ARTIS International

Last updated
ARTIS International
Formation2006
Founder Scott Atran  · Richard Davis  · Marc Sageman
Headquarters Scottsdale, AZ
Key people
Co-Founder and Director of Research Dr. Scott Atran, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Richard Davis
AffiliationsCenter for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict, University of Oxford
Staff
>10
Website artisinternational.org

ARTIS International is a scientific research organization that focuses on behavioral dynamics affecting conflict. Its work is field orientated, and the fellows come from a wide variety of disciplines.

Contents

The company has a significant focus on the limits of rational choice or utilitarian thinking in decision making. This can be seen in numerous publications including: "Religious and Sacred Imperatives in Human Conflict" [1] ","Sacred Bounds on Rational Resolution of Violent Political Conflict", [2] "The Devoted Actor's Will to Fight and the Spiritual Dimension of Human Conflict", [3] "Challenges Researching Terrorism from the Field" [4]

ARTIS International was founded in 2006 by Scott Atran, Richard Davis, and Marc Sageman.

ARTIS International collaborates with a variety of partners including The Minerva Research Initiative, Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Center for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict at The University of Oxford , The United Nations Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate, and The Templeton Foundation.

The Devoted Actor Model

ARTIS fellows have long looked at the behavioral dimensions of conflict, focusing on sacred values and identity fusion. ARTIS has trademarked The Devoted Actor Model as a way to model human behavior which fundamentally diverges from rational, utilitarian behavior and can lead people to pursue violence. Most notably, the company published an article in the journal Nature Human Behaviour in August 2017 titled 'The Devoted Actor's Will to Fight and the Spiritual Dimension of Human Conflict'. [5] This seminal work has resulted in features in multiple major news outlets including in CNN on Motivations driving fighters in The Levant, [6] in The Guardian Why people die for a cause, [7] and The Telegraph Where the mind is without fear. [8]

Fellows

Senior Fellows include renowned political scientist Dr. Robert Axelrod [9] (Walgreen Professor for the Study of Human Understanding at the University of Michigan and National Medal of Science winner), Richard Garwin [10] (Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree), Dr. Baruch Fischhoff [11] (Howard Heinz University Professor in the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon and member of the National Academy of Sciences), Dr. Douglas Medin [12] (Louis W. Menk Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University and member of the National Academy of Sciences), Dr. Richard Nisbett [13] (Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished Professor of social psychology and co-director of the Culture and Cognition program at the University of Michigan and member of the National Academy of Sciences), the Honorable Lord John Alderdice [14] (senior negotiator for the Good Friday Agreements and the first speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly and former President of Liberal International), Juan Zarate [15] (Former Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism), General (Ret.) Douglas M. Stone [16] (Former Deputy Commanding Officer, MNF-Iraq), Captain (Ret.) Benjamin Runkle [17] (former Senior Advisor on the National Security Council), Dr. Richard Davis [18] (Chairman, Permanent Monitoring Panel on Terrorism, World Federation of Scientists], and Scott Atran [19] (Research Director in Anthropology at France's National Center for Scientific Research) .

General Publications

While using academic publications as a bedrock of the ARTIS research, fellows also frequently publish findings to more general audiences in major publications. Notable publications which have been driven through ARTIS International research include Terrorism: The Lessons of Barcelona, [20] Paris: The War ISIS Wants, [21] What Makes a Terrorist, [22] How Spain Misunderstood the Catalan Independence Movement, [23] Mindless Terrorists? The Truth about ISIS is Much Worse, [24] ISIS After the Caliphate, [25] ISIS: The Durability of Chaos, [26] Why We Talk to Terrorists, [27] and Give Palestine's Unity Government a Chance. [28]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terrorism</span> Use of violence against non-combatants to achieve aims

Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants. There are various different definitions of terrorism, with no universal agreement about it. Different definitions of terrorism emphasize its randomness, its aim to instill fear, and its broader impact beyond its immediate victims.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Axelrod (political scientist)</span> American political scientist

Robert Marshall Axelrod is an American political scientist. He is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Michigan where he has been since 1974. He is best known for his interdisciplinary work on the evolution of cooperation. His current research interests include complexity theory, international security, and cyber security. His research includes innovative approaches to explaining conflict of interest, the emergence of norms, how game theory is used to study cooperation, and cross-disciplinary studies on evolutionary processes.

State-sponsored terrorism is terrorist violence carried out with the active support of national governments provided to violent non-state actors. States can sponsor terrorist groups in several ways, including but not limited to funding terrorist organizations, providing training, supplying weapons, providing other logistical and intelligence assistance, and hosting groups within their borders. Because of the pejorative nature of the word, the identification of particular examples are often subject to political dispute and different definitions of terrorism.

Islamic terrorism refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists.

A lone wolf attack, or lone actor attack, is a particular kind of mass murder, committed in a public setting by an individual who plans and commits the act on their own. In the United States, such attacks are usually committed with firearms. In other countries, knives are sometimes used to commit mass stabbings. Although definitions vary, most databases require a minimum of four victims for the event to be considered a mass murder.

