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.     

The “Somalinisation” of terrorism and counterterrorism in Kenya: the case of refoulement

Kenya’s state discourse on terrorism and counterterrorism securitises Somali refugees and refugee camps. Using the securitisation theory, a perspective of social constructivism as a theoretical framework, the article attempts to establish the relationship between the securitisation of Somali refugees and refugee camps and refoulement as a measure to counter the securitisation. The arguments raised are the speech acts of Kenya’s securitising actors expressed in the terrorism discourse present Somali refugees and refugee camps as existential threats to peace and security in the country. Consequently, their speech acts expressed in the counterterrorism discourse present non-refoulement of the refugees as an existential threat to national security so as to justify, to the targeted audience, the adoption of refoulement, a norm-violating measure, to counter the fear of the threat of terrorism from Somali refugees and refugee camps. Terrorism and counterterrorism in Kenya have, therefore, been “Somalinised”. The conclusion offers ways of preventing the “Somalinisation” of terrorism and counterterrorism in Kenya.     

Going fifth freedom: fighting the War on Terror in the Splinter Cell: Blacklist video game

Following an aesthetic turn, it has become increasingly permissible to utilise artefacts of popular culture in the study of political phenomena. This practice has been of an increased relevance in the period following the trauma of the September 11th terrorist attacks and the subsequent War on Terror, during which popular culture has played an important role in the provision and reproduction of accessible narratives of warfare and counterterrorism. This article argues that this is evident within military-themed video games, offering a mimetic analysis of the themes of violence, identity and space in Splinter Cell: Blacklist.     

Concepts of dialogue as counterterrorism: narrating the self-reform of the Muslim Other

Since 9/11, the terrorist is often awarded the position of the radical Other: the personified existential threat to the West. The counterterrorism strategy presented by the Danish government describes itself as covering a ‘broad spectrum’ of efforts. It includes an ‘active foreign policy’ in relation to the Muslim world and an ‘active integration policy’ in relation to Muslim migrants. Both inside and outside the nation-state, efforts range from ‘hard power’ security strategies of elimination and control involving military, police and intelligence operations, to ‘soft power’ strategies of information, partnerships and dialogue. This article analyses Danish counterterrorism policy narratives to identify the concepts of dialogue implied and the positions awarded to less-than-radical Muslim Others. This article finds that Muslims might – especially after the Danish Muhammad cartoon affair – in counterterrorism dialogue find a position for talking back, even if it is still a position circumscribed by control and securitisation.     

Dealing with uncertainty: the illusion of knowledge in the study of counterterrorism effectiveness

Efforts to combat terrorism have become a priority in the security agenda of most countries around the world, while the respective policies, tools and instruments have amounted to significant costs. In this article, we review the literature on counterterrorism (CT) effectiveness and draw a series of rather negative conclusions with regard to the reliability of our knowledge in this area. We find that the literature displays case and data selection biases, and the results produced are oftentimes contradictory, mostly due to the use of different indicators. We then propose a conceptualisation of CT effectiveness, which should help to resolve some of the issues outlined. The article concludes by outlining some future research directions that should improve our methodological grasp in the field.     

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.     

British Muslims and the discourses of dysfunction: community cohesion and counterterrorism in the West Midlands

This article analyses how British discursive representations of Muslims during the last decade were utilised in a local context during the planning stages of a proposed mosque in the West Midlands town of Dudley. Locating the central narratives in dominant national discourses of community cohesion and counterterrorism, this article analyses how correspondents to a local newspaper re-articulated national representations of Muslims as culturally dysfunctional in a local context and used these representations to argue against construction. By critically analysing the local expression of dominant national discourses of threat and blame, in terms of both inherent contradictions and ideological effects, this article highlights the ways in which these discourses worked to exclude Muslims while simultaneously reprimanding them for failing to integrate into a national and local culture that regarded them as inherently ‘other’.     

Researching counterterrorism: a critical perspective from the field in the light of allegations and findings of covert activities by undercover police officers

The article addresses some of the key issues that are raised for researchers engaging with counterterrorism police officers and initiatives, when undertaking research. A significant area to explore in this context is, in fact, the issue of relationships with counterterrorism police officers who may themselves directly have been covert police officers in the past and/or who may be continuing in their current, apparently more open, role (wittingly or otherwise) as agents of broader state strategies of exploiting trust for intelligence-gathering purposes. This article suggests that it is important for researchers to understand that working within the counterterrorism field involves degrees and shades of risk in the service of trust-building, sensitivity and the empowerment of communities, and that researchers themselves can (wittingly and unwittingly) be part of wider strategies instigated by security-minded individuals or groups of counterterrorism police officers. Reflecting upon the research that we have undertaken individually and collectively over the last number of years, in the light of the most recent spate of allegations about counterterrorism police officers infiltrating activist and political protest groups, having sexual relationships, and indeed, on occasion, children, with women whilst undercover and of potentially working to entrap vulnerable individuals into planning terrorist acts, this article raises questions around trust, credibility, legitimacy, the prevalence and near unavoidability of dysfunctional agendas and the implications of all of the above for community-based approaches to counterterrorism.     

