Eli Berman

Berman argues that economics can provide a significant insight into the vulnerabilities of radical and terrorist organizations, although not only because of the common assumption that cutting their funding is key to their defeat. Instead Berman says that "terrorist organizations are terribly vulnerable to defection, the same way that firms are vulnerable to workers stealing trade secrets, or just shirking on the job." He further argues that the economics of religion can provide explanations for the way in which "radical religious communities organize mechanisms to control defection in order to successfully conduct mutual aid—which they tend to be quite effective at."

Berman's NBER paper Do Working Men Rebel?, co-authored with Joseph Felter and Jacob N. Shapiro, drew the counterintuitive conclusion that reducing unemployment does not reduce insurgency-related violence. In an interview, Berman explains the findings as "insurgencies are very small organizations which need very few fighters to keep them going, and are often not constrained by a lack of recruits—and even if they were there’s nothing to stop young men from working by day and planting roadside bombs by night."

In his 2009 book, Berman writes that "four radical religious organizations, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban, and the Mahdi Army, continue to surprise established militaries with both their resilience and their lethality." He credits the Hezbollah for being those "who invented the modern high-casualty suicide attack in Lebanon in 1982". Berman's book seeks to address the question: "Why are religious radicals, who often start out appearing benign and charitable and generally avoid conflict, so effective at violence when they choose to engage in it?" Previously, Berman drew other parallels between Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban:

All three formed from affiliates of venerable nonviolent radical Islamic organizations, Hamas from the [Muslim Brotherhood] and the Taliban from the Jamiat-e-Ulema-Islam (JUI) in Pakistan, and Hezbollah from the clerical culture of the Shia holy cities in Iraq and Iran. All three movements arose in environments with weak local public good provision by government and responded by providing local public goods. Each developed into extremely effective insurgent organizations which produced specific local public goods (security) using violence. All three received generous subsidies from abroad, whether for geopolitical reasons, out of ideology, or in return for services. Younger members undergo some costly personal sacrifice in the case of the Taliban and Hamas (we know less about initiation of Hezbollah fighters). All three groups changed their ideologies drastically: Hamas in choosing armed conflict, the Taliban in deciding to protect Bin Laden and Hezbollah in shifting from a rebellion against Israeli occupation to an ethnic militia/political party after Israel's withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000. There are differences: Hamas view most Palestinians as potential members, as Hezbollah regard Lebanese Shia, while the Taliban treated most Afghans as a conquered people. Yet the common elements, and especially the common puzzles, seem to justify analysis in parallel.

Berman has also done field work among ultra-orthodox religious groups in Israel. Studying full-time Yeshiva students, who Berman finds study until 40 years old on average, and whose families have 7.6 children per woman (in the mid 1990s), he concludes that "Subsidies induce dramatic reductions in labor supply and unparalleled increases in fertility." In a 2000 NBER paper, Berman describes Ultra-Orthodox Jews as "a fascinating and fast-growing sect which has held virtual veto power over [Israeli] public policy for more than two decades."

After leaving the Israeli Defence Force in 1985, Berman studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He graduated with bachelor's degree in computer science and economics in 1987, and in 1989 obtained a master's in economics from the same university. He then obtained a PhD from Harvard University in 1993; his adviser was Zvi Griliches. After graduation from Harvard, Berman became an assistant professor at Boston University. He moved to UCSD in 2003. He and his wife Linda have been married for 25 years and they have two children, Ami (born 1992) and Rachel (born 1995).

Berman was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He describes his parents as "middle-of-the-road North American Jews." In 1981, Berman became an Israeli citizen, saying that he had "thought the Jewish experience would be more interesting in Israel". He then participated in the 1982 Lebanon War. Berman is now a US citizen.

Eli Berman (born 1960) is the Research Director for International Security Studies at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation and since 2010 a Professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego. He is known for his work applying rational choice analysis to the behavior of radical religious groups.

Berman argues that "Islamic fundamentalism" is a misnomer when applied to modern movements, and he prefers the term "Radical Islam", reasoning that many post-1920s movements starting with The Muslim Brotherhood, practice "unprecedented extremism", thus not qualifying as a return to historic fundamentals. He also approves of scholarship that argues that "the sanctification of political violence as Jihad by radical Islam is a recent phenomenon, a break with mainstream Muslim theology".