Criticism of the war on terror addresses the morals, ethics, efficiency, economics, as well as other issues surrounding the war on terror. It also touches upon criticism against the phrase itself, which was branded as a misnomer. The notion of a "war" against "terrorism" has proven highly contentious, with critics charging that participating governments exploited it to pursue long-standing policy/military objectives, reduce civil liberties, and infringe upon human rights. It is argued by critics that the term war is not appropriate in this context, since there is no identifiable enemy and that it is unlikely international terrorism can be brought to an end by military means.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Pape</span> American political scientist (born 1960)

Robert Anthony Pape Jr. is an American political scientist who studies national and international security affairs, with a focus on air power, American and international political violence, social media propaganda, and terrorism. He is currently a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and founder and director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST).

In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of some thing or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live, or to describe the significance of different actions. Value systems are proscriptive and prescriptive beliefs; they affect the ethical behavior of a person or are the basis of their intentional activities. Often primary values are strong and secondary values are suitable for changes. What makes an action valuable may in turn depend on the ethical values of the objects it increases, decreases, or alters. An object with "ethic value" may be termed an "ethic or philosophic good".

Self-sacrifice is the giving up of something that a person wants for themselves so that others can be helped or protected or so that other external values can be advanced or protected. Generally, the act of self-sacrifice conforms to the rule that it does not serve the person’s best self-interest and will leave the person in a worse situation than the person otherwise would have been.

John G. Horgan is a Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. He studies involvement and engagement with terrorism, with a focus on disengagement and deradicalisation from terrorist movements. He has been described by the European Eye on Radicalization research group as the "world’s most distinguished expert in the psychology of terrorism". Since 2019, Horgan has been leading a team of researchers funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to research the incel subculture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of terrorism</span> Academic field that seeks to understand terrorism

Sociology of terrorism is a field of sociology that seeks to understand terrorism as a social phenomenon. The field defines terrorism, studies why it occurs and evaluates its impacts on society. The sociology of terrorism draws from the fields of political science, history, economics and psychology. The sociology of terrorism differs from critical terrorism studies, emphasizing the social conditions that enable terrorism. It also studies how individuals as well as states respond to such events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Atran</span> American-French cultural anthropologist

Scott Atran is an American-French cultural anthropologist who is Emeritus Director of Research in Anthropology at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique in Paris, Research Professor at the University of Michigan, and cofounder of ARTIS International and of the Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict at Oxford University. He has studied and written about terrorism, violence, religion, indigenous environmental management and the cross-cultural foundations of biological classification; and he has done fieldwork with terrorists and Islamic fundamentalists, as well as political leaders and Native American peoples.

Cognitive science of religion is the study of religious thought, theory, and behavior from the perspective of the cognitive sciences. Scholars in this field seek to explain how human minds acquire, generate, and transmit religious thoughts, practices, and schemas by means of ordinary cognitive capacities.

The evolutionary psychology of religion is the study of religious belief using evolutionary psychology principles. It is one approach to the psychology of religion. As with all other organs and organ functions, the brain's functional structure is argued to have a genetic basis, and is therefore subject to the effects of natural selection and evolution. Evolutionary psychologists seek to understand cognitive processes, religion in this case, by understanding the survival and reproductive functions they might serve.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suicide attack</span> Violent attack in which the attacker accepts their own death

A suicide attack is a deliberate attack in which the perpetrators knowingly sacrifice their own lives as part of the attack. These attacks are often associated with terrorism or military conflicts and are considered a form of murder–suicide. Suicide attacks involving explosives are commonly referred to as suicide bombings. In the context of terrorism, they are also commonly referred to as suicide terrorism. While generally not inherently regulated under international law, suicide attacks in their execution often violate international laws of war, such as prohibitions against perfidy and targeting civilians.

The William and Katherine Estes Award, previously known as the NAS Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences "to recognize basic research in any field of cognitive or behavioral science that has employed rigorous formal or empirical methods, optimally a combination of these, to advance our understanding of problems or issues relating to the risk of nuclear war". It was first awarded in 1990.

Identity fusion, a psychological construct rooted in social psychology and cognitive anthropology, is a form of alignment with groups in which members experience a visceral sense of oneness with the group. The construct relies on a distinction between the personal self and the social self. As the name suggests, identity fusion involves the union of the personal and social selves. When fusion occurs, both the personal and social selves remain salient and influential but the boundaries between them become highly permeable. In addition, the theory proposes that fused persons come to regard other group members as "family" and develop strong relational ties to them as well as ties to the collective. Therefore, fused persons are not just bound to the collective; they are tied to the individual members of the collective.

Douglas L. "Doug" Medin is the Louis W. Menk Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He is also Professor Emeritus of Education and Social Policy.

Collaboration with the Islamic State refers to the cooperation and assistance given by governments, non-state actors, and private individuals to the Islamic State (IS) during the Syrian Civil War, Iraqi Civil War, and Libyan Civil War.

