The Islamic State’s Worldview as a Radical Terror Management Device

Abstract

The US reaction to 9/11 set off a chain of events leading to the raise of the most radical strain of revolutionary Salafism ideology incarnated by the Islamic State. The analysis of IS worldview allows one to observe its striking compatibility with the fundamental tenets of Terror Management Theory (TMT). The main proposition of this article is that the Islamic State’s worldview should be interpreted as a product of an ideological evolution triggered/amplified by the Global War on Terror (GWOT), leading towards reenergization of the revolutionary Salafi narrative and increasingly radical – and thus psychologically efficient but strategically flawed – terror management device.