Sarah Tunnell’s thesis “Recruiting, Motivating, and Retaining Youthful Participants in Terrorism: A Preliminary Analysis,” attempts to illustrate how terrorist organizations recruit young participants. Overall, the thesis is extremely well written and thoroughly researched, yet, without a clear understanding of Tunnell’s interpretation of youth the thesis lacks a substantial argument. Multiple interpretations of youth are presented in the piece but always as other authors understanding of the term. Tunnell never explicitly provides a definition of youth, hence, the conclusion is shaky at best. Foremost, Tunnell starts the thesis with an introduction to terrorism. By highlighting the differing opinions of academics about what does and does not constitute terrorism, Tunnell provides a concise and supported definition for terrorism. Starting the thesis with the definition of terrorism is an important part of creating a clear, concise argument. However, as the Defining Terrorism chapter progresses the argument and organization become muddled. As stated in the Introduction chapter, “this work seeks to examine a potential trend in the age of individual recruits; in particular, whether youthful …show more content…
While it provides a wealth of intriguing information, Tunnell never attempts to highlight specific themes nor provide an explanation of the relevance of the historical information to current recruitment trends. Of course, had Tunnell connected the information and explained the importance of historical knowledge the chapter would be an excellent introduction piece. On the other hand, any explanation of the history of specific terrorist organizations could be articulated in Defining Terrorism rather than receiving an entire chapter on its own. Overall, the chapter felt out of place and struggled to promote a higher level of understanding of specific recruitment