hile the presence of foreign fighters in military conflict has been a regular ingredient of jihad, never before in modern history have foreign fighters gathered at the scale and speed as they have in the territory of the so-called Islamic State. As the foreign fighter phenomenon in Syria and Iraq pose severe security risks for the sender countries, especially from battlefield returnees and lone-wolf sympathizers, it becomes imperative to better understand the push factors of expat jihadism. Empirical studies of these factors are still scarce and often generate contradicting results. The objective of our paper is to contribute to the emerging discussion of these push factors of expat jihadism and to complement the findings of the few empirical studies already conducted. Contrary to other studies, we provide strong evidence for the hypothesis that Muslim youth unemployment is a driver of expat jihadism not only for the Arab world, but globally
