Defining Terrorism
The statement, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter", has become not only a cliche, but also one of the most difficult obstacles in coping with terrorism. The matter of definition and conceptualization is usually a purely theoretical issue—a mechanism for ...
Does Income Inequality Derive the Separatist Terrorism in Turkey?
Separatist terrorism has been a severe problem for Turkey since the mid-1980s. The conventional wisdom contends that economic deprivation in southeastern Turkey is the fundamental reason for the long-running battle against the Kurdish rebels. Considering that there is limited empirical literature ...
Does Terrorism Increase after a Natural Disaster? An Analysis based upon Property Damage
Does an emergency such as a natural disaster lead to a surge of terrorism? This paper contributes to the emerging literature on this issue. We consider the experience of 129 countries during the period 1998–2012 to determine the effect of a natural disaster on both domestic as well as transnati...
Effect of terrorism on economic growth in Pakistan: an empirical analysis
The paper examines the impact of terrorism on economic growth in Pakistan. Channel variables, such as foreign direct investment (FDI), domestic investment, and government spending, through which terrorism influences economic growth, are identified. For empirical analysis, annual data for the per...
Faire la paix au Mali: les limites de l’acharnement contre-terroriste
International intervention in Mali is conducted on the basis of a dubious conceptual framework and an analytical grid that is insufficiently rigorous, namely the theory of the terrorist threat. An impressive military operation has been mobilized to counter this threat. This article argues that t...
Finding the right mix: re-evaluating the road to gender-equality in countering violent extremism programming
The adoption of gender mainstreaming strategies has become an increasingly common expectation within countering terrorism and violent extremism policy and programming. Through comparative case study examination of two iterations of a Strengthening Resilience to Violent Extremism programme, this ...
Fundamentalism, Radicalization and Terrorism. Part 1: terrorism as dissolution in a complex system
In the first of two papers in this Special Issue, Lord Alderdice draws on his personal experience of living and working in Northern Ireland and other countries that have suffered from terrorism, and describes from a psychoan alytic and systemic perspective the history of national, cultural and pol...
HOW DOES TERRORISM RISK VARY ACROSS SPACE AND TIME? AN ANALYSIS BASED ON THE ISRAELI EXPERIENCE
We study the spatial and temporal determinants of terrorism risk in Israel, using a geocoded database of Israeli terrorist attacks from 1949 to 2004. In selecting targets, terrorists seem to respond rationally to costs and benefits: they are more likely to hit targets more accessible from their o...
“Listing terrorists”: the impact of proscription on third-party efforts to engage armed groups in peace processes – a practitioner's perspective
This article explores the effects of proscription– the act of listing an armed group as a designated terrorist organisation– as an example of how international counterterrorist policy can impact on the possibility for third-party actors to engage with listed armed groups in the context of pe...
Militant Leadership and Terrorism in Armed Conflict
The lethality and the frequency of terrorist attacks conducted by militant organizations vary considerably. Some militants perpetrate extreme and systemic levels of terrorist violence, some only do so occasionally, and others never conduct terror operations. To predict group-level differences in ...
Nuclear Terrorism: What Can We Learn from Los Alamos?
The international security community is increasingly concerned about the nexus between indiscriminate terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear technology and materials. Many nuclear terrorism threat assess ments focus primarily on terrorist motivations to employ an atomic bomb, the availability...
Provocation and Attrition Strategies in Transnational Terrorism: The Case of Al-Shabaab
Scholars have identified a range of terrorist strategies that militant groups employ to influence intended audiences, but there is scant empirical valida tion. Following Kenya’s invasion of Somalia in late 2011, Al-Shabaab executed retaliatory terrorist attacks in Kenya with the strategic aim t...
Putin's Counter-Terrorism: The Parameters of a Strategic Dead-End
Russia’s struggle against terrorism has been used instrumentally by President Putin for achieving a range of international and domestic political goals. This trademark instrumentalization, however, has been stretched beyond its limits. The stagnant and deeply criminalized hostilities in Chechny...
Reinventing prevention or exposing the gap? False positives in UK terrorism governance and the quest for pre-emption
This article considers the developments within UK counterterrorism strategy between the Prevention of Terrorism Acts (PTAs) and the recent (2011) reworking of CONTEST. It argues that the performance of prevention within British counterterrorism policy has changed to favour pre-emptive measures, d...
Remaking alliances for the war on terrorism
This essay contends that allies are vital for counterterrorism, but what we ask of them and their institutional form is quite different from what was asked of traditional alliance partners during the Cold War and its immediate aftermath. Despite these differences, some of the alliance dilemmas th...
Security rights violations in the context of counter terrorism: analysis of the post-Soviet nations
This study aims to explain the security rights violations of terrorism suspects. It develops a theoretical model and assesses its predictions using a sample of post-Soviet states. The author uses original data on security rights violations of individuals implicated in terrorism and their family m...
