For this special edition of “What We’re Reading,” RESOLVE highlights literature recommended by the authors of the latest RESOLVE Research Report, Career Foreign Fighters: Expertise Transmission Across Insurgencies. The literature provides insights into the role foreign fighters play in conflicts, the dynamics that drive their involvement, and the state of relevant research. Take a look at what the authors had to say: 

Chelsea Daymon 
“Research on jihadist foreign fighters places great attention on why individuals leave their home countries to join armed groups outside of their nation-states. In recent years, with the emergence and subsequent decline of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS/ISIL), questions regarding the threat level jihadist foreign fighters pose, along with debates concerning the repatriation of jihadist foreign fighters and their family members, spark considerable deliberations. While it is important to understand current developments concerning jihadist foreign fighters, it is also essential to recognize the pull factors, motivations, and experiences of jihadist foreign fighters in the past. Jihadist memoirs, biographies, interviews, and first-hand accounts offer vital insight to researchers, policymakers, and practitioners on what drives jihadist foreign fighters, sustaining them in conflicts or pushing them out. As our report displays, not all jihadist foreign fighters plan to return home once conflicts are over. Some find careers for themselves in multiple jihadist theaters, and their stories provide valuable information on this occurrence.”

Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn
“There has been a large increase in the number of studies on the issue of foreign fighters over the past years. Initially, many studies focused on country-specific questions related to the current foreign fighter mobilization in Syria and Iraq, such as the Dutch contingent of foreign fighters. After this initial phase in the literature of trying to understand the ‘who and what,’ several studies have now emerged that try to adopt a broader focus. Increasingly, organizational perspectives are employed, and authors try to understand foreign fighter movements and flows, adding another layer to the existing literature. These studies try to contribute to the same debate as this report: how do foreign fighters affect local conflicts and how do they move in and between conflicts? Adopting a multidisciplinary or—at times—interdisciplinary perspective can be very helpful. In the field of terrorism studies with a small-N problem, this also leads to interesting and challenging debates about the relevancy and limits of theoretical frameworks and methodologies that have traditionally been applied in other academic fields.”

David Malet
On Tricia Bacon & Daisy Muibu's “The Domestication of Al-Shabaab” 
"Bacon and Muibu conducted extensive fieldwork and interviews in Somalia and offer informed complexity to the academic debates on whether foreign fighters add or subtract value from the jihadist groups they join. They find that the answer is “both,” and the empirical and current detail and the data from an African case make this piece a valuable contribution to the literature."

On "Returnees in the Maghreb: Comparing Policies on Returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia," edited by Thomas Renard
"This report, with in-depth case studies produced by women, provides welcome detail on the returnee debate, policy approaches, and effectiveness in a non-Western context. Each report is well-documented and useful for a comparative analysis of approaches to returnees."

Aboul-Enein, Youssef. “The Late Sheikh Abdullah Azzam’s Book- Part II” Combating Terrorism Center. January 01, 2008. https://resolvenet.org/research/late-sheikh-abdullah-azzams-book-part-iii. 

Al-`Ubaydi, Muhammad. “Khattab (Jihadi Bios Project)” Combating Terrorism Center. March 01, 2015. https://ctc.usma.edu/khattab-jihadi-bios-project/. 

Bacon, Tricia, and Daisy Muibu. “The Domestication of Al-Shabaab" The Journal of the Middle East and Africa. October 04, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/21520844.2019.1658986. 

Borum, Randy, and Robert Fein. “The Psychology of Foreign Fighters” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. March 16, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2016.1188535. 

Galperin Donnelly, Maria, Thomas M. Sanderson, and Zack Fellman. “Case Studies in History: Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya” Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

Hegghammer, Thomas. “The Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters: Islam and the Globalization of Jihad” Quarterly Journal: International Security. January 2011. https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/rise-muslim-foreign-fighters-islam-and-globalization-jihad. 

Reed, Alastair, Johanna Pohl and Marjolein Jegerings. “The Four Dimensions of the Foreign Fighter Threat: Making Sense of an Evolving Phenomenon” International Center for Counter-Terrorism. June 8, 2017. https://icct.nl/publication/the-four-dimensions-of-the-foreign-fighter-threat-making-sense-of-an-evolving-phenomenon/. 

Renard, Thomas. “Returnees in the Maghreb: Comparing policies on returning foreign terrorist fighters in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia” Egmont – The Royal Institute for International Relations. April 24, 2019. https://www.egmontinstitute.be/returnees-in-the-maghreb/. 

S. Chu, Tiffany, and Alex Braithwaite. “The Impact of Foreign Fighters on Civil Conflict Outcomes” Sage Journals. August 01, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168017722059.