We can now describe the methodology used in the work reported on in this paper. The methodology can be applied to a variety of problems with similar characteristics to the suicide bomber problem dealt with in this paper. The methodology consists of five steps:
1) Identify a specific problem which will be addressed through the development of an associated construct model. Under most circumstances, the problem will be something which is narrow in scope, but difficult to measure by an external observer. The specific problem dealt with in this effort is “what do Hamas recruiters look for when recruiting suicide bombers?”
2) Develop a path model of the primary attributes terrorists look for in recruitment of suicide bombers. Since terrorist organizations and their leadership cannot be interviewed directly, this preliminary path model (with “latent variables” alone) will be based on a literature review and the recommendations of a panel of terrorism experts. The construct model will represent as comprehensively as is possible the coupling between the issue being evaluated and its causal elements. It should be noted that it is not the role of the panel of experts to judge the validity of the different theories, but rather to help enumerate as many of the theories debated by the community as is possible. Also in the second step, indirect measures for each of the constructs in the path model will be determined. For each measure, questions will be developed. For example, a commonly proposed motivation for suicide bombing is economic distress. While “economic factors” seems a simple concept, it is actually a fairly complex state with a variety of different aspects—individuals for whom economic factors are important might display a lack of job opportunities, as well as endeavor to help their families though the financial reward promised to bombers. These factors serve as the indirect measures for each construct. Thus, for the construct “economic factors,” the questions arising from the indirect measures might be “how important is financial reward for your family?,” “how good are your job prospects?,” and “how wealthy is your family, relative to its peers?” Each of these three questions get at an aspect of “economic factors,” and serves as indicators of the underlying phenomena. The questions will be aggregated into a survey to be distributed to experts on suicide terrorism.
3) Collect data to populate the model by answering the survey. Under ideal conditions, the survey developed in step two can be administered directly to members or former members of the terrorist organization in question. However, since this sort of direct data is unlikely to be available, alternate sources of data are needed. We pursue two possibilities in this project, biographical data, and expert-provided data.
4) Analyze the data using PLS in conjunction with the path model to rank order the identified explanations regarding the organization’s decisions.
5) Develop a set of recommendations that address the most significant explanations (identified by the highest couplings in the PLS models) while being sensitive to the constraints of the data collection.
While the methodology proposed in this section is focused on suicide attackers, it should be modifiable to a variety of situations in which information is needed to be gathered from an uncooperative organization. It should be noted, however, that the methodology is not intended to discover new explanations to answer the questions, but instead to integrate, weigh and compare existing explanations. So, for example, the integrated analysis would be able to estimate that social factors are twice as important as economic factors in recruitment decisions of suicide bombers. It would not discover a new, previously un-theorized factor in the decision process; although, large residuals might point to the need to find a missing variable that might explain the differences.
