title: The secret society and the social dynamics of terrorist behavior.
abstract: The article argues that individualist accounts cannot adequately explain the social dynamics of terrorist behavior as they turn analyses of terrorism into analyses of terrorists. A relational approach that concentrates on the social relations between terrorist organizations and their members would be able to do this, however. Therefore, the article presents a formal analysis that makes the "secret society" of terrorists the lynchpin of an explanation of how terrorist organizations shape the behavioral conditions of volunteers and suicide terrorists in a manner that triggers a type of behavior we might call terrorism.
authors.affiliation: Lehrstuhl für Allgemeine Soziologie, Universität Potsdam, Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät, August-Bebel-Straße 89, D-14482, Potsdam, Deutschland, juergen.mackert@uni-potsdam.de.
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mackert
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D011593:Psychology, Social; D023481:Terrorism / Q000523:psychology*