An epistemic break from “expertise”: Misunderstanding Terrorism by Marc Sageman

ABSTRACT

Professor Marc Sageman’s latest contribution to terrorism “studies” builds on an ever-increasing critique of a field in which “expertise” is something that is largely taken for granted, rather than empirically “known”. His book Misunderstanding Terrorism seeks to refocus our attention towards what is knowable through a Bayesian analysis based on his unique access to acts of terrorism within the Western world. Key, however, is his framing of what terrorism “is”, and to that effect, this review article first assesses the work of two individuals writing on terrorism, Rafaello Pantucci and Shiraz Maher, to place Sageman’s significant book within a wider context of terrorism literature.     

Targeted Versus Conventional Economic Sanctions: What Is at Stake for Human Rights?

ABSTRACT

The adverse impact of economic sanctions on human rights is well documented in the literature (Peksen 2009; Wood 2008) and so are the consequences of sanctions for democracy (Peksen and Drury 2009, 2010) and for the survival of leaders (Escribà-Folch & Wright 2010; Marinov 2005). Using data from the Targeted Sanctions Consortium (Biersteker, Eckert, Tourinho, and Hudákóva 2013), we analyze whether sanctions that target segmented groups within the leadership fare any better with respect to human rights protection. The analysis focuses on the universe of targeted sanctions against African countries, between 1992 and 2008, and finds that the adverse impact of this coercive instrument—though unintended—is not statistically distinguishable from the adverse consequences already identified by the literature with respect to conventional sanctions. All else equal, the protection of rights to physical integrity (the right to life and the prohibition of torture) in the targeted country is 1.74 times more likely to worsen under an episode of targeted sanction when compared to a situation where there is no sanction. We propose a signaling model wherein a targeted leader is perceived by the opposition as weakened by the sanctions, which leads to more protest and repression. Higher levels of human rights violations follow.     

欧美科技制裁协作的动力与分歧：基于欧盟的视角

科技制裁在持续的军事冲突中发挥着关键作用,在和平时期的地缘政治中也从未消失。欧盟与美国是最大的制裁实施者,双方的制裁协作在多个地区和领域产生了重要影响。虽然欧美科技制裁协作较为频繁,但欧盟和美国在制裁政策上仍存在诸多分歧。文章从欧美价值观、安全威胁和二级制裁这三个维度出发,剖析欧盟与美国进行科技制裁协作的动因与诱发分歧的因素,并选择俄罗斯、伊朗和中国这三个具有代表性和差异性的案例进行比较。欧盟与美国对俄罗斯的制裁协作水平最高;在伊朗案例中,二级制裁因素带来的欧美分歧较为突出;在中国案例中,欧美尚未达成明显的制裁共识。共同价值观、安全威胁的紧迫性、二级制裁压力等要素是促使欧盟参与美国科技制裁的重要动因。然而,不同的外交政策理念、安全认知的错位和二级制裁的反作用力也使欧美分歧难以弥合,大大削减了制裁效率。     

Reply to Marie Breen-Smyth, “Theorising the ‘suspect community’: counterterrorism,security practices and the public imagination”

Marie Breen-Smyth’s recent contribution to the “suspect community” debate misunderstands and misrepresents my own and suffers from several other difficulties besides. I’m grateful to the editor of Critical Studies on Terrorism for the opportunity to make this brief reply.     

Effective but inefficient: understanding the costs of counterterrorism

This article analyses state counterterrorism (CT) policy on two dimensions: its effectiveness and its efficiency. It points out that CT is likely to be effective but inefficient. The material weakness of terrorist groups in relation to their state opponents, and different organisational dilemmas, increases the probability of an effective CT policy. However, states frequently overreact to terrorist attacks, which are valued in normative instead of strategic terms. Hence, they spend more resources on CT than justified by the threat posed by the terrorist groups. The article concludes that CT should be framed as an allocation of scarce resources that could be used in other important contexts.     

Counterterrorism Killings and Provisional IRA Bombings, 1970–1998

Counterterrorism strategies involving the killing of terrorists are a prominently used but controversial practice. Proponents argue that such strategies are useful tools for reducing terrorist activity, while critics question their effectiveness. This article provides empirical insight into this strategy by conducting a series of negative binomial regression and Tobit estimations of the impact of killing Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) terrorists as well as members of the Catholic community on counts of PIRA bombings and targeting activity in Northern Ireland for the period 1970–1998. We consider the impact of discriminate and indiscriminate killings (where only PIRA militants are killed versus those in which both militants and civilians are also killed) on subsequent PIRA improvised explosive device (IED) attacks. Our findings illustrate that while total and discriminate counterterrorism killings have little to no effect on PIRA IED attacks, indiscriminate counterterrorism killings increased PIRA bombings overall and prompted the Provisional IRA to specifically target civilians in IED events. We conclude by discussing the scholarly and policy implications of these findings.     

Balancing tolerance,security and Muslim engagement in the United Kingdom: the impact of the ‘Prevent’ agenda

In this article, we consider how engagement with Muslims by the state has been conducted under the UK government's counter-radicalisation ‘Prevent’ agenda. New Labour's ‘hearts and minds’ approach to Prevent emphasised, and innovated, engagement with Muslim ‘communities’. This approach was widely criticised, however, particularly in the way it merged Prevent with ‘Community Cohesion’. By contrast, the current Coalition government's new Prevent strategy operates with a much thinner conception of engagement and stipulates that in future, Prevent and cohesion work will be kept separate. This new strategy signals less community engagement and a hardened line on the types of Muslim groups that can be engaged with. However, local actors driven by operational or normative concerns are pursuing somewhat different objectives, often outside of central funding streams. Such unintentional localism may sustain more participatory and inclusive modes of engagement with Muslims.     

战略收益、融入程度与第三国制裁规避

同样是第三国帮助被制裁国规避制裁的行为,为什么有的采取向被制裁国提供援助的直接策略,而有的选择与被制裁国深化贸易合作的间接策略？既有研究主要从国际制度、公共选择和联盟政治等视角分析第三国的行为逻辑,忽视了第三国对既有国际经济体系的融入程度的影响。基于经济制裁的第三国规避理论,本文提出,当制裁规避具有较高战略收益时,第三国对既有国际经济体系的融入程度会影响其制裁规避的策略选择。以2022年美俄制裁争端为例,对伊朗而言,帮助俄罗斯规避制裁具有较高的战略收益,且伊朗融入既有国际经济体系的程度较浅,这促使伊朗采取向俄罗斯提供军事援助的直接制裁规避。对印度而言,帮助俄罗斯规避制裁具有较高的战略收益,但印度融入既有国际经济体系的程度较深,这促使印度采取深化贸易合作的间接制裁规避。     

Coercive or Corrosive: The Negative Impact of Economic Sanctions on Democracy

This article seeks to analyze the impact that sanctions have on democracy. We argue that economic sanctions worsen the level of democracy because the economic hardship caused by sanctions can be used as a strategic tool by the targeted regime to consolidate authoritarian rule and weaken the opposition. Furthermore, we argue that economic sanctions create new incentives for the political leadership to restrict political liberties, to undermine the challenge of sanctions as an external threat to their authority. Using time-series cross-national data (1972–2000), the findings show that both the immediate and longer‐term effects of economic sanctions significantly reduce the level of democratic freedoms in the target. The findings also demonstrate that comprehensive economic sanctions have greater negative impact than limited sanctions. These findings suggest that sanctions can create negative externalities by reducing the political rights and civil liberties in the targeted state.