A Neurobiological Approach to Foreign Policy Analysis: Identifying Individual Differences in Political Violence

A great deal of foreign policy analyses relies on social and environmental factors, or anecdotal evidence. In seeking to address this problem in a more systematic manner, we move from an investigation centered around state actors to one focused on variation in individual behavior accounting for the combination of social, cultural, environmental, psychological and biological differences. Our proposed approach to the study of political violence requires the integration of methods and skills from geneticists and neuroscientists with those in the behavioral and social sciences. Specifically we seek to introduce an approach to study political violence which : 1) quantifies the effects of genes, environments, and their interaction on behavior; 2) identifies specific genetic and environmental contexts that lead to such behavior; 3) develops a comprehensive model of the biological and social pathways to political violence; and 4) identifies populations under specific circumstances which pose a higher or lower prevalence for any specific genes, neurobiological or environmental mechanisms which pose an increased liability for political violence; 5) develops mechanisms to identify individuals within given populations who are most at risk for committing violence, as well as those most resistant to such action; and 6) creates environmental responses which can mitigate risk among those individuals . Various scholars have approached the study of foreign policy analysis from a variety of different frameworks. Some stress the cross cutting cleavages imposed by different levels of analysis (Starr, 2006), while others emphasize the importance of examining different topic areas (Hill, 2003) or countries (Beasley et al., 2001). Some authors acknowledge the critical impact of culture on outcome (Hudson, 2006), while others point to the decisive influence provided by leaders (Breuning, 2007). Yet, the vast majority of models in security studies have traditionally stressed the importance of states and institutions to the relative neglect, if not outright dismissal, of the individual level of analysis. Indeed, the vast majority of these models essentially ignore the variance in individuals’ personal attributes, including that of leaders, arguing that structural incentives provide sufficient explanation for state behavior (e.g. Waltz, 1979). From these higher order levels of analysis, the source of security threats rest on assessments of structural and objective indicators, such as an adversary’s military prowess, the nature of its political and economic institutions, or assumptions regarding the opponent’s intentions. Each of these perspectives has added important contributions to our understanding of the various factors which determine foreign policy design, implementation and analysis. However, while the focus of study in political violence has historically concentrated on the state, such state centered approaches have become increasingly obsolete since the end of the cold war. Events in the last few decades repeatedly demonstrate that this emphasis must shift to concentrate on individual actors. And if we direct our attention to an investigation of particular individuals, we must begin to account for individual differences among and between populations if we are to explain and predict differences in individual predilections to engage in political violence. The events of 9/11 provided a tragic illustration of the new challenges confronting policy makers from non-state actors. Influential actors operate outside the system of sovereign states, and present threats that are impossible to predict from within the rigid confines of traditional state-centered perspectives. Indeed, the greatest limitation of such traditional models lies in their myopic focus on the environment in which states operate, or a narrowed focus on aspects of the state itself, thereby ignoring the powerful and independent roles that individuals play in shaping the nature of international politics (Byman & Pollack, 2001). One of the increasingly critical features in all aspects of foreign policy analysis is the focus on the individual actor, whether it is Osama bin Laden, Hosni Mubarak, or Muammar Quaddifi, and the importance of personal agency in explaining important variations in international outcomes. As Hudson (2005: 1): writes, “(f)oreign policy analysis is characterized by an actor-specific focus, based upon the argument that all that occurs between nations and across nations is grounded in human decision makers acting singly or in groups.” And traditional state centered theories often provide little help in seeking to understand the actions or motivation of many aspects of foreign policy which are clearly driven by individual goals and incentives. The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 precipitated a renewed focus on the importance of individual non-state actors in changing world events. Rather than the previously expected clash between superpowers, a few determined individual actors crippled the world’s hegemon over the course of a few hours, with effects arguably more lasting and damaging than any other attack upon the US in the last half century. Indeed, this very event precipitated a series of high level decisions in American foreign policy which set the path for the United States to engage in two major wars which