Abstract
Scholars have studied who joins terrorist organizations, and why. Thus far, no one has asked why members of the same population as known terrorists do not become terrorists. This paper is a pre-theoretical examination of why individuals with similar backgrounds to those of known terrorists do not become terrorists. I analyze autobiographies of six male Muslims from across the Middle East and South Asia; three joined terrorist organizations while three did not. I argue that the key factor in the successful recruitment of a terrorist is timing. A potential terrorist’s set of experiences results in a paradigm, or perception, shift that opens a critical window of opportunity in which he must be recruited in order to become a terrorist. If this window is missed, an individual’s terrorist potential will fail to be realized. Since recruitment must occur in a precise window of opportunity, very few members of a population become terrorists. These findings suggest that a dynamic process, rather than static individual attributes, may be influential in the recruitment of terrorists.