Representations of terrorism and the making of counterterrorism policy

Reflexive approaches not only maintain that representations of danger are socially constructed but also that they relate with political behaviour. Representations of terrorism, for instance, are argued to constitute that danger in distinct ways and thus to make certain counterterror policies possible. This article challenges this popular association of reflexive security studies with constitutive effects. It argues that constitutive argumentation advances an insufficiently tangible argument of effect, and that this conceptual weakness derives from both a problematic foundational social theory and a premature rejection of causation. Drawing on the social theory of Margaret Archer and Roy Bhaskar and a differentiated notion of causation, the article advances a “dialectical causal” framework for the analysis of representations of danger instead. Applying it to contemporary Swiss terrorism politics, the article shows how this framework improves on constitutive argumentation in disentangling the political powers involved in the production and enactment of representations of danger.     

Terrorists going transnational: rethinking the role of states in the case of AQIM and Boko Haram

This study moves beyond theories emphasising “state failure” as the cause for terrorist “spill-over”. The aim is to offer new theoretical and empirical considerations concerning the determinants of terrorist groups’ geographical strategies. The main argument this article presents is that transnationality for nationalistic terrorist organisations can be costly. This is the case due to the mobility, social and strategic costs of operating beyond controlled territories. Hence, the article proposes an interpretation of these decisions as being mainly generated by states’ counterterrorism strategies. Using data gathered from the GTD Dataset and secondary sources such as specialised reports and strategic documents, the article explores the argument by presenting observations and empirical findings on two groups, AQIM and Boko Haram.     

The terror/counterterror edge: when non-terror becomes a terrorism problem and real terror cannot be detected by counterterrorism

On the basis of cases such as the recent ban on the building of minarets in Switzerland or the prohibition on wearing a burka in France and the Netherlands, and the passage of terrorism legislation in various European countries in which there has never been a terrorism problem, as well as the recent history of counterterrorism in the United States, this paper examines how non-terror can become a terrorism problem and non-risk ideologically risky, while at the same time the real threats go undetected. The international prominence gained by Spanish Prime Minister Jose María Aznar when the George W. Bush administration declared a worldwide ‘War on Terror’ shows the political capital attached to terrorist risk. Countries may act as if afflicted by a case of ‘terrorism envy’ when non-risk may be perceived as political irrelevance. This paper argues that the dynamics of terrorism/counterterrorism should be seen in the cultural context of taboo while displaying the qualities of the Lacanian edge: a self-generating process that simultaneously links and separates them in a ‘non-relationship’ that is constitutive of the entire phenomenon.     

Security Versus Liberty in the Context of Counterterrorism: An Experimental Approach

A critical question in counterterrorism studies concerns the extent to which governments adequately balance the continual provision of individual rights and freedoms with the appropriate level of national security when faced with a terrorist attack. We experimentally assess this tradeoff utilizing a 2 × 2 × 2 between-groups factorial design, manipulating (a) the extent of terror-related threats, (b) the level of invasiveness of subsequent counterterrorism policies, as well as (c) the terror context: transnational and domestic. The results provide evidence that the public is more willing to accept greater reductions in civil liberties under a greater threat of terrorism only when the perceived effectiveness of those policies to prevent future acts of terrorism is high. Furthermore, we find these results to be specific to the context of a transnational terror threat. This suggests that the public will be unwilling to accept reductions in civil liberties when the source of the attack is domestic, regardless of the level of threat or how effective subsequent policies may be in preventing future attacks.     

Support for Terrorism: The Role of Beliefs in Jihad and Institutional Responses to Terrorism

ABSTRACT

Passive support for terrorism refers to expressions of sympathy for acts of terrorism and/or the justifications (ideology) used by terrorist groups to legitimise their beliefs and actions. One form of passive support is whether Muslims feel terrorists have valid grievances. Appealing to a sense of grievance is a key way that violent Islamists attempt to recruit fellow Muslims to their cause. Using survey data collected from 800 Muslims living in Australia, this paper examines factors that lead Muslims to believe that terrorists have valid grievances. Factors examined include beliefs in jihad and attitudes towards counterterrorism policing and laws. Other variables included in the analysis are social identity, age, gender, income, religious denomination (Sunni vs. Shia), religious commitment, i.e., Mosque attendance, and recent contact with police. The most significant predictor of passive support for terrorism was found to be particular beliefs in jihad. The perceived legitimacy of counterterrorism laws and trust in police were also important. Implications for countering extremist ideology and generating community cooperation in counterterrorism will be considered.     

