Radicalism of the Hopeless: Refugee Flows and Transnational Terrorism

We examine whether refugee flows increase transnational terrorism in states to which refugees flee. Recent studies find that refugee flows contribute to the spread of interstate and civil war, but to a far lesser extent have studies examined how refugee flows could lead to other forms of political violence. We discuss two ways in which refugee flows can lead to transnational terrorism: how conditions in camps contribute to the radicalization of refugees; and how poorly host states treat refugees. We then conduct empirical tests using data on worldwide international refugee flows and transnational terrorism. Specifically, we model the effect of refugee flows on transnational terror attacks within a directed dyad framework to account for characteristics of origin and host states. Using a rare-events logit model, along with count models to check robustness, we find that refugee flows significantly increase the likelihood and counts of transnational terrorist attacks that occur in the host country, even when controlling for other variables. Given the prominence of refugee flows and populations worldwide, the results suggest that states with significant refugee populations and the international community at large should take measures to address the conditions in refugee camps, as well as the treatment of refugees by host states in order to prevent transnational terrorism.     

The Escalation of Terrorism: Microlevel Violence and Interstate Conflict

Following the 9/11 attacks, transnational terrorism is seen as a potential catalyst for interstate war. Yet, the willingness of states to fight in response to terrorist violence is puzzling, given that the damage created by terrorism is relatively marginal. This raises the question: if terrorists are so weak and create such little damage, and interstate conflicts are so costly, why are states willing to initiate seemingly ruinous wars to fight terrorist groups? This essay proposes an explanation to address this question using current theoretical and empirical research on terrorism and interstate violence. Recent work indicates that while terrorists appear weak compared to states, terrorists can wield significant coercive power in smaller geographic areas. I argue that if these areas are strategically crucial to the government, such as areas with oil wells or mineral deposits, terrorist activity may precipitously weaken states relative to their rivals. I therefore argue that even if groups are only capable of killing at low levels, terrorism may lead to macrolevel power shifts, which may contribute to interstate violence.     

Transnational Terrorism in the Post–Cold War Era

The article uncovers evidence that the end of the Cold War has provideda dividend in terms of reduced transnational terrorism. Significant short-run and long-run effects are quantified with time-series analysis to be concentrated in reduced bombings and hostage-taking incidents. Presumably, this dividend is the result of less state-sponsorship of terrorism by the Commonwealth of Independent States and other states, as well as the result of measures taken by industrial states to thwart terrorist attacks. A dividend does not appear untilthe last three quarters of 1994, at which time moves were well under way to integrate Eastern Europe with the West. Moreover, prior to this period, significant efforts had been made among Western nations to augment cooperative efforts to curb terrorism and to bring terrorists to justice. Using data for 1970 through mid-1996, we also examine trends and cycles in terrorist modes ofattack. There is virtually no evidence of an upward trend in transnational terrorism, contrary to media characterizations. All types of terrorist incidents display cycles whose duration lengthens with logistical complexity. Any change in these cycles in the post–Cold War era is concentrated in the high-frequency or short-lived cycles.     

Transnational Terror and Human Rights

Do terrorist attacks by transnational groups lead governments to restrict human rights? Conventional wisdom holds that governments restrict rights to forestall additional attacks, to more effectively pursue suspected terrorists, and as an excuse to suppress their political opponents. But the logic connecting terrorist attacks to subsequent repression and the empirical research that addresses this issue suffer from important flaws. We analyze pooled data on the human rights behavior of governments from 1981 to 2003. Our key independent variable of interest is transnational terrorist attacks, and the analysis also controls for factors that existing studies have found influence respect for human rights. Repeated terrorist attacks lead governments to engage in more extrajudicial killings and disappearances, but have no discernable influence on government use of torture and of political imprisonment or on empowerment rights such as freedom of speech, assembly, and religion. This finding has important implications for how we think about the effects of terrorism and the policy responses of states, non-governmental organizations, and international institutions interested in protecting human rights.     

Contagion in the Transpacific Shipping Network: International Networks and Vulnerability Interdependence

To what extent are states vulnerable to disruptions in trade networks? We investigate this question by simulating attacks on the intermodal shipping network, whose ubiquitous containers carry 80% to 90% of all global trade in goods. While this network has reduced transportation costs and spurred international trade, the dependence of modern economies on ship-borne trade means disruptions in one region may produce considerable costs for states in another region. We simulate an “optimal terrorist” that learns about the conditions under which attacks on the network in other parts of the world generate economic losses to the United States. The study illustrates that by adopting a network- and process-oriented ontology, the study of interdependence may better anticipate new sources of interstate and transnational conflict.     

