Reflecting on the extent to which poverty may contribute to VE provides a really good illustration of the challenge posed by investigating (or weighing claims about) the role of multilevel determinants in VE - something many of my students have a tough time with initially. 1/ https://twitter.com/JamesKhalil1/status/1167359193147486208

To wit: they find it hard to accept that (as a thought experiment) every single violent extremist we know could be filthy rich and we still wouldn't be able to claim that poverty *doesn't* play a role in VE - the individual fallacy. 2/

Or - another thought experiment - that every single VE event could occur systematically in economically disadvantaged communities, and yet we still couldn't assert that only economically disadvantaged people get involved in VE - the ecological fallacy. 3/

Even that only scratches the surface of the complexity behind the underlying question - i.e. does poverty explain VE? - because, leaving aside for a minute the thorny problem of what we even mean by poverty, poverty could be a determinant at any and all levels of analysis 4/

- susceptibility, selection, situation/settings, social ecology or system. #S5

On top of that, poverty could be causally effective at any and all stages of the VE involvement process (development, engagement, action). 5/

To wholly rule out (or rule in) poverty as a determinant in VE, you'd have to create a grid (levels x stages) and test all possible effects in each cell in different contexts and at different times. 6/

Poverty is often treated as an individual-level motivator for VE engagement or action. (We tend to default to treating multilevel factors as individual motivators - for which I blame methodological individualism.). But that's only one of many processes poverty could effect. 7/

Off the cuff:

1) Poverty could affect differential susceptibility by shaping developmental conditions (e.g. disadvantaged parents and/or communities could rear more children with weaker commitments to law-relevant moral systems or weaker executive capabilities). 8/

2) Poverty could affect selection for exposure to radicalising and/or extremist motivational settings (e.g. extremist groups could target poorer individuals for recruitment or target some specific skilled group whose members are incidentally poor; 9/

extremist settings could, incidentally, be found in places where mostly poor people live; perception of economic injustice could move individuals to take part in place-based activity where they directly or incidentally get exposed to extremist influence). 10/

3) Poverty could affect the characteristics of radicalising and/or motivational settings (e.g. levels of informal social control in a given setting could be low because people who live hand-to-mouth have other things to worry about than what potential extremists get up to; 11/

perception of [personal or vicarious] economic injustice promoted by radicalising agents could in fact motivate [frustrate or provoke] people to the point of carrying out extremist acts - literally moving them to action). 12/

4) Poverty could be a determinant of ecologies that support the emergence of radicalising and/or motivational settings (e.g. perceptions of economic strain could heighten group competition; undermine belief in collective efficacy; decrease trust in legitimate authorities; 13/

lack of public resources could contribute to the emergence of softer, more attractive (therefore motivating) targets, should there not be enough money to fund security measures). 14/

5) Poverty could be a systemic determinant or marker (e.g. poorer countries could refuse to take part in CT coalitions led by richer countries they see as competitors or former colonisers; 15/

poverty could drive the movement of populations towards new social ecologies, creating opportunities for the exposure of susceptible individuals to new, potentially risky settings down the line; 16/

poverty could undermine country governance capability, impeding CT and CVE activities; norm entrepreneurs could instrumentalise economic injustice to exacerbate the perception of friction between social groups to support their own political ambitions... etc etc). 17/

Once you start thinking systemically, hypotheses proliferate. Ruling poverty (or most multilevel factors) in or out of VE causation is a tough one and I haven't even mentioned equifinality. My poor students. 18/18