Abdel Jelil, MohamedBhatia, KartikaBrockmeyer, AnneDo, Quy-ToanJoubert, Clement2018-03-302018-03-302018-03https://hdl.handle.net/10986/29561Transnational terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State group (also known as ISIS/ISIL or Daesh) have shown an ability to attract radicalized individuals from many countries to join their ranks. Using a novel data set that reports countries of residence and educational levels of a large sample of Daesh's foreign recruits, this paper finds that a lack of economic opportunities -- measured by unemployment rates disaggregated by country and education level -- explains foreign enrollment in the terrorist organization, especially for countries that are geographically closer to the Syrian Arab Republic.CC BY 3.0 IGOTERRORISMUNEMPLOYMENTRADICALIZATIONINCLUSIONEXTREMISMVIOLENCEDAESHISILISISRECRUITMENTFANATICSWorking PaperWorld Bank10.1596/1813-9450-8381