Topics in terrorism research: reviewing trends and gaps, 2007-2016

ABSTRACT

The topical focus of research on terrorism has frequently been critiqued for being too narrow, too event-driven and too strongly tied to governments’ counterterrorism policies. This article uses keyword analysis to assess the degree to which these issues remain present in the literature on terrorism as represented by the 3.442 articles published between 2007 and 2016 in nine of the field’s leading academic journals. Several fluctuations notwithstanding, research on terrorism has retained a strong focus on al-Qaeda, jihadist terrorism more generally, and the geographic areas most strongly associated with this type of terrorist violence. Results also indicate that the field remains event-driven and consistently underemphasizes state terrorism as well as non-jihadist terrorism, such as that perpetrated by right-wing extremists.     

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.     

Nuclear Terrorism: What Can We Learn from Los Alamos?

ABSTRACT

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 assessments focus primarily on terrorist motivations to employ an atomic bomb, the availability of nuclear know-how and technology, and the opportunity for clandestine organisations to acquire fissile material. Scholars and experts, however, often neglect to elaborate on the challenges for terrorist organisations in organising and implementing the construction and detonation of a crude atomic bomb. This will most likely be a complex project. This article will therefore explore the organisation of such an endeavour. To be precise, we will highlight the impact of the organisational design of the terrorist group. The organisational design determines the division of tasks and how coordination is achieved among these tasks. It therefore has a strong impact on the functioning of any organisation, especially an innovative and complex terrorism project. Building on a case study of Los Alamos, we inductively infer that terrorist organisations face an inherent effectiveness-efficiency trade-off in designing a nuclear armament project.     

Canada's counter‐terrorism experience

This article traces Canada's experience with modern terrorism from its beginnings in 1963 to the present, with particular emphasis on the policies and crisis management techniques which have evolved over those 30 years. A brief review of the Canadian system of government and constitutional framework is provided to assist with understanding Canada's response to the terrorist threat. While Canadians have largely escaped the tragedies of domestic and international terrorism which have plagued other parts of the world since 1968, it is also true that Canada had an early experience of modern terrorism when the Front de liberation du Quebec (FLQ) began its campaign of politically motivated violence in Montreal on the night of 7 March 1963. Canada has been applauded for the firm and expeditious manner in which it dealt with the FLQ threat, and for the security provided for major international events held on Canadian soil (e.g., 1976 Olympic Games, 1981 Economic Summit). Beginning in 1982, however, a series of terrorist incidents brought about a fundamental reassessment which led to the introduction of major policies and measures ‐ based on the ‘lead Minister’ concept ‐ that continue to form the basis of Canada's approach to counter‐terrorism.     

The old terrorism: a dataset, 1860 – 1969

ABSTRACT

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, research on terrorism has grown exponentially. Data limitations, however, have made temporal generalization difficult. Most terrorism datasets extend back only to the 1970s, which inhibits the ability to quantitatively examine earlier waves of terrorism. To address this limitation, this article presents a dataset of over 250 terrorist organizations formed between 1860 and 1969. These data, which have global coverage, include country-year information on group formation, allowing scholars to examine the relationship between various country-year factors and the emergence of terrorist organizations. To illustrate their usefulness, these data are used to examine the relationship between democracy and terrorist group formation. Following several recent studies, the empirical analysis reveals a curvilinear or inverted u-shaped relationship between terrorism and democracy.     

International terrorism as a force of homogenization? A constructivist approach to understanding cross-national threat perceptions and responses

Has the emergence of international jihadist terrorism led to common threat perceptions and responses in Europe? The article argues that the homogenization thesis is based around a misguided functionalist notion of a single ‘optimal response’ to an alleged new and potentially catastrophic kind of threat with uniform consequences for all ‘Western’ countries. Drawing on insights from different bodies of literature, the article elaborates a theoretical framework to understand variations in threat perceptions vis-à-vis international terrorism and enrich the socio-linguistic securitization approach of Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde (Security: a new framework for analysis, London: Lynne Reinner, 1998). The article then empirically examines the rise and fall of threat perceptions among selected European publics between 2000 and 2008. Threat perceptions did converge in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, but soon afterward started diverging. The article considers the reasons for this finding as well as the implication for the evolution of counter-terrorist policies in the European Union.     

Reforming Counterterrorism: Institutions and Organizational Routines in Britain and France

This article seeks to explain why two states faced with a similar terrorist threat, perceiving it in a similar way, and drawing the same broad implications for their counterterrorist investigations, have nevertheless put in place significantly different types of organizational reforms in response to that threat. The study shows that although France and Britain have embraced a common preventive logic in the face of Islamist terrorism, the changes that they have made to the coordination of intelligence, law enforcement, and prosecution in that context have differed because of contrasting organizational routines and interinstitutional conventions in the two states. An analysis of the British and French cases shows that law enforcement can be preventive but that western states are likely to pursue different ways of bringing security agencies and the law together to prevent and prosecute terrorism. The organizational and institutional factors that give rise to such divergent practices have important consequences for the ability of a state to develop a coordinated operational response to terrorism and convict terrorist suspects of crimes in a court of law.     