have lasted the better part of a decade, precipitated severe and enduring economic consequences and which show little signs of either victory or withdrawal. Prior to 9/11, the notion that the next war would be one fought against individual actors would have seemed ludicrous, as would the prospect that the United States would face the kind of economic ruin as a result of extreme defense spending which we precipitated among the Soviets in the 1980s and 1990s. Yet today, testimony from the Department of Defense before the House of Representatives declares that the US is “waging a war against individuals” (Feldman 2006). One of the problems with this challenge, of course, lies in the fact that without a state, victory becomes ephemeral because there is no one to surrender for all actors, and as long as a single person with the intention and means of causing damage survives, the conflict will continue. Strategic and tactical operations have changed to meet threats from the “individual”, yet the methods for understanding and properly characterizing individuals who engage in political violence in current scholarship have not yet caught up, despite urgent need: “...the same U.S. federal interagency report that documents the significant increase in funding for combating terrorism and reviews plans and activities by dozens of civil and military agencies reveals scant evidence of serious effort or funding to understand why individuals become, or to prevent individuals from becoming, terrorists in the first place” (Atran 2004). We argue this is true because the vast majority of foreign policy analyses which acknowledge the importance of individuals in determining significant outcomes rely on purely social and environmental factors, or anecdotal evidence. In seeking to address this problem in a more systematic manner, we move from an investigation centered around state actors to one focused on variations in individual behavior which account for the combination of social, cultural, environmental, psychological and biological differences. Technological and scientific advances in the last century have given researchers the ability to explore endogenous influences on behavior. The use of genetic, neurological, and neurochemical analyses have led to numerous psychological, medical and behavioral breakthroughs. Despite the valuable information gained however, none of the current methods in foreign policy carefully interrogate the endogenous underlying bases for individual differences in behavior. This is unfortunate because there is little question that complexities of human individual behavior cannot be fully understood without exploration into all forms of individual variance, including biological, neurological and genetic mechanisms (Kendler and Eaves 2005). This is true for political actors as well (Fowler and Schreiber 2008). Recent advances in the study of political and social behaviors allow for the opportunity to begin rectifying this lacuna in the foreign policy literature (for a review see Hatemi et al 2011). Our proposed approach to the study of political violence requires the integration of methods and skills from geneticists and neuroscientists with those in the behavioral and social sciences. Specifically we seek to introduce an approach to study political violence which : 1) quantifies the effects of genes, environments, and their interaction on behavior that is a threat to national security; 2) identifies specific genetic and environmental contexts that lead to such behavior; 3) develops a comprehensive model of the biological and social pathways to political violence; 4) identifies populations under special circumstances which pose a higher or lower prevalence for genetic, neurobiological or environmental mechanisms which pose an increased liability for political violence; 5) develops mechanisms to identify individuals within given populations who are most at risk for committing violence, as well as those most resistant to such action; and 6) creates environmental responses which can mitigate risk among predisposed individuals. Below we provide the details of supporting studies to warrant such an approach as the basis of developing a more comprehensive model for understanding the biological and environmental pathways that precipitate political violence. We introduce a powerful approach to the study of individual action in foreign policy analysis, which has a proven record in other behavioral domains. The approach combines genetic and biological analyses of individuals in the context of environmental triggers. Doing so provides a more complete picture of the causes and consequences of political violence in a world increasingly affected by individual actions and initiatives. This focus on individual behavioral variation is built upon well-developed models in psychiatric genetics developed to uncover those forces in the social environment that trigger predisposed individuals to act in distinct and predictable ways. Focusing on individual differences interacting with certain environments allows us to develop new tests to evaluate, assess, and screen threats that nation-states are likely to face in the future, and offer new suggestions for how best to prevent or mediate them. Certain individuals may Advocating for an Individual Approach to the Study of Political Violence prove more prone to successful recruitment into extremist fundamentalist groups, more likely to resort to political violence, and less