The psychological profile of a terrorist

Diplomsko delo se osredotoča na ugotavljanje psihološkega profila teroristov in iskanje morebitne povezave med duševnimi boleznimi in teroristično dejavnostjo. Teroristi so posamezniki oziroma člani terorističnih skupin, ki za svoje ideološke, politične, revolucionarne ali verske cilje uporabljajo nasilje proti naključnim civilnim žrtvam za potrebe doseganja sprememb in ustrahovanja političnih oblasti in ljudi. Teoretični del daje pomen predvsem strokovnim raziskavam iskanja profila teroristov, njihovih lastnosti in motivacije. Za potrebe iskanja profila teroristov se diplomsko delo osredotoča predvsem na psihoanalitične teorije terorizma in njegovih akterjev. Kljub pomembnosti preprečevanja terorističnih napadov in pojavljanja novih terorističnih skupin je trenutno zaradi slabe dostopnosti in pomanjkanja empiričnih raziskav določitev psihološkega profila teroristov nesmiselna. Diplomsko delo opredeljuje osnovni profil dosedanjih analiziranih primerov teroristov, ki se razlikuje med skupinami in samimi teroristi. Opredeljene so motivacije teroristov, lastnosti samomorilskih teroristov, žensk teroristk in voditeljev terorističnih skupin. Na koncu teoretičnega dela so na kratko opisani profili izbranih terorističnih organizacij in njihovih vodij. V drugem delu so prikazani rezultati kratke empirične raziskave mnenja javnosti o lastnostih pripadnikov terorističnih skupin. V zaključku so poleg preverjanja hipotez podane ugotovitve raziskave v primerjavi s strokovno literaturo področja psihologije terorizma.The final thesis focuses on identifying the psychological profile of terrorists and searching for possible links between mental illnesses and terrorist activity. Terrorists are individuals, or members of terrorist groups, which for their ideological, political, revolutionary or religious goals use violence against random civilian victims for the purposes of achieving the change and intimidating governmental authorities and people. The theoretical part gives importance primarily to experts research finding the terrorist profile, their characteristics, and motivation. To search the profile of terrorists, the thesis focuses mainly on the psychoanalytical approach to terrorism and its actors. Despite the importance of the prevention of terrorist attacks and the occurrence of new terrorist groups, it is currently unlikely to determine the psychological profile of terrorists due to poor accessibility and lack of empirical research. The thesis defines the basic profile of the analyzed cases of terrorists, which however differs between the groups and terrorists themselves. It also describes the motivation of terrorists, characteristics of suicide terrorists, women terrorists and leaders of terrorist groups. At the end of the theoretical part, the work briefly describes profiles of selected terrorist organizations and their leaders. In the second part of the thesis are shown the results of a short empirical survey which researched the public opinion of terrorist group members. In addition to the testing of the hypotheses, in the end, there are also presented findings of the research in comparison with the expert literature in the field of psychology of terrorism