Deliberate Death: An Investigation Into the Nature of Suicide Attacks

Suicide attacks are a complex and vexing phenomena that are appearing with greater frequency in the international arena. Previous approaches to studying suicide attacks tend to examine them at one-level of analysis. While helpful, the insights produced are isolated from other crucial factors. This dissertation examines suicide attacks at three-levels of analysis as it investigates the organizational incentives, individual motivations and how the attacks achieve societal resonance. As such, the dissertation asks three primary research questions: why do organizations adopt suicide attacks, why are individuals motivated to become suicide attackers and how do the attacks attain resonance?The research questions are applied to four case studies selected along a conflict continuum where suicide attacks were used. The cases are (a) the Japanese use of Kamikazes during World War II, (b) the LTTE's use of suicide attacks during its irregular war against Sri Lanka, (c) Hamas' use of suicide attacks as domestic terrorism against Israel, and (d) Al Qaeda's use of suicide attacks as transnational terrorism. The dissertation argues that organizations use suicide attacks out of defensive necessity and for strategic purposes, individuals are motivated to become suicide attackers by a religo-nationalist liberation ideology that promises the attacker post-mortem incentives for his or her death, and that societal resonance is achieved when the organization draws on religious, cultural and nationalistic narratives that enable the population to accept the tactic