Mobilizing to Martyrdom: A Narrative Theory of High-Risk Mobilization

Why do some individuals engage in high-risk mobilization in support of foreign militant groups, willingly sacrificing their possessions and even their lives as “martyrs”, when there is no imminent threat to the community within which they live or strong ties to the communities for which they sacrifice? We develop a new theory of high-risk mobilization rooted in the use of narratives that explains high-risk mobilization and identify the revolutionary use of multiple martyrdom narratives among modern Islamic militant groups, especially a heroic narrative specifically tailored to Western audiences, that can explain the group’s broad appeal beyond traditional pools of recruits. We demonstrate the existence of the heroic narrative in the video propaganda of ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra and apply our framework of narratives of martyrdom to the universe of ISIS recruitment videos. We conclude by discussing implications for scholarship on mobilization and counter-radicalization/recruitment policy.