The amateur revolutionaries: A reassessment of the FLQ

Although Canada has experienced a wide variety of forms of political terrorism, only the FLQ's attack on federalism has earned a lasting place in Canadian historical memory, a place achieved without attaining its goal of an independent Quebec. Using new sources, this article explains this conundrum by reassessing the effectiveness of the FLQ's campaign. It will demonstrate that the very thing that constituted the FLQ's only success ‐ its ability to project an illusion of strength sufficient to convince the federal government that a popular insurrection was developing in Quebec ‐ masked its singular failure: organizational weakness and poor strategic judgment. These prevented the FLQ from achieving its goals and were the hallmarks of its status as ‘amateur revolutionaries’.     

Ideas and Influence: Scholarship as a Harbinger of Counterterrorism Institutions,Policies, and Laws in the People's Republic of China

This article demonstrates how scholarship on terrorism in China has provided the intellectual backdrop against which China's leadership has developed the country's counterterrorism institutions, policies, and laws. Building on the linkages between scholarship and policy-making, the article suggests potential avenues for policy reform in China's current counterterrorism architecture.     

The Logic of Terrorism: Existential Anxiety,the Search for Meaning,and Terrorist Ideologies

Drawing from the work of political theorists, theologians, anthropologists, journalists, philosophers, and contemporary psychologists studying Terror Management Theory (TMT), it becomes possible to see that the concepts of existentialism and ideology may be useful for modern thinkers attempting to understand a problem such as terrorism. Integrating work from these fields makes it possible to see that terrorism may be driven by an existential-terroristic feedback loop: a cycle in which people support or engage in terrorism to alleviate existential anxiety but ultimately find this anxiety exacerbated in the wake of the violence they create or sanction. The loop is closed when this exacerbated anxiety compels them to reaffirm their support of, or participation in, terrorist violence. If this model is valid, then effectively addressing the problem of terrorism requires joining existing U.S. policies with policies that address ideologies. Specifically, policies must aspire to a) mitigate existential anxiety, b) provide a compelling counter-narrative, c) address environmental factors conducive to radicalization, d) prevent the formation of radicalized groups, and e) deradicalize existing ideologues.     

Post-9/11 counterterrorism in popular culture: the spectacle and reception of The Bourne Ultimatum and 24

This article examines the representation of counterterrorism in contemporary film and television and surveys its reception among active online audiences. Contemporary counterterrorism fiction like The Bourne Ultimatum (2007 The Bourne ultimatum. 2007. Film. Directed by Paul Greengrass. Produced by Doug Liman, Henry Morrison and Jeffrey M. Weiner. USA.  [Google Scholar]; Film. Directed by Paul Greengrass) and the TV series 24 (2001–2010; Television series. Created by Robert Cochran and Joel Surnow), present viewers with conventional hero-driven narratives wrapped in a spectacle of high-tech surveillance technologies. As counterterrorism is an inherently covert exercise, the widespread popularity of these Hollywood franchises raises questions about how the public understands the capabilities and ethics of counterterrorism. These questions are addressed through an analysis of the generic and aesthetic features of the texts along with a survey of audience responses on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).     

Disenchantments: counterterror narratives and conviviality

The years 2005–2010 saw a sudden interest in the phenomenon of radicalisation. Terrorism was treated as the end result of a process of radicalisation and, as such, a reflection of broad social changes. In the discussion surrounding this phenomenon, radicalisation has not functioned as a homogenous analytical category. We analyse leading academic and administrative texts and identify two fundamentally different perspectives. One of these perspectives locates the causes of terrorism in alien cultures and identity clashes, while the other proceeds from socio-economic conditions and sees the threat as coming from increasing levels of social exclusion. The two perspectives are incompatible but nonetheless co-exist in practice, making terrorism a projection screen for an array of ambitions and fears. The emphasis on radicalisation has further become tied to policy preferences which have affected the Muslim community in quite different ways.     

The Poets of Marj al-Zuhur: Poetry as the Psychological,Political, and Ideological Weapon of the Hamas Members Deported to Lebanon in 1992

In December 1992, after the kidnapping and murder of a policeman, Israel deported 415 members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to Lebanon. Most were affiliated with the Hamas political apparatus and had not been involved in terrorism. The deportees decided to stay together and set up a camp in Marj al-Zuhur in southern Lebanon. Here they engaged in study and various cultural pursuits—including poetry writing. Roughly a dozen of the deportees wrote poetry. The poems were read aloud at gatherings in the camp and published in the Arab press. Their main function was to raise the residents’ spirits and keep their plight in the public eye. They incorporate the expected political messages: anger at Israel and criticism of the international community, the Palestinian leadership, and