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Rethinking Pathways of Transnational Jihad: Evidence from Lebanese ISIS Recruits

Abstract Why do some individuals leave everything behind to join extremist organizations abroad? The literature on foreign fighters has grown impressively and yielded important insights in recent years. Three problems persist, however: (1) scholarship grounded in empirical fieldwork remains uncommon. This deficit reflects the scarcity of micro-level data based on individual profiles of jihadi recruits; (2) the studies available overwhelmingly center on Western jihadists even though the majority of foreign fighters who join groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or al Qaeda hail from Arab countries; (3) an artificial rivalry between different explanatory approaches has produced an inconclusive picture of the determinants of radicalization. In this article, I reconsider the various pathways for transnational Jihadi recruitment by drawing upon a unique dataset pertaining to seventy Lebanese militants. I selectively combine elements from multiple perspectives to ponder the pathways of ISIS recruits, but my conclusions can be modified to apply to other circumstances.