By Ronald Wintrobe
Extremists are humans whose rules or strategies are considered as outdoor the mainstream. checked out this fashion, extremists usually are not inevitably twisted or evil. yet they are often, specifically once they are illiberal and violent. What makes extremists flip violent? This ebook assumes that extremists are rational: given their ends, they decide on the simplest capability to accomplish them. The research explains why extremist leaders use the strategies they do, and why they can be insensitive to punishment and to death. It additionally explains how rational humans should be encouraged to die for the reason. The booklet covers assorted elements of extremism akin to revolution, suicide terrorism, and international jihad. The arguments are illustrated with very important episodes of extremism, together with the French Revolution, the increase of nationalism in Yugoslavia below Milosevic, and the emergence of suicide terror and Al Qaeda at the present time
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Example text
Early in the book there is a striking revelation, drawn from the writings of the nineteenth-century French officer Ardant du Picq: [S]oldiers die in largest numbers when they run, because it is when they turn their backs to the enemy that they are least able to defend themselves. It is their rational acceptance of the danger of running that makes civilized soldiers so formidable, he [du Picq] says, that and the discipline which has them in its bonds. And by discipline he does not mean the operation of an abstract principle but the example and sanctions exercised by the officers of an organized force.
The unit that succeeds in remaining solidary, other things equal, wins the battle over the unit that does not. ” We will see that this idea that solidarity as a determinant of success applies in many other contexts as well. Of course, the likelihood of victory does not depend solely on solidarity. Other factors – the army’s size, its level of capital equipment, the ability of its generals and officers, and the strategies used – are important. 5) 34 Social Interactions, Trust, and Group Solidarity where P = the probability that the army wins the battle, as a function of S = the level of solidarity in the unit, where a unit is defined as the group engaged in a battle, K = the unit’s capital equipment, and L = the unit’s size.
32). So working-class solidarity required leadership and Leninism. In turn, in the early twentieth century, the specter of the communist movement gave birth to a form of extremism at the opposite pole in the form of fascism. The map of fascist movements in Europe follows closely if not exactly two other maps: that of defeat in World War I, and the map of attempts at a 38 Social Interactions, Trust, and Group Solidarity Bolshevik revolution during the period when communism seemed likely to spread beyond its borders at home (Paxton 2004, pp.
