The United Nations and Terrorism: Rethinking Legal Tensions Between National Security, Human Rights, and Civil Liberties

As the international community responds to the September 11 attacks and the general war on terrorism, member states in the United Nations (UN) must continue to address the balance between the rights of the individual and the security of the state. This study highlights the various roles that the UN plays in combating transnational terrorism through norm setting, codification of human rights law, as well as the drafting and effective implementation of 12 key multilateral agreements aimed at counter-terrorism. In these ways, the UN provides direction and guidance for implementing human rights rules and the ways in which they should be enforced. Even so, national governments must make these rules work. In a system of sovereign states, the role of the UN organization in checking or reversing these human rights abuses remains severely limited and largely dependent upon the political will of the member states. As a consequence, part of the price paid for protecting national security against threats posed by terrorism may well be the curtailment of some human rights and civil liberties within the liberal democratic state.     

Hit the Core or Weaken the Periphery? Comparing Strategies to Break the Circle of Violence with an Embryonic Terrorist Group: The Case of Galician Resistance

This article studies whether the action-reaction model holds on an “embryonic” terrorist group like Galician Resistance (REGA). After presenting an overview of REGA’s history, structure, financing, terrorist campaigns, and the police measures adopted against them, the text empirically contrasts whether deterrence is an efficient measure in reducing an incipient terrorist group’s actions. Our results show that deterrence does in fact reduce the number of attacks when aimed at the group’s periphery. However, it causes a backlash of new attacks when aimed at the group’s core. In addition, we prove that an increase in the number of attacks also causes a reaction by police forces and a higher number of detentions of core members. Our results give some meaningful insights into the design of counter-terrorism strategies aimed against “embryonic” groups.     

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.     

Why me? An autoethnographic account of the bizarre logic of counterterrorism

The core concern of this article is derived from my personal experience of being stopped and questioned at Heathrow Airport on 28 March 2012 for possession of “suspect materials”: academic books on terrorism. I seek to utilise this experience to reflect on how logics of counterterrorism can become manifested in bizarre and prejudicial ways, and how autoethnography provides a unique means to articulate human experiences of such logics. I further utilise my experience to reflect on the dynamics of academic privilege, which often flourish at the expense of the voices of “ordinary citizens”, and argue that autoethnography can be embraced as an empowering form of self-expression through which “ordinary citizens” might de-subjugate themselves from the margins of academia towards an emancipatory ideal wherein the lived experiences of such citizens occupy a substantial space in academic and popular understandings of (counter)terrorism.     

The Fifth Wave: The New Tribalism? 1

In political disputes, issue frames set parameters for debate and shape which view dominates. This study expands issue framing research to examine the influence of frames on the perception of future terrorist threats as well as subsequent support for related counterterrorism policies. We test several hypotheses using data from an experimental field poll. We find that issue frames clearly influence perceptions of threat. However, our frames, which posit specific terrorism threats, only have a limited influence on respondent preferences for counter-terrorism policies. We consider a variety of explanations for these results and provide direction for future research.     

Torture and terrorism: an interview with Moazzam Begg

This article presents some of the findings of research on issues surrounding teaching terrorism and political violence at UK higher education institutions. It reports the results of a survey of UK institutions of higher education on their responses to government and other pressures in relation to terrorism. The data show a minority of universities have developed systems, policies or procedures for ‘preventing violent extremism’, while a significant number have developed close cooperation and collaboration with state counterterrorism policies raising potential issues of academic freedom. This article then examines three high-profile cases – incidents where universities, lecturers and students have come under political and legal pressures over the content of terrorism courses or accusations of ‘radicalisation’ on campus. It suggests that these pressures can be and sometimes are resisted, but that they have on occasion effectively narrowed the scope of academic freedom in practise with the danger that a further chilling effect follows in their wake.     

对象、中介与目标：基于总体国家安全观的国家安全学范畴探讨

范畴的明晰是学科发展的基础与前提。国家安全学的范畴是对国家安全概念的系统化和理论化概括。国家安全学聚焦现实问题,因而以国家安全工作的整个过程为据,将其划分为问题、中介和目标三个阶段,而后结合总体国家安全观对国家安全学的范畴进行提炼。研究发现,在国家安全逆向路径中定义的国家安全问题呈现出集合性和动态性的特征,构成了国家安全学的对象范畴;以规律为载体的国家安全学的中介范畴在于探寻国家安全问题的解决之道,而作为中间环节的中国安全规律既吸纳了普遍与传统的安全规律,又统合了具体领域的安全规律;国家的生存与发展是国家安全学的目标范畴,即国家的完整与统一、人民的安全和发展、制度的生存与发展以及国际环境的稳定。     