Does Democracy Decrease Fear of Terrorism?

ABSTRACT

Fear is an integral part of terrorism. Fighting fear can thus be a crucial part of counterterrorist policies. In the case of terrorism, citizens look to the state for protection. Yet, most studies of terrorist fear emphasize individual-level factors. We lack studies that link fear to features of the state, especially whether democratic states are capable of reducing fear among its citizens. Our study aims to fill part of this research gap by asking whether democratic government reduces or increases fear of terrorism. We find that there is substantial cross-country variance in citizens’ fear of terrorism. The results suggest that fear is more widespread among citizens in non-democratic countries compared to citizens in democratic countries. Actual exposure to terrorist attacks has no impact on citizens’ fear of terrorism when we account for whether the country is a democracy or not. Hence, democratic government displays resilience towards fear mongering.     

Deadlier in the U.S.? On Lone Wolves,Terrorist Groups,and Attack Lethality

Scholars, politicians, and pundits increasingly suggest lone wolf terrorists are substantial threats, but we know little about how dangerous these actors are—especially relative to other terrorist actors. How deadly are lone actor terrorists? A growing body of empirical research focuses on terrorist organizations, but similar work on lone actors is sparse. Furthermore, attempts to explicitly compare these or other types of terrorist actors are almost non-existent. This article considers theoretical arguments for why lone wolves ought to be especially lethal. However, it presents an argument for why terrorist groups should generally be more lethal. This argument is conditional upon the environment in which actors operate. Lone wolves should only be more deadly in states with especially strong counterterrorism capacity. The article uses data on terrorist attacks in fifteen developed countries, 1970–2010, to compare the lethality of terrorist acts. Around the world, attacks by organizations tend to be far more lethal than attacks by other actors. In the United States, however, lone wolves are generally the more lethal terrorist actors. This is argued to be because the robust counterterrorism capacity makes organized terrorism more difficult to accomplish.     

Deadly foreign terrorism and the rank-ordered tournament for foreign press attention: implications for counterterrorism

Limiting the attention countries receive from the foreign press is thought to reduce the incidence of deadly foreign attacks, but by how much? We show that the incidence of deadly foreign terrorism increases as a nonlinear function of the level of foreign press attention states receive. As a result, the benefits of reducing foreign press attention to prevent deadly foreign terrorist attacks are uneven: some states stand to benefit more than others. Nevertheless, we also show that reducing press attention produces, at best, only minor reductions in the number of deadly foreign terrorist attacks states experience. These results suggest that reducing foreign press attention may not provide as much security as governments expect.     

东南亚反恐难点和走向及云南国际大通道建设的对策

东南亚地区的恐怖袭击活动在最近几年异常活跃 ,恐怖爆炸与袭击此起彼伏 ,形势令人担忧。很显然 ,东南亚已经变成了恐怖分子活动的重灾区之一。日益猖獗的恐怖活动给东南亚地区的安全、稳定与发展造成了极大的威胁。在今后相当一段时间内本地区很可能仍是反恐的主要场所 ①,成为“反恐的第二阵线”(布什语)。伊斯兰教作为东南亚地区的一种外来宗教 ,其传入后大量地融入了当地的本土文化因素 ,因此一般认为东南亚的伊斯兰教是比较温和的。但是巴厘岛爆炸案等事件却使人们开始关注东南亚伊斯兰教极端主义势力。这里恐怖主义网络异常活跃 ,各种…     

论中印缅孟地区经济合作的发展与和平共处五项原则

一、引言中印缅孟地区是指中国、印度、缅甸、孟加拉国4个国家相互接壤和毗邻的地区 ,其地域主要包括中国的云南省 ,印度东部的比哈尔邦、西孟加拉国邦和整个东北部地区 ,缅甸全境和孟加拉国全境。该地区是世界上最贫困的地区之一 ,但它连接着东亚、东南亚、南亚三大区域 ,以及处于太平洋地区与印度洋地区的中间地带 ,这一特殊的区位优势为该地区开展区域经济合作创造了良好的条件。和平共处五项原则是1953年12月中国政府在同印度就两国在中国西藏地方的关系问题的谈判中首次提出 ,1954年中国政府同印度政府和缅甸政府分别发表联合声明 ,确…     

