"...[S]o long as Iraq's central government lacks the power to enforce order on its own, the country will be prime territory for nonstate armed groups. That is troubling, since the more armed groups appear in Iraq, the harder it will be to bring the country’s competing factions to the table to reach political solutions to their problems."

"Compared to other terrorist groups and even legitimate governments around the world, ISIS has done fairly well with security policies in the area (at least better than the Baghdad government). However, that is not the case when it comes to other public concerns."

"ISIS leaders have stabilized the situation in Iraq by completely removing foreign fighters from administrative and political positions and relegating these fighters to IT-related intelligence work, IED factories, and technical tasks. In some areas, foreign fighters are even housed in rural villages to keep their interactions with locals to a minimum. In response, disenfranchised foreign fighters have resorted to small acts of sabotage."

To what extent can prosocial norms (re-)emerge among rival groups following intense intergroup conflict? One school of thought posits that violence can strengthen intragroup bonding norms, entrenching parochialism and sustaining in-group biases. However, recent studies suggest that intergroup bridging norms can also improve once conflict ends. The authors' research offers insights into how prosocial bridging vs. parochial bonding norms evolve after violence.

An emerging literature points to the heterogeneous effects of violence on social norms and preferences in conflict-ridden societies. This article considers how responses to violence could be affected by in-group/out-group divisions. The research uses lab-in-the-field experiments to gauge norms for pro-social behavior in the aftermath of ethnic violence in post-war Kosovo. The study finds that one set of treatments (ethnicity) captures a negative legacy of violence on parochialism, while another (local/non-local) shows stronger evidence of pro-sociality and norm recovery.

"...ISIL also wanted to increase the flow of dedicated foreign fighters. For that, they needed to increase the grievances of Western Muslims who could potentially become fighters. France and Belgium were chosen for an attack because those are countries with large Muslim populations, some of whom had already been attracted to ISIL. The attack could increase anti-Muslim sentiment and, as a result, the grievance of Western Muslims, which could increase the number of potential dedicated foreign recruits."

For the past three years, I have conducted interviews and surveys of men fighting in the Syrian Civil War. My interviews were with Syrian citizens, mostly young, and all men. Some of them joined Al Nusra (Al Qaeda branch in Syria), while the majority joined one of the other 1000 rebel brigades. My goal was to determine why they decided to fight, why they joined the group they did, and why some changed groups or quit fighting completely.

"ISIS has recently suffered massive losses of territory, income, and people. ISIS has lost 25 percent of its territory since the United States began its bombing campaign. The successful Kurdish recapture of Sinjar effectively divided ISIS territory in half and severed its access to the highway that was its main supply route. Based on data we have gathered on the ground, within ISIS territory, in 2014, ISIS was receiving up to 3,000 new recruits and volunteers per day, more than it could process at its own recruiting stations. Just before the Paris bombings, that number had decreased to 50–60 per day, not enough to offset the massive casualties sustained in Sinjar and elsewhere."

The authors conducted a survey in Turkey, asking refugees why they decided to leave Syria and what they hope for the future. They find that for most refugees and would-be asylum-seekers, the decision to leave Syria is a simple cost-benefit calculation. As the conflict drags on, ordinary people inside Syria see fewer prospects for a negotiated settlement or an outright military victory by any side. Those already in refugee camps in neighboring countries are losing hope of ever returning home, and are increasingly seeking alternatives to the purgatory of camp life.

"While the presumption is that most Islamic State fighters are religious zealots, Abu Ibrahim's answer suggests that the reality might be more complex. Many people, he argued, joined the jihadi group not because they are true believers, but out of desperation."