Market Civilization and Its Clash with Terror

Michael Mousseau of Koç University in Istanbul begins with a cautionary note: The United States and its friends and allies cannot rely exclusively on a military strategy to defeat terrorists. A political strategy is also necessary—one that must begin with an understanding of the social origins of terrorist support. Mousseau argues that terrorists draw strength from “in-groups” whose values and beliefs “legitimate the use of extreme and indiscriminate violence against the civilian populations of out-groups.” As a result of globalization, the values and beliefs of “in-groups” in the developing world are increasingly clashing with the liberal values and beliefs of “out-groups” in market economies, producing extreme socioeconomic disruption and intense antimarket rage that terrorists have successfully exploited.