What is Scott Atran's relationship to the Library of Social Science and the Foundation for the Study of Political Pathology and how has he contributed to the ideas on the LSS and Foundation websites?

Scott Atran is not, as far as the public record shows, an officer, founder, employee, or formal affiliate of either the Library of Social Science (LSS) or the Foundation for the Study of Political Pathology. Rather, he is one of the outside scholars whose work Richard Koenigsberg has embraced, promoted, and incorporated into the intellectual framework of both organizations.

The Relationship

The connection appears to run primarily through Richard Koenigsberg, founder and director of the Library of Social Science and founder of the Foundation for the Study of Political Pathology.

Over the last decade, Koenigsberg has repeatedly published Atran's essays, reviewed his books, discussed his theories in newsletters, and explicitly linked Atran's concepts to his own theories of war, nationalism, and political violence. LSS has published multiple installments of Atran's work on "sacred values" and "devoted actors," often introducing him as a "Friend of Library of Social Science."

Koenigsberg's websites frequently present Atran alongside other scholars whose work he believes helps explain why people kill and die for collective causes.

The Main Ideas Atran Contributed

Atran's influence on LSS and Foundation thinking can be summarized under three major concepts.

1. Sacred Values

Atran's best-known contribution is the concept of sacred values.

He argues that people often make their greatest sacrifices—not for material interests—but for ideas they regard as sacred. These values are treated as non-negotiable and are not evaluated through ordinary cost-benefit reasoning. People may fight, kill, or die for them even when success is unlikely.

Koenigsberg explicitly adopted this idea and connected it to his own concept of the "sacred object." In LSS newsletters he repeatedly argues that nations, homelands, religions, and political ideologies become sacred objects for which people are willing to kill and die. He frequently cites Atran as providing empirical and theoretical support for this claim.

In fact, Koenigsberg wrote: Scott Atran developed the concept of "sacred values" to explain terrorism and suicide bombings. The Foundation website's recurring theme that human beings sacrifice themselves for sacred ideals clearly reflects this influence.

2. The Devoted Actor

A second major contribution is Atran's theory of the devoted actor.

Atran argues that some people become so fused with a group identity and sacred cause that they are willing to make extreme sacrifices—including death. These actors do not behave according to rational-choice models; they act from duty, loyalty, and moral commitment.

This concept became highly influential in Koenigsberg's newsletters. He explicitly applies Atran's theory not only to jihadists but also to Nazis, communists, soldiers, revolutionaries, and nationalists. For Koenigsberg, the devoted actor theory supports a broader claim:

Soldiers die for nations.
Revolutionaries die for ideologies.
Terrorists die for religious causes.

In each case, human beings sacrifice themselves for a transcendent collective entity. That theme runs throughout both the LSS and Foundation websites.

3. Identity Fusion

Atran's research also emphasizes identity fusion—the merging of personal identity with a group identity. When this occurs, the group's survival feels equivalent to one's own survival. People become willing to make extraordinary sacrifices for the group. This idea meshes closely with Koenigsberg's longstanding argument that individuals psychologically merge with nations and political entities. Koenigsberg often describes people as treating the nation-state as an extension of themselves or as an immortal collective body. Atran's identity-fusion research provides a contemporary social-scientific mechanism for explaining that process.

Where Koenigsberg and Atran Differ

Although Koenigsberg draws heavily on Atran, they are not saying exactly the same thing. Atran is primarily an anthropologist and cognitive scientist. His work is based on field research with terrorists, militants, and combatants. He generally seeks to explain how sacred values and group commitments motivate behavior.

Koenigsberg goes further in a psychoanalytic and symbolic direction. He argues that nations themselves become sacred objects and that war often functions as a ritual of sacrifice. His theory treats warfare as a form of collective psychopathology or political religion.

So Atran provides much of the empirical and theoretical foundation for understanding why people sacrifice themselves for causes, while Koenigsberg extends those insights into a broader theory of nationalism, war, and political violence.

Bottom Line

Scott Atran's relationship to LSS and the Foundation is best understood as that of a highly influential outside scholar rather than an organizational member. His theories of sacred values, devoted actors, and identity fusion have become some of the most important intellectual building blocks in Richard Koenigsberg's interpretation of war, nationalism, genocide, and terrorism. Much of the Foundation's language about sacred ideals, sacrificial death, and collective devotion reflects concepts that Koenigsberg explicitly traces to Atran's work.

One particularly revealing fact is that the Foundation's homepage prominently features a quotation from Atran on commitment to sacred causes, placing him among a small group of thinkers whose ideas are presented as foundational to the organization's worldview (original paper on the “Power of Absurdity” is here).