Testing Theories of Radicalization in Polls of U.S. Muslims

Abstract

Four national polls of Muslim Americans conducted between 2001 and 2007 were reviewed to find items tapping possible sources of sympathy and justification for jihadist violence: anti‐Muslim discrimination, radical Islam, and economic and political grievance. These items were correlated with items representing three elements of the global‐jihad frame: seeing the war on terrorism as a war on Islam or “insincere,” justifying suicide attacks in defense of Islam, and favorable views of Al Qaeda. The three elements of the global‐jihad frame were no more than weakly related to one another and had different predictors. Discussion suggests that the U.S. “war of ideas” may need to target separately the different elements of the global‐jihad frame.