able to resist the appeal of violent fundamentalist organizations than others given particular exacerbating or ameliorating conditions. Seeking to identify those most susceptible to commit political violence, when triggered, offers the possibility for more effective, targeted, programs to help mediate those very environmental triggers which prove most threatening for those at higher risk of committing violence. In this way, we provide a unique approach for understanding individual variation in motivation for engaging in, and responding to, political violence. In order to explicate the nature of these processes more systematically, we proceed by describing some of the existing literature designed to explain the sources of political violence, highlighting some of its remaining limitations. Next we introduce techniques drawn from behavioral genetics and describe how these models might apply to behaviors and traits relevant to the study of political violence. We then apply findings derived from earlier work on precursors to violence to suggest how interacting genes with particular environmental triggers might help scholars better identify the propensity for violence and distribution of risk within and across various populations. We hope that this approach might prove useful in helping to generate more effective prevention and protection strategies. Benefits of a Biological Approach Individual differences do not exist in a social, political or cultural vacuum. Rather, culture infuses and imbues meaning and purpose into the dispositions inherent within given individuals, helping to precipitate different behavior among similar individuals who develop in different environments. But biology also contributes to such variance as well, and such an understanding needs to be incorporated into any comprehensive model designed to explicate the sources of individual variance in proclivities for engaging in political violence. After all, why do only a small fraction of individuals residing in repressive political contexts engage in campaigns of terror to bring about their desired political changes? A great deal is known about the environmental conditions that determine various aspects of foreign policy. Still, no matter how comprehensive, explanatory models which fail to incorporate endogenous motivations for individual action inevitably account for only a fraction of the total variance of human behavior, suggesting the strong possibility that environmental determinants of political violence do not tell the entire story (e.g., Post, 2005). At a broader societal level, within a given population faced with the same environmental stressors, how is it that only a handful of individuals can jump on a grenade to save their comrades? Join an underground army to fight for their beliefs? Strap a bomb to themselves? Or, run a plane into a building? Thus, in spite of the obvious resentment among the 1.3 million inhabitants of the Gaza strip, only a very few actually engage in acts of terrorism. Of approximately 9,000 “Arab Terrorists” detained by Israeli security forces in Judea and Samaria, less than 400 were deemed to be potential suicide bombers. Of the approximately 800,000 Catholic residents of Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein commanded as much as 100,000 votes among Nationalists, but perhaps as few as 750 were active IRA soldiers. If the focus remains on the environment, then what is it that differentiates those who take violent action from those who do not among individuals who reside within the same environment? A primary advantage of a behavior genetic approach to the study of important topics in foreign policy analysis, such as terrorist motivation and action, lies in its complimentarity to other extant approaches. Rather than competing with existing approaches, a neurobiological perspective adds an additional dimension to the explanatory capacity of existing environment-only models. Such a neurobiological approach can help leaders and states develop novel ways to limit the development or recruitment of terrorists, or other violent political activists by helping to more accurately identify those individuals who pose the greatest risk or uncover the environmental conditions which offer the greatest protection against such action. Three critical features would help define such a behavioral genetic model as applied to political violence. First, it takes a large number of genetic, neurobiological and environmental factors to create behavior. Second, specific high risk environments have a stronger effect on individuals more genetically sensitive to specific triggers. And last, specific individuals at high genetic and social risk tend to self-select into environments that reinforce their specific vulnerability. No one person is genetically predisposed to be violent, nor is any one environment going to elicit violence 100% of the time. Rather, the behavioral genetic approach locates causality at precisely the intersection of individuals’ unique genetic predispositions and their specific social and environmental contexts. Through this approach, we offer a novel perspective on the role of individual differences in precipitating political violence. We suggest that scholars who wish to entertain a more comprehensive and accurate approach to understanding the precipitants of political violence would be well served by incorporating endogenous factors into their models of political leadership, behavior