Terrorism and Party Systems in the States of India

The incidence of domestic terrorism varies dramatically across the states of India. This study demonstrates that important state-level differences in political party systems help to explain different levels of terrorist activity within the Indian states. Analysis of statistical data on terrorist attacks as well as other political, social, and macroeconomic indicators of the twenty-seven Indian states and the Delhi municipality from 1998 to 2006, determines that Indian states characterized by multiparty electoral competition, a diffusion of legislative seat distribution among parties, and minority party government are more likely to experience terrorist attacks than states with stable, two-party systems and majority party rule. These party system features increase the likelihood that terrorism will occur because they nurture the political conditions under which terrorism is likely to flourish and because they impair government ability to craft coherent and effective responses to terrorism.     

Wake-up call for the Lowlands: Dutch counterterrorism from a comparative perspective

The Netherlands is one of the few countries in Western Europe that did not experience massive terrorist attacks and where counterterrorism actions did not feature prominently on the political agenda. Until quite recently, the Netherlands had neither emergency legislation for terrorist incidents nor a specific Act that criminalized terrorist offences. In response to the European Union framework legislation, a bill was produced that penalizes participation in a terrorist organization, flanked by a vast array of other measures. This article analyses the policy, institutional and legislative responses to terrorism in the Netherlands and compares these with responses from other European states. The events of 9/11, as well as the political and public anxiety over the murders of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, acted as a firm wake-up call for the Netherlands insofar as the threat of terrorism is concerned. Whilst most countries adopted an incremental approach to countering terrorism, the Netherlands witnessed a radical shift in criminal justice and law enforcement policy following these events.     

What Makes Terrorism Salient? Terrorist Strategies,Political Competition,and Public Opinion

This article analyzes the determinants of terrorism saliency in public opinion. It is usually assumed that after a terrorist attack, terrorism becomes automatically salient. However, this assumption is only true in those countries where terrorist attacks are exceptional events. In democracies that have suffered domestic terrorism for decades, the evolution of terrorism saliency does not only depend on the frequency or intensity of terrorist attacks. In this article it is claimed that the tactics carried out by terrorist groups (the type of victim, especially) and the dynamics of political competition (especially the ideology of the incumbent) are also factors that explain the evolution of terrorism saliency. The article also analyzes how these two factors interact with citizens’ predispositions to explain variation in their reactions to terrorist threat. The empirical test relies on a novel database from monthly public opinion surveys in Spain from 1993 to 2012.     

新时期东南亚地区反恐斗争的难点及走势

"9·11"事件已过去近10年,其间世界各地的恐怖事件不断,东南亚地区也不例外,这对东南亚地区的安全、稳定与发展造成了极大的威胁。面对恐怖主义的威胁,东南亚各国政府日渐认识到合作反恐的重要性。     

Competing to Kill: Terrorist Organizations Versus Lone Wolf Terrorists

Are organizationally linked suicide attacks deadlier than those launched by lone wolf terrorists? This article elaborates a perpetrator-based distinction among suicide terrorist attacks between organizations and lone wolf terrorists, who operate in the absence of a financially or physically supportive terrorist organization. The expectation is that terrorist organizations would serve as commitment tools that increase the loyalty of suicide bombers to their missions through material and non-material incentives. Findings demonstrate that when terrorist organizations are involved in the planning and execution of suicide terrorist attacks, not only do they increase the lethality of these attacks but they also accentuate the tactical advantages of suicide terrorism. These findings suggest that despite the recent upsurge and concern about lone wolf terrorism, the lethality and security impacts of suicide terrorism continue to be driven by terrorist organizations.     

