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Martyrdom Contracts

Department of Public Policy and Public Choice (POLIS), University of Eastern Piedmont, Alessandria, Italy

This article emphasizes the similarities between such diverse instances of public-spirited suicide as the Islamic martyrs of yesterday and today, the anarchists, the Japanese kamikaze of World War II, the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, and the Christian martyrs under the Roman Empire. It tries to accommodate this disparate evidence within a single two-period, expected utility model of a martyrdom contract, to which volunteers sign up in the expectation of probabilistic earthly rewards. Contract enforcement is ensured by a sufficiently strong stigma, or social sanction, placed on renegades. The main implication for counterterrorism policy is that the sanction should be softened, so as to turn prospective martyrs into apostates.

Key Words: martyrdom • suicide terrorism • expected utility • incentive contracts

Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 50, No. 6, 855-877 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0022002706293466


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