A Critical Perspective on Terrorism: Case Study of Jundallah and Jeish ul-Adl in Iran

ABSTRACT

An extensive body of traditional terrorism research exists where the focus is on Iran as a terrorist state and a terrorism sponsor. This article explores an alternative terrorism narrative by examining the non-state actors, Jundallah and Jeish ul-Adl. The deficiency of information in the literature is addressed by applying the first and second-order critique approach of Richard Jackson’s knowledge, power and politics theoretical framework in contrast with the traditional terrorism studies approach. A first-order critique seeks to destabilise the accepted knowledge that Iran is both a terrorist state and a terrorism sponsor. This provides the grounds to study other aspects of “knowing” in relation to the second-order critique, where a critical ground outside the discourse suggests that Iranian officials have declared that the non-state terrorist actors of Jundallah and Jeish ul-Adl constitute a threat to Iran’s political stability. The outcome of the analyses here bridges the gap between the new aspect of terrorism, the non-state actors, and critical terrorism studies in order to contest the traditional discussion of terrorism in Iran. The rationale behind new terrorism varies and necessitates that new meanings and strategies be adopted in relation to Iran.     

US anti‐terrorism policies: Lessons to be learned to meet an enduring and changing threat

The evolution of United States anti‐terrorism policies has been marked by inconsistency and the lack of a unity of action. The declaratory no ransom policy enunciated by President Nixon has been constantly violated. In addition, the absence of a consensus on the nature of terrorism has been exacerbated by bureaucratic turf battles. This debate has created negative administrative and operational impacts on the organizations that are responsible for meeting the terrorist threat. Bureaucratically, despite the attempt to coordinate action through the lead agency concept, Washington's anti‐terrorism mechanism remain unnecessarily complex. Furthermore, different operational approaches to combating terrorism have impeded the development of an integrated counter‐terrorism capability. The need for streamlining has become critical in the rapidly transforming international arena. The use of terrorism by governments who seek regional hegemony and the development of the ‘Gray Area Phenomenon’ where non‐state actors employ terrorism as a means of realizing their objectives will challenge Washington's resolve. The political leadership faces the task of reconciling the present budgetary constraints with the requirements to identify and effectively respond to future threats.     

Homegrown Terrorism in the West

The London bombings in 2005 led to the perception that the terrorist threat had changed from external to internal. This became conceptualized shortly after as “homegrown terrorism.” This article deals with the meaning and scope of this phenomenon. We begin by tracing an ambiguity in the term “homegrown,” which is both about belonging in the West and autonomy from terrorist groups abroad. A quantitative study of Islamist terrorism in the West since 1989 reveals an increase in both internal and autonomous terrorism since 2003 and that most plots are now internal—but not autonomous. Finally we suggest that an increase in autonomous terrorism is a transitory phenomenon.     

EU Counterterrorism and the European Neighbourhood Policy: An Appraisal of the Southern Dimension

Terrorists trained on European soil, but originating from the Middle East, attacked the world's only superpower on September 11, 2001. Countering this terrorist threat has become an increasingly significant part of European Foreign Policy. At the same time, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) has become an increasingly important dimension of European Foreign Policy. This article examines the extent to which counterterrorism has occupied a prominent place in the ENP, with a particular focus on the Southern Mediterranean ENP partners. The findings of this article suggest that, despite the commonly held view in the literature that security issues, in particular terrorism, have dominated the ENP agenda, counterterrorism cooperation between the European Union (EU) and its Southern Mediterranean ENP partners has not advanced as much as might have been expected.     

From car bombs to logic bombs: The growing threat from information terrorism

The vulnerability of the critical infrastructure has led to increasing concern that it will be the target of terrorist attacks. This article explores definitional aspects of information terrorism and identifies two groups likely to find information terrorism attractive: conventional terrorist groups and information culture groups. As computer sophisticated youth move into the ranks of conventional terrorist groups, the groups will increase their reliance on computer technology, and information terrorism will be incorporated into a hybrid tactical repertoire. Information culture groups, however, confine their attacks to cyberspace. In contrast to the powerful group dynamics of the traditional underground terrorist group, networked groups, particularly information culture terrorists, may only be in contact electronically, and are subject to a radically different group psychology, virtual group dynamics, that significantly affects their decision making and risk taking, and has dangerous security implications.     