Southeast Asia as the ‘second front’ in the war against terrorism: evaluating the threat and responses
Following the seminal events of 11 September 2001, and especially since 12 October 2002, southeast Asia has come into focus as the so-called ‘second front’ in the war against international terrorism. However, the threat of terrorism to southeast Asia emanating from radical Islam predated the...
TERRORISM AND DETERRENCE POLICY WITH TRANSNATIONAL SUPPORT
This study provides an explanation of terrorism by examining interactions between the terrorist group with a minority as a potential pool of recruits and the government supported by a majority. A hawkish deterrence policy makes it more risky for terrorists to launch attacks, but heightens the ant...
Terrorism and fear: do terrorists really want to scare?
There is a widespread tendency among academics, state institu tions and international organisations to regard intention to cause fear and intimidation as a key definitional characteristic of terror ism. This article argues that such a conceptualisation of terrorism is unfounded. A survey of mainst...
Terrorism as a Strategy of Psychological Warfare
.The ability of a few individuals to manipulate public opinion, thus influencing the highest policies of the land, makes terror ism a strategic threat to democratic societies. Terrorism undermines the sense of security and disrupts everyday life, harming the target country’s ability to function...
Terrorism as Psychological Warfare
“Terrorism” is linked to “terror” which is a state of mind, created by a level of fear that so agitates body and mind that those struck by it are not capable of making an objective assessment of risks anymore. Fear is a powerful tool in politics. Demagogues have at times conjured up the ...
Terrorized places and spaces: the geographical dimension of African terrorism
The common explanation of terrorism in literature is that it is a political phenomenon. But this paper argues that terrorism is place bound and location specific. It explores how geography connects to the understanding of terrorism as a territorialized phenomenon, stressing the importance of lagg...
The Contextual Nature of Right-Wing Terrorism across Nations
Despite the growing threat of right-wing terrorism as a security concern in many countries, no empirical research has examined the variables that are associated with increases or decreases in right-wing terrorist incidents at a national level of aggregation. The present study examines the applicabil...
The Discursive Construction of Terrorist Group Identity
The media coverage of terrorist acts has been the subject of numerous scientific studies. However, the terrorist groups’ own communication perspectives have not been thoroughly researched. The following article deals with terrorist groups and their use of websites for identity building. We exami...
The Origins and Nature of Terrorism
Terrorism has been present for centuries in a myriad of forms and locations. However, the events of September 11, 2001 gave terrorism a new meaning in the United States and many other nations. Following a brief historical review of terrorism, we examine the background of Al Qaeda. We then look at d...
The security-prejudice nexus: “Islamist” terrorism and the structural logics of Islamophobia in the UK
A growing body of evidence documents that Islamophobia is a significant social issue in the UK. This evidence also reveals an empirical link to “Islamist” terrorism, revealing a nexus between security and the social emergence of prejudice. Drawing on critical approaches to security and applying ...
Hopes and misguided expectations: How policy documents frame gender in efforts at preventing terrorism and violent extremism
In recent years, increased attention has been given to the role of women in preventing and countering violent extremism (CVE). This potential role of women has been included in the United Nations Security Council’s follow-up resolutions to Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, as well...
When is Foreign Aid Effective in Fighting Terrorism? Threshold Evidence
Buildingontheprevious literature,weassesswhenforeignaidis effectiveinfightingterrorismusingquantileregressionsonapanel of78developingcountriesfortheperiod1984–2008.Bilateral,mul tilateralandtotalaidindicatorsareusedwhereasterrorismincludes: domestic, transnational,unclearandtotal terrorismdyna...
Domesticating the “New Terrorism”: The Case of the Maoist Insurgency in India
In this essay, I argue that the Indian state’s response to the Maoist insurgency has been ideologically shaped by the “new terrorism” discourse cultivated by Western powers, particularly by the United States. Following the post-9/11 othering of Islamic terrorism as a trope of a “civilizati...
Creating the National/Border Security Nexus: Counter Terrorist Operations and Monitoring Middle Eastern and North African Visitors to the UK in the 1970s–1980s
This article looks at an earlier episode in the history of the UK border security apparatus by examining how the immigration control system was used in the 1970s and 1980s to detect potential terrorists from the Middle East and North Africa. Using recently opened archival records, it shows that ...
Who Fights Terror: Gendarmerie Forces and Terrorist Group Termination
While existing research on terrorist group termination examines numerous factors explaining why some terror groups end their cam paigns of violence, these studies do not sufficiently address the impact that the actors who actively fight these groups have on the probability of a group’s demise. ...
Terrorism and fear: do terrorists really want to scare?
There is a widespread tendency among academics, state institu tions and international organisations to regard intention to cause fear and intimidation as a key definitional characteristic of terror ism. This article argues that such a conceptualisation of terrorism is unfounded. A survey of mainst...
Is terrorism deadlier in democracies?
A long literature examines the relationship between terrorism and democracy. However, little research examines the lethality of terrorist attacks across regime type. This article theorizes the terrorism that democracies do experience will be less deadly. Democracy increases the opportunity for n...