<i>The Terrorists of Iraq</i> 2014 book by Malcolm Nance

The Terrorists of Iraq: Inside the Strategy and Tactics of the Iraq Insurgency 2003–2014 is a nonfiction book about the Iraqi insurgency, written by U.S. Navy retired cryptology analyst Malcolm Nance. It was published by CRC Press in 2014. The book discusses the terrorist evolution of the Iraqi insurgency which led to the formation of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Nance cites the 2003 Iraq war by the Bush Administration for causing regional instability. He criticizes Coalition Provisional Authority leader Paul Bremer. The book emphasizes lessons the U.S. neglected to learn from the Vietnam War, the Iraqi revolt against the British, and the South Lebanon conflict. Nance writes in favor of the Iran nuclear deal framework by the Obama Administration, saying it is in the interests of all parties involved.

References

  1. Atran, S.; Ginges, J. (17 May 2012). "Religious and Sacred Imperatives in Human Conflict". Science. 336 (6083): 855–857. Bibcode:2012Sci...336..855A. doi:10.1126/science.1216902. PMID   22605762. S2CID   22656530.
  2. Ginges, J.; Atran, S.; Medin, D.; Shikaki, K. (25 April 2007). "Sacred bounds on rational resolution of violent political conflict". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 104 (18): 7357–7360. Bibcode:2007PNAS..104.7357G. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0701768104 . PMC   1863499 . PMID   17460042.
  3. Gómez, Ángel; López-Rodríguez, Lucía; Sheikh, Hammad; Ginges, Jeremy; Wilson, Lydia; Waziri, Hoshang; Vázquez, Alexandra; Davis, Richard; Atran, Scott (4 September 2017). "The devoted actor's will to fight and the spiritual dimension of human conflict". Nature Human Behaviour. 1 (9): 673–679. doi:10.1038/s41562-017-0193-3. PMID   31024146. S2CID   46825422.
  4. Atran, Scott; Axelrod, Robert; Davis, Richard; Fischhoff, Baruch (27 January 2017). "Challenges in researching terrorism from the field" (PDF). Science. 355 (6323): 352–354. Bibcode:2017Sci...355..352A. doi:10.1126/science.aaj2037. PMID   28126773. S2CID   206653764.
  5. Gómez, Ángel; López-Rodríguez, Lucía; Sheikh, Hammad; Ginges, Jeremy; Wilson, Lydia; Waziri, Hoshang; Vázquez, Alexandra; Davis, Richard; Atran, Scott (September 2017). "The devoted actor's will to fight and the spiritual dimension of human conflict". Nature Human Behaviour. 1 (9): 673–679. doi:10.1038/s41562-017-0193-3. ISSN   2397-3374. PMID   31024146. S2CID   46825422.
  6. "What motivates ISIS fighters -- and those who fight against them". CNN . 4 September 2017.
  7. Davis, Nicola (4 September 2017). "Study of Iraq fighters reveals what makes people prepared to die for a cause". The Guardian.
  8. "Where the mind is without fear". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on January 27, 2018.
  9. "Robert Axelrod's Home Page". www-personal.umich.edu.
  10. "Physicist and Science Adviser Richard Garwin Receives Presidential Medal of Freedom". 22 November 2016.
  11. University, Carnegie Mellon. "Baruch Fischhoff - Engineering and Public Policy - College of Engineering - Carnegie Mellon University". www.cmu.edu.
  12. "Douglas Medin: Department of Psychology - Northwestern University". www.psychology.northwestern.edu.
  13. "Nisbett". www-personal.umich.edu.
  14. "Lord Alderdice". UK Parliament.
  15. "Juan C. Zarate". www.csis.org.
  16. "Doug Stone - The Washington Institute for Near East Policy". www.washingtoninstitute.org.
  17. "Benjamin Runkle". Hoover Institution.
  18. "Dr Richard Davis | Harris Manchester College". www.hmc.ox.ac.uk.
  19. "Scott Atran | Department of Psychology | Research Center for Group Dynamics". sites.lsa.umich.edu.
  20. Hamid, Nafees (2017-09-19). "Terrorism: The Lessons of Barcelona". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 2018-01-27.
  21. Hamid, Nafees; Atran, Scott (2015-11-16). "Paris: The War ISIS Wants". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 2018-01-27.
  22. Hamid, Nafees (2017-08-23). "What Makes a Terrorist?". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 2018-01-27.
  23. Pretus, Nafees Hamid and Clara. "How Spain Misunderstood the Catalan Independence Movement". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2018-01-27.
  24. Atran, Scott (2015-11-15). "Mindless terrorists? The truth about Isis is much worse | Scott Atran". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-01-27.
  25. Davis, Richard; Waziri, Hoshang; Atran, Scott (2017-10-19). "ISIS After the Caliphate". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 2018-01-27.
  26. Atran, Scott (2016-07-16). "ISIS: The Durability of Chaos". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 2018-01-27.
  27. Atran, Scott; Axelrod, Robert (2010-06-29). "Opinion | Why We Talk To Terrorists". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2018-01-27.
  28. Davis, Scott Atran, Robert Axelrod and Richard (2007-03-07). "Give Palestine's Unity Government a Chance". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2018-01-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)