A Review of: “Michael Kenney. From Pablo to Osama: Trafficking and Terrorist Networks,Government Bureaucracies,and Competitive Adaptation”

This article seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of the early demise of Rode Jeugd's initiatives towards a terrorist campaign in the Netherlands. It is concluded that three contextual factors played a crucial role in the process: the openness of the political culture, the setbacks experienced by similar organizations elsewhere (RAF in particular), and the lack of overt repression, combined with effective covert operations carried out by the security forces against the Rode Jeugd. Overall, the case of Rode Jeugd is a prime example of a demonstration of state power not always being the most efficient or even suitable method to combat terrorism.     

Terrorism in an Era of Unconventional Warfare

Academic studies of terrorism and mass political violence have developed largely independently of one another. Insurgents, in contrast, have tended to incorporate terrorism tactics along with other types of unconventional warfare in their repertoire of action. This tendency has become more apparent among insurgents engaging in armed confrontations in the twenty-first century. In order to take account of this development, scholars and others interested in contemporary warfare need to incorporate terrorism studies within the broader subject of insurgencies and “small wars”—political violence, in other words.     

深度伪造与国家安全：基于总体国家安全观的视角

深度伪造是人工智能技术和数字技术发展的产物,自2017年第一个深度伪造的作品出现,深度伪造正在世界范围内快速扩散。人工智能与大数据技术的发展和普及,使得有心者制作各种深度伪造作品的门槛大大降低,导致互联网和各种社交媒体充斥着各式各样的深度伪造作品。深度伪造技术既有造福于人类社会的正面功能,也有给国家安全带来风险与挑战的负面作用。它不仅给国际形势和国际安全环境带来了巨大的冲击,让国际社会本就存在的“信任赤字”更为恶化,而且在国防安全、政治安全、经济安全和国民安全等领域制造了更多、更为复杂的问题。国际经济犯罪团伙利用深度伪造对中国企业和民众进行诈骗活动;以美国为首的西方国家更是频频利用深度伪造的作品,在涉疆、涉港等问题上对中国发难;在重大国际问题上,国际上的各种势力更是利用深度伪造争取中国的民意,造成部分民众认知的错乱;等等。要治理深度伪造所带来的各种安全隐患,就要在总体国家安全架构下完善针对深度伪造的综合治理体系,同时倡导综合安全、合作安全和共同安全的理念,与国际社会共同打造数字时代人类安全的命运共同体。     

How Does the Business of News Influence Terrorism Coverage? Evidence From The Washington Post and USA Today

Observers argue that the business of news is responsible for worsening the coverage of terrorism, but exactly how economic considerations influence coverage is controversial. Based on an analysis of over 1600 articles from The Washington Post and USA Today, we find that concerns about the effects of economic pressures on terrorism reporting are exaggerated. The business climate affects coverage, but the long-term impact of market pressures on coverage is modest. Articles about terrorist violence are increasingly prominent, but coverage of counterterrorism remains robust. Efforts to inoculate the press against the worst excesses of the market are unnecessary.     

守正创新：作为经验集成和规范性目标的新安全格局

中共二十大报告首次以专章部署国家安全工作,从中华民族伟大复兴全局高度定位国家安全事业,旗帜鲜明地提出以新安全格局保障新发展格局的整体规划。构建新安全格局既不是另起炉灶,也不是简单重复,而是在中国特色国家安全道路上守正创新。守正方面,新安全格局是国家安全制度层叠的历史经验集成,在建制、渐进和突破期的国家安全格局变迁中逐渐形成内外统筹兼顾、多元功能一体的国家安全体系,以及“党管安全”的国家安全归口领导机制;同时,新安全格局也是总体国家安全观指导安全实践的现实经验集成,体现为以系统观念、底线思维和极限思维的实践逻辑防范化解风险综合体。创新方面,新安全格局是在新发展阶段对既有国家安全体系和领导机制进行提质升级,从而到2035年远景目标实现时达成社会保持长期稳定、国家安全体系和能力全面加强的规范性目标。新安全格局对标新发展格局,在体系目标上打造“全域联动、立体高效”的国家安全体系,在状态目标上达到对内的社会安全稳固坚韧、公共安全治理有效和对外的大国博弈主动有为、海外利益保护得当。