Does Terrorism Increase after a Natural Disaster? An Analysis based upon Property Damage
Does an emergency such as a natural disaster lead to a surge of terrorism? This paper contributes to the emerging literature on this issue. We consider the experience of 129 countries during the period 1998–2012 to determine the effect of a natural disaster on both domestic as well as transnati...
Political terrorism in South‐East Asia
This article will provide an overview of one specific non-military threat that is beginning to assume greater prominence on south-east Asia's broadened security agenda: political terrorism.1 Although by no means new to the south-east Asian environment, for much of the twentieth century its i...
The Discursive Construction of Terrorist Group Identity
The media coverage of terrorist acts has been the subject of numer ous scientific studies. However, the terrorist groups’ own communi cation perspectives have not been thoroughly researched. The following article deals with terrorist groups and their use of websites for identity building. We ex...
Finding the right mix: re-evaluating the road to gender equality in countering violent extremism programming
The adoption of gender mainstreaming strategies has become an increasingly common expectation within countering terrorism and violent extremism policy and programming. Through comparative case study examination of two iterations of a Strengthening Resilience to Violent Extremism programme, this ...
France and the war on terrorism
France has had a long history of struggle with various forms of terrorism and over the past decade has achieved particular success against Algerian Islamic terrorist groups the GIA and GSPC – with close links to Al-Qaeda. This article reviews France’s experience of terrorism since the end of ...
Impact of Terrorism and Security Measures on Global Business Transactions: Some International Business Guidelines
Terrorism is likely to continue well into the future, presenting a new type of risk for companies that engage in international business transactions. Worldwide, government policymakers have introduced a variety of security measures to contain terrorism while trying not to reduce=distract global ...
Incitement to Violence and Stochastic Terrorism: Legal, Academic, and Practical Parameters for Researchers and Investigators
In the U.S., legal incitement is generally understood as speech that is intended to incite or produce imminent lawless action, and is likely, in fact, to do so. It is an a old construct extending back to ancient Greece. In contrast, stochastic terrorism is a relatively new academic term describi...
Introduction: What is New About Research on Terrorism
Research on terrorism is now in the midst of a period of rapid progress, much of which is embodied in the articles in this volume. Although our un derstanding of the phenomenon is still in its early stages, knowledge about the causes, conduct, and consequences of terrorism is accumulating. Impor ...
Islamist militancy in Bangladesh: why it failed to take root
From 1999 to 2005 Bangladesh, the world’s third largest Muslim country, was swept by a wave of Islamist militancy that triggered considerable media and academic concern that Bangladesh would fall prey to Islamist extremism. The Islamist extremism that Bangladesh experienced during those years w...
Lying About Terrorism
Conventional wisdom holds that terrorism is committed for strategic reasons as a form of costly signaling to an audience. However, since over half of terrorist attacks are not credibly claimed, conventional wisdom does not explain many acts of terrorism. This article suggests that there are four ...
Militant Leadership and Terrorism in Armed Conflict
The lethality and the frequency of terrorist attacks conducted by militant organizations vary considerably. Some militants perpetrate extreme and systemic levels of terrorist violence, some only do so occasionally, and others never conduct terror operations. To predict group-level differences in...
‘New Terrorism’ and Crime Prevention Initiatives Involving Muslim Young People in the UK: Research and Policy Contexts
This article draws upon a research study exploring engagement and partnership work between Muslim communities and the police within the context of ‘new terrorism’. First I set out the ways in which ‘new terrorism’ discourse has influenced security agendas and the impacts of securitisatio...
Osama bin Corleone? Vito the Jackal? Framing Threat Convergence Through an Examination of Transnational Organized Crime and International Terrorism
Nation-states and security planners continue to place a high emphasis on threat convergence, such as that which emanates from the links between transnational organized crime and international terrorism. The social and behavioral sciences are not silent on this topic. This article frames the exist...
Radicalisation, counter-radicalisation and countering violent extremism in the Western Balkans and the South Caucasus: the cases of Kosovo and Georgia
Scholarly attention is emerging on the globalisation and prolifera tion of initiatives and measures in the fields of counter- radicalisation and countering violent extremism (Hayes and Kundnani 2018). A multitude of international actors endeavour to provide security norms and governance standards...
Recidivism Among People Convicted of Terrorism: A Survival Analysis Based on the Belgian Central Criminal Record
The recidivism of people convicted of terrorism remains a major concern. Paradoxically, few studies have been carried out on this subject yet. What do we know about it? This paper presents the results of a study on recidivism among people convicted of terrorism in Belgium (n = 463), based on data...
Russia's Relationship with the United States/NATO in the US-led Global War on Terrorism
This article examines Russia’s relationship with the United States/NATO in the US-led Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). The nature of Russia’s terrorist challenge and the official reaction are set forth. Russia’s National Security Concept, released in 2000, provides clear indication of the pr...
Securing territory against terrorists
When the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked on 11 September 2001, the immediate perception of the American public was that the intelligence community had let them down. To an extent, this assessment was simplistic and unfair. Because intelligence, and therefore intelligence-based ...
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