Many Kenyans are rightly concerned by both the frequency and gravity of violent attacks against civilians that have become commonplace in the last three years.

The question is asked about the causes and the solutions, starting with the Westgate attack and culminating with the murder of scores of students and other citizens in Garissa a fortnight ago.

The usual posh and serious have expressed opinions that the attraction of young men to suicide terrorism can be explained by a number of economic variables.

They carry on the conversation as if it is undeniable that economic drivers are the primary cause of this problem of public security.

Their simple theory states that economic deprivation among young men manifests itself in unemployment and makes individuals more susceptible to recruitment to violent groups.

It seems sensible because it suggests that the perpetrator of terrorism is a victim of economic circumstances, so Kenya’s posh and serious pontificators cite it again and again, as if it were an established credo of economic science.

This loose theory of poverty as a driver of terrorism is not only bereft of economic logic, but also dangerous, because it complicates discourse on pragmatic means for reducing risks to the public.  

To start with, the foremost scholars who have studied connections between factors of deprivation such as income, employment and lack of education, solidly refute this theory.

Good analysis from major social sciences and economics shows that the incidence of crimes in society is not strongly related to employment or other economic factors.

Alan Krueger long agosummarised the history of solid findings that explode the theory connecting proxy measures of economic deprivation to serious crime, including terrorism.

That this theory persists in our public discourse shows that the understanding of the problem is incomplete, but more seriously that the knowledge that forms policy formulation in Kenya is depressingly obsolete.

This error in public reasoning, of attributing crime to a falsified theory, is important for a second reason. Belief in this theory would imply that the supply of criminals and potential terrorists should be unbelievably high, yet violent criminals have not overwhelmed the society because most poor people are not inclined to disrupt social harmony.

It is clear that while poor people may have few material possessions, they have a far higher regard for their lives than the purveyors of this false theory acknowledge. To equate poverty with violence and crime is to be patronising to the poor.  

It should not be difficult to bury this preposterous theory but for the fact policy makers such as State officers responsible for Kenya’s security cite it frequently.

One has heard again and again, that the youth are disillusioned and therefore susceptible to radical teaching.

Flowing from this statement is the perception that a good solution is to ensure that the youth have jobs and are kept busy.  It ought to be clear that this solution is unlikely to work, because the individuals who adopt the ideology of suicide terror are unlikely to be mollified with a well-paid job.

Lots of public treasure will be spent in public works, construction of walls and training schemes in the guise of preventing radicalisation, to no avail. As Alan Krueger states, “Policies intended to dampen the flow of people willing to join terrorist organisations, by contrast, strike me as less likely to succeed.”

Robert Pape is another scholar with impeccable credentials in the study of this subject. In hisbookpublished in 1995, he catalogues the characteristics of individuals who execute terror missions and confirms the counter-intuitive finding that they tend to be well educated, more intelligent than average and not driven by desire for economic gains. 

The social and individual logic that drives this form of crime is not remotely related to economic pressures or gains.

In my view, the 'poverty as a push towards terror' theory fails in many ways, but it is convenient. The problem with complex policy problems is that they do not lend themselves to off-the-shelf solutions such as ‘more jobs for the boys’.

Because the diagnosis is wrong, the prescription is incorrect too. It’s a double tragedy that while the risks to public security remain unresolved, ignorant pundits fill newspaper articles with pleas for togetherness and provision of economic incentives to criminals who will not be moved by them.

Kwame Owino is the Chief Executive Officer of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA-Kenya), a public policy think tank based in Nairobi. Twitter: @IEAKwame