Headhunting Among Extremist Organizations: An Empirical Assessment of Talent Spotting

In recent years, terrorism scholars have proposed that more established and popular extremist organizations makepragmatic assessments of their human capital needs and modify operating standards to acquire members withadvanced training and expertise such as medical, religious, or military backgrounds that may benefit extremistactivities. To examine these claims, we rely on data pertaining to 105 extremist organizations gathered throughoutthe Leadership of the Extreme and Dangerous for Innovative Results (LEADIR) project. The results provide empiricalsupport for these propositions by suggesting that older and more publicly supported extremist organizations containmembership populations that possess expertise, and these organizations also become increasingly diverse acrossdemographic characteristics of members. We conclude with suggestions for future research that extend the study ofextremist recruitment and provide recommendations for practitioners in terms of addressing terrorism preventioninitiatives.