“`html
In a realm filled with numerous distressing occurrences, ranging from environmental calamities to internal conflicts, acts of terrorism emerge as especially concerning. They are startling, vicious, and predominantly target those who seem unblemished. Terrorist organizations depend on the shock factor of these actions to attract attention, financial support, societal approval, and fresh recruits from individuals who resonate with their rage and desire for transformation against what seem to be unyielding authorities and their regulations.
However, when various terrorist factions vie for recognition, resources, and new members, how do their actions sway each other? This is the inquiry that Caltech political science professor Mike Gibilisco and Casey Crisman-Cox from Texas A&M University have sought to explore.
For political analysts, the archetypal case study of rival terrorist factions is the dynamics between Fatah (the secular Palestinian National Liberation Movement [PLO]) and Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) as each endeavors to dominate in their efforts against Israeli policies pertaining to Palestinian individuals and territories. The contention between Fatah and Hamas represents a rivalry thoroughly documented by global monitors and academic researchers from 1994, when the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO came into effect, through to 2018. This serves as the dataset upon which Gibilisco and Crisman-Cox’s investigation is based.
Numerous rationales have been presented for the fluctuating frequency of terrorist incidents during this timeframe in the Middle East and how the rivalry between Fatah and Hamas may have affected that trend. Yet, as Gibilisco remarks, “At some point we must start quantifying which rationales align best with the data.” Therefore, in a recent publication, Gibilisco and Crisman-Cox evaluate a potential rationale of intergroup competition that had been proposed but only partially analyzed: outbidding.
“When related to terrorism, outbidding—a concept initially used to describe competitive marketplaces and their impact on pricing—suggests that anti-state factions strategically employ terrorist actions to contest against one another,” Gibilisco articulates. “One intriguing facet of the outbidding theory is that it enables us to clarify variations in terrorism separate from the governmental policies and reactions that these organizations aim to counter or provoke. In other words, conflicts among rival groups themselves may clarify variances in violent actions more than shifts in external regulations or provocations from state actors. Outbidding assists in illuminating why acts of terrorism persist, even when they seem not to yield the outcomes they claim to seek.”
Academics have long theorized that rivalry among terrorist groups amplifies violent actions across all factions. In terms of outbidding, this is referred to as the “encouragement effect.” However, scholars have paid less attention to another prediction of outbidding theory, the “discouragement effect”: when specific organizations conclude that they cannot effectively compete with their opponents and subsequently reduce violent actions.
“Envision that you run every weekend with a companion,” Gibilisco suggests. “Perhaps there’s a healthy rivalry, and when you observe your friend running a bit quicker, you strive to catch up. That’s the encouragement effect. But what if your friend is significantly faster than you, and there’s no way for you to keep pace? In such a scenario, you might say, ‘Catch you later,’ and simply concede. Without you by their side, your friend may then slow down. That would illustrate the discouragement effect.”
Since these effects operate in contrary directions, it may seem that the outbidding theory can explain any findings: “If we observe a positive correlation between violence and metrics of competition, we can attribute that to the encouragement effect. Conversely, if we detect a negative correlation, that might indicate a discouragement effect. And if there’s no distinct correlation, we might conclude that encouragement and discouragement effects are neutralizing each other,” explains Gibilisco. “We aimed to model the outbidding theory precisely because discerning its explanatory efficacy is challenging.”
Gibilisco and Crisman-Cox devised a structural method to evaluate the explanatory power of outbidding theory. They created a mathematical model of how competing organizations would react if they valued popularity and employed attacks to achieve it. The researchers then adjusted that model to align with existing evidence concerning the Fatah/Hamas conflict. After tailoring the model to the data, they modified the parameters to ascertain if the encouragement or discouragement effect would manifest.
Data concerning terrorist actions by Fatah and Hamas were sourced from the Global Terrorism Database housed at the University of Maryland, while surveys assessing Palestinian sentiments about Fatah and Hamas were gathered from the Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, both of which survey the Palestinian populace several times annually, posing questions such as, “Which political or religious faction do you hold in the highest regard?” “Which political parties do you endorse?” and “If Legislative Council elections were conducted today, which party would you support?”
After fine-tuning their outbidding model to align closely with the existing dataset, Gibilisco and Crisman-Cox altered critical parameters to observe how these adjustments would impact the rivalry between Fatah and Hamas. For instance, they modified the parameters to examine what might occur if one of the factions believed that their rival would never resort to violent methods. Would this lead them to escalate or diminish their violent actions? “This is akin to questioning how fast you would run if your companion didn’t show up one day,” Gibilisco clarifies. “Would you seize the chance to sprint as rapidly as possible, to test your limits? Or would you take it easy because there was no competition?”
On one hand, the researchers identified evidence supporting the encouragement effect since their findings indicated that Hamas’s presence motivated Fatah to intensify violence. Conversely, Hamas was less inclined to initiate violent actions during periods when Fatah was considerably more popular, aligning with the discouragement effect.
Gibilisco and Crisman-Cox also prompted their model to predict outcomes if one of the factions became less focused on boosting their popularity with the Palestinian populace or if the costs associated with executing violent actions increased. These adjustments similarly demonstrated that both effects manifested in the rivalry: enhancing Hamas’s competitiveness spurred both groups to execute more violence, while boosting Fatah’s competitiveness resulted in both factions employing less violence.
To corroborate their predictions, the authors even evaluated their outbidding model against an alternative model that represents another conceivable explanation for trends in violent actions: straightforward, reciprocal responses to one another’s violent acts, a tit-for-tat theory. Outbidding emerged as the more comprehensive theoretical framework for the data.
Recognizing that encouraging and discouraging outbidding effects are influential in the rivalry among terrorist factions can aid policymakers in selecting strategies more likely to effectively lessen violence. “Ultimately, we uncovered an intriguing effect: that competition can result in lower violence due to asymmetries between rival factions,” Gibilisco elaborates. “Policymakers ought to be attentive to how competition and the relative popularity of different terrorist organizations imply that the same disincentives for terrorist actions, such as elevating the cost of attacks, may not yield the intended effect on each competing faction.”
This research is articulated in a paper titled “Tug of War: The Heterogeneous Effects of Outbidding Between Terrorist Groups” featured in the Winter 2025 edition of International Organization.
“`