State Capacity and Terrorism: A Two-Dimensional Approach

Conventional wisdom suggests that dissident groups use terrorism when they face an overwhelmingly more powerful state, yet attacks in developing countries have predominated in the post-Cold War era, suggesting that terrorism is an increasingly weak state phenomenon. Cross-national studies of terrorism find mixed results for how common measures of state capacity influence terrorism. We argue that these indeterminate findings are due in part to a partial understanding of both what constitutes state capacity and how different aspects of state strength or weakness relate to the propensity of groups to use terrorism. We decompose state capacity into two dimensions that we theorize are particularly relevant to dissident groups: military capacity, or the ability to project conventional military force, and bureaucratic/administrative capacity. Our analysis supports the claim that terrorist attacks are more frequently targeted at states with large, technologically sophisticated militaries but less frequently targeted at states with higher bureaucratic and administrative capacity. We also compare two militarily capable states, France and Russia, that have had different recent experiences with terrorism to help illustrate the causal mechanisms involved. Evidence from our models and cases suggest that states can be capable in different ways, and these various capabilities create differing incentives for using terror as a strategic and tactical tool.     

Change and continuity across the 9/11 fault line: rethinking twenty-first-century responses to terrorism

This article asks the following questions. Which terrorism threats, challenges and responses did key players consider to have been decisively changed by 9/11? On close inspection now, nearly two decades after those attacks, how are we to assess such claims? What did 9/11 really change regarding terrorism and counterterrorism? And what remained unaltered? The article’s central argument is this: some western states exaggerated the extent to which terrorist threats and challenges had been changed by 9/11 and, as a consequence, they did significantly alter some of their responses to terrorism; but at the heart of this ironic process was the tragic reality that, had there been a more serious-minded and historically sensitive recognition of how little had necessarily been changed by 9/11 in terms of terrorist threats and challenges, then the twenty-first-century experience of non-state terrorism would have been much less painful than has been the case in practice.     

The Homegrown Threat: State Strength,Grievance, and Domestic Terrorism

Scholars maintain that, similar to insurgency, terrorist violence is precipitated by both relative deprivation and state weakness. Yet aggrieved minority groups within a country should turn to terrorism when they are weak relative to the state rather than strong. Empirical evidence shows minority group discrimination and fragile political institutions to independently increase domestic terror attacks. But it remains unclear whether grievances drive domestic terrorism in both strong and weak states. Using data from 172 countries between 1998 and 2007, we find that for strong states the presence of minority discrimination leads to increased domestic terrorism, while for weak states the presence of minority discrimination actually leads to less domestic terrorism. Consequently, increasing state capacity may not be a panacea for antistate violence, as nonstate actors may simply change their strategy from insurgency or guerrilla warfare to terrorism. Efforts to reduce terrorist violence must focus on reducing grievance by eliminating discriminatory policies at the same time that measures to improve state capacity are enacted.     

The Spread of Military Innovations: Adoption Capacity Theory,Tactical Incentives,and the Case of Suicide Terrorism

What explains the adoption of military innovations? In this article, we assess the empirical validity of adoption capacity theory by reconsidering one methodologically important case analyzed by Michael Horowitz: the diffusion of suicide terrorism. We show that, when addressing problems in Horowitz's research design, the case of suicide terrorism fails to support adoption capacity theory. We argue that, in order to account for the diffusion of this innovation, one needs to take into consideration the tactical incentives to overcome technologically superior enemies. The results of our quantitative and qualitative analyses suggest that terrorist groups fighting against very powerful states in terms of conventional capabilities are more likely to employ suicide attacks than those fighting against poorly equipped ones. Our findings are important because they provide systematic evidence in support of Kalyvas and Sànchez-Cuenca's argument that suicide terrorism is driven by tactical considerations and because they provide confidence in the external validity of Berman and Laitin's hardness of targets hypothesis. Our results also question Lyall and Wilson's finding that highly mechanized armies are inherently inadequate to win counterinsurgency operations. The superior conventional capabilities of a counterinsurgency army might in fact make traditional insurgent tactics ineffective and thus give insurgents an incentive to adopt suicide attacks.     

Terrorism and Public Opinion: The Effects of Terrorist Attacks on the Popularity of the President of the United States

This article uses a large-n dataset to investigate the effect of terrorist attacks with American victims on the popularity of the U.S. president. The study uses two broad theoretical frameworks to analyze this effect, the score-keeping framework and the rally-effect framework. The findings of the study show that, when excluding the effect from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, actual terrorist attacks have no generalizable short-term impact on the popularity of the U.S. president. This indicates that even though the topics of national security, terrorism, and the president’s ability to handle these issues are important in the political debate in the United States, actual terrorism has little or no short-term impact on presidential approval ratings.