and action. Our main argument incorporates three major elements. First, political violence cannot be fully understood if we ignore individual differences between people embedded within cultures. Second, locating the sources of individual variance in willingness to harm others is especially important because the roots of political violence are multifactorial; they result from interactions between a large number of biological (genetic) and social (environmental) factors. Third, these forces might interact in ways which may differ profoundly within and between populations. Past Approaches to Political Violence In the traditional political science and policymaking literature surrounding the origins of political violence, three sets of arguments have been most commonly put forth. The first typically relate to divisions associated with the allocation of financial and economic resources and their distribution across society (Barber, 1996; Friedman, 2000). These arguments often mix with, overlap, and engage in rich dialogue with those which speak about the clash of cultures and civilizations which can also highlight and further societal and political fractures between rich and poor, Christian and Muslim, democrat and autocrat (Huntington, 1996; Fukuyama, 1996). While such arguments certainly help locate the social stage upon which environmental triggers make their play, they do little to help explain the reasons why individual actors differ in the way they play their scenes within the confines of the set onto which they are born. The third set of arguments focus on the role of the individual in precipitating political violence. This scholarship sought to find the source of destructive outcomes in dysfunction origins and suggested that political violence remains rooted in individual psychopathology. While this approach considers individual differences, it has remained restricted by a vision refracted through the prism of abnormal psychology and psychopathology, rather than expanded by a conception of the desire or willingness to resort to political violence as part of a continuum of normal human aggressive action and behavior in response to environmental triggers. For example Post (1998) argues that terrorist suffer from particular personality disorders, and their particular psychology drives them to commit terrorist acts. Post argued that individuals with particular personality characteristics were more likely to be drawn to terrorist groups as well. However, this view has been challenged by findings that most terrorists are in fact normal and that there is no such thing as a particular personality type which characterizes terrorists. Crenshaw (1981) concluded that “the outstanding common characteristic of terrorists is their normality.” Separate studies involving Palestinian suicide bombers , and members of the Irish Republican Army, the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) , West German terrorists, and Italian terrorists, found that those who engage in terrorist acts are not mentally ill, emotionally disturbed, or depressed, but rather exist in the normal range for most typical DSM conditions (Rasch, 1979; Jager, Schmidtchen, and Sullwold, 1981; Segal 1987; Sullwold, 1981; Jager, 1981; Ferracuti and Bruno, 1981; Heskin, 1980 see Heskin 1984). Moreover, insofar as more recent Middle Eastern terrorism is concerned, despite public sentiment that suicide terrorists are “crazed cowards bent on senseless destruction” no recognizable psychopathology is present (Atran’s 2003). On average, they are similar in education level and economic class to the general population. Ruby (2003) concludes that “...terrorists are not dysfunctional or pathological; rather, terrorism is basically another form of politically motivated violence that is perpetrated by rational, lucid people who have valid motives.” Indeed, one of the best arguments for the relative normality of terrorists lies in the efficacy of their action; severely mentally ill people are not sufficiently well organized, disciplined and controlled to plan and conduct large scale actions such as devastating terrorist acts require. Organized actors typically cannot accomplish these things by relying on psychotics. As Atran argues, “Recruiters for groups sponsoring terrorism acts tell researchers that volunteers are beating down the doors to join. This allows terrorist agents to choose recruits who are intelligent, psychologically balanced, and socially poised. Candidates who want mostly virgins in paradise ... are weeded out. Those selected show patience and the ability to plan in subtle, quiet ways that don't draw attention. Al Qaeda, especially, is rarely in a hurry. It can wait years and then strike when least expected.” From an objective view, it makes sense that most terrorists should appear normal along personality dimensions which are consistent across cultures, and such individuals should remain fairly normally distributed within populations. After all, in order to become an effective terrorist, a person must retain at least a semblance of an ability to engage in efficacious, organized action, or his or her terrorist activities would only meet with failure. Moreover, psychopathologies, such as anti-social disorders, schizophrenia, and other personality disorders affect only a small portion of the population, and are present in all societies. Although such individuals may engage in maladaptive behaviors or behaviors inconsistent with societal norms, such as extreme violence, such behaviors are rarely predictable or strategic in nature among such individuals, thus defining their behavior as abnormal in any context. Thus, although some scholars have attempted to locate vulnerability for terrorist action in psychological disorders, and others in normality, neither model adequately interrogates the source of individual variance in such action. After all, if terrorists emerge unduly from particular segments of the population, it would be worthwhile to understand further the ways in which they diverge from the normal population. On the other hand, if they in fact appear psychologically inseparable from the broader population as defined by traditional normal and abnormal measures, it remains critical to determine which forces precipitate such action, since most people do not engage in terrorist activity. Yet despite these divergent approaches to understanding individual variance in terrorist proclivity, to date there has not been any empirical investigation of the genetic, biological or neurological differences that may exist among and between individuals prone to engage in terrorist acts and those who refrain from such activity even under identical environmental pressures. Models drawn from behavior genetics offer an ideal avenue of inquiry to pursue this investigation. The Behavior-Genetic Approach The field of behavior genetics has been perhaps most involved in the exploration of endogenous sources of individual differences and human behavior. For readers unfamiliar with the behavior-genetic paradigm, we outline the elements briefly here. The basic issues are discussed in far greater detail, with examples, by Eaves et al. (2005), Kendler (2005), Carey (2003), and Neale and Cardon (1992). The underlying foundation of the research program engages both endogenous and exogenous factors and explicitly acknowledges that genes operate in conjunction with environmental factors during human development (i.e., from infancy to maturity). It is critical to be explicit that genes do not “determine” any behavior or trait. Rather, in simple terms, they provide the platform for the synthesis of proteins which then trigger a series of chemical processes which have neurological, cognitive and emotive implications among others effects, dependent on environmental cues. These neurobiological changes then inform and influence behavior in interaction with environmental stimuli. While genes are static, gene expression is not, and depends on the behavior of the individual, the environments the individual is exposed to, and the interaction with others (Johnston and Edwards 2002). For example, dopamine appears critically involved in such behaviors as aggression, novelty seeking and reward dependence. Certain dopamine genotypes lead to higher or lower levels of dopamine uptake and regulation. Yet children with the exact same variant on a dopamine gene, can also manifest different levels of dopamine influenced behavioral aggression in a given modern context depending on whether or not they received adequately sensitive parenting and external social support during critical formative years . In this way, their gene expression or regulation of dopamine can be altered during childhood by sensitive parenting, but interacts with modern circumstance to guide behavior. Individuals who did not receive such care display more problem behaviors, including higher rates of attention deficit disorder, while those who are fortunate enough to receive attentive care show lower levels of such behavior than children without that particular variant of the gene (Belsky et al., 2007). To reiterate, the behavior-genetic paradigm does not find if “something is genetic”. Rather, the individual Potential Genetic Precursors to Political Violence is a responsible agent for his/her behavior, yet this approach also remains cognizant of the reality that ignoring a priori one critical source of individual differences, genetic variation, may have grave consequences for our ability to model variance in individual behavior once certain processes are triggered. If, for example, political violence bears any similarity to other kinds of extreme behavior, including violence (Volavka, 1999), anti-social behavior (Lyons et al, 1995) , aggression (Chen et al, 2005; Filley, 2001), deviance (Booth and Asgood 1993), conduct disorder (Eaves et al, 1997; Foley et al, 2004), and substance use disorders, understanding the role of genetic differences may be critical to understanding why one individual is more likely to become a suicide bomber in the face of foreign occupation while another is not. The vast range of behavior-genetic studies demonstrates that to understand fully human behaviors we cannot ignore genes any more than we can ignore a person’s environment. As noted above, this certain holds true for violence. Treating genes and environment in isolation from one another overlooks essential characteristics of human behavior. Human development results from a conversation between genes and the environment that modifies the expression of genes and shapes the environment in which development occurs. Humans have a remarkable facility to create, evaluate, and modify their environment through extended parental care and familial cohabitation and other complex social groups. Such reciprocal effects generate relationships between genetic and environmental influences that are frequently referred to as “gene-environment