Terror Politics Isn’t About Policy
The "strategic" model of terrorism … posits that people resort to terrorism … when they believe the political gains of terrorism minus the political costs are greater than if they engaged in some other, more peaceful form of protest. … Max Abrahms … argues that … seven tendencies are seen in terrorist organizations all over the world … [that] directly contradict the theory that terrorists are political maximizers … Abrahms has an alternative model to explain all this: People turn to terrorism for social solidarity. He theorizes that people join terrorist organizations worldwide in order to be part of a community, much like the reason inner-city youths join gangs in the United States.
The evidence supports this. Individual terrorists often have no prior involvement with a group’s political agenda, and often join multiple terrorist groups with incompatible platforms. Individuals who join terrorist groups are frequently not oppressed in any way, and often can’t describe the political goals of their organizations. People who join terrorist groups most often have friends or relatives who are members of the group, and the great majority of terrorist are socially isolated: unmarried young men or widowed women who weren’t working prior to joining.
HT to Larry D’anna.
pdf, I'd say the overall activities of churches can mostly be explained by the motives you describe for "most attendees"; some leaders may want something else, but they don't get much of it.
How far do the goals of [churches/businesses/agencies] differ from the goals of their [church/business/agency] folk?
Quite a bit, actually. I would say that many (esp. fundamentalist) churches are headed by people whose main goal is a cash cow, or a group of followers. For business, the goal would be a cash cow, and for agencies (not sure what you mean here) political influence.
But churches and terrorist organizations are fundamentally opposed to agencies and businesses in that the former are volunteer organizations, and the latter not. So I'd say the best comparison would be with churches.
And in churches, I think you see the same pattern. Most attendees of church are not very serious at all, and go to make themselves feel better about their spirituality (or their kids') and to use the social aspect of churchgoing to their advantage. These people don't have a huge influence on the directions a church goes, though their donations mean that the church can't ignore their desires.