A Counterterrorism Strategy for the Obama Administration

This article assesses the scope and nature of the current terrorist threat to the United States and suggests a strategy to counter it. Al-Qaeda continues to pose the most serious terrorist threat to the U.S. today. If the September 11, 2001 attacks have taught us anything, it is that al-Qaeda is most dangerous when it has a sanctuary or safe haven from which to plan and plot attacks. Al-Qaeda has acquired such a sanctuary in Pakistan's Federal Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and its North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and surrounding environs. Accordingly, the highest priority for the new American presidential administration must be to refocus our—and our allies'—attention on Afghanistan and Pakistan, where al-Qaeda began to collapse after 2001, but has now re-grouped. This will entail understanding that al-Qaeda and its local militant jihadi allies cannot be defeated by military means alone. Success will require a dual strategy of systematically destroying and weakening enemy capabilities—that is, continuing to kill and capture al-Qaeda commanders and operatives—along with breaking the cycle of terrorist recruitment among radicalized “bunches of guys” as well as more effectively countering al-Qaeda's effective information operations. The U.S. thus requires a strategy that harnesses the overwhelming kinetic force of the American military as part of a comprehensive vision to transform other, non-kinetic instruments of national power in order to deal more effectively with irregular and unconventional threats. This article first discusses the scope and details of the terrorist threat today and then proposes a counterterrorism strategy for the new presidential administration. It focuses first on creating a micro approach to address the deteriorating situation in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. It then considers the requirements of a broader macro strategy to counter terrorism and insurgency.     

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.     

Immigrants and undesirables: “terrorism” and the “terrorist” in 1930s France

This article investigates French understandings of the terms “terrorism” and “terrorist” in the period of the late Third Republic when a series of assassinations, murders and bombings suggested that France was dangerously exposed to the threat of terror. The article deconstructs contemporary understandings of the phenomenon, showing that, if a variety of actions were labelled “terrorist”, the term was deployed in particular in relation to matters of foreignness. It was believed that immigrants, refugees and foreign secret agents imported terrorist violence to France. French citizens did not – could not even – perpetrate terrorism. Parallels may be drawn between discussions of citizenship in the wake of twenty-first century acts of terrorism and manifestations of such violence during the 1930s when notions of terrorism, Frenchness and foreignness were intimately connected.     

Desperate times and desperate measures: false-representation and distortion of terrorism in post-9/11 superhero films

In the wake of 9/11 there has been a marked increase in depictions of terrorism in Hollywood film. This shift has been particularly significant in superhero films. This genre of films has not historically relied upon terrorist narratives, but this article highlights contemporary ideological overlaps between terrorist and superhero narratives that explain why they have been more frequently presented together in contemporary film. In particular, both rely upon what Giorgio Agamben and other scholars refer to as a “state of exceptionality” and they feature ideological categories, such as those delineated in the work of Teun Van Dijk. This article analyses these themes using the methods of Foucauldian Discourse Analysis. The article finds the growing number of depictions of terrorists in superhero films problematic because they deny terrorists rationality or political consciousness. The article analyses the binarism that this creates, finding that the proliferation of terrorist narratives in superhero films ultimately is detrimental because it proliferates a shallow and misleading understanding of terrorism which can undermine popular understanding of terrorism.     

An analysis of EU counterterrorism discourse post-September 11

This article examines the main characteristics and evolution of European Union counterterrorism discourse, primarily through a comparison with United States counterterrorism discourse since September 11. It argues that while both actors share a great deal in common in the language they employ about terrorism, there are a number of subtle but highly significant differences. The article also argues that there have been a number of important evolutions in the discourse of EU officials over the past five years. The article concludes that the nature and construction of official EU terrorism discourse has a number of important analytical, normative and practical implications, not least because it rests upon a series of highly contested assumptions and narratives about the nature and causes of the terrorist threat.     

Terrorism and fear: do terrorists really want to scare?

There is a widespread tendency among academics, state institutions and international organisations to regard intention to cause fear and intimidation as a key definitional characteristic of terrorism. This article argues that such a conceptualisation of terrorism is unfounded. A survey of mainstream terrorist doctrines (propaganda by the deed, foco theory–urban guerrilla warfare and armed propaganda, and jihadist doctrines) and writings of several pre-eminent terrorist ideologues provides little evidence to suggest that the main tactical goal of terrorism is to spread fear and intimidation. Rather, regardless of their ideological orientation and the historical period in which they operated, terrorists seem to be preoccupied with similar goals: mobilising what they regard to be their constituency, avenging their fallen comrades, extracting retribution for their allegedly wronged constituency, or, simply, with the physical destruction of their perceived enemies. This survey is complemented with a number of “crucial case studies”, where “most-likely cases” of terrorist justification of indiscriminate attacks and a detailed analysis of terrorist literature, which explicitly deals with the question of “fear”, are used to test the validity of the claim that terrorists aim to cause fear and intimidation. In both type of cases the hypothesis is invalidated. In cases of justification of indiscriminate attacks, there is no evidence to suggest that the aim of the terrorists is to spread fear and intimidation. Moreover, in the case of one particular terrorist ideologue who explicitly addresses the question of fear, the analysis of the texts indicates that fear among a population is not seen as an aim to be achieved but as an obstacle for mass mobilisation: an obstacle, which can only be overcome by the terrorist tactics. Thus, in this particular “most-likely case” the aim of terrorist tactics turns out to be encouraging masses for insurrection rather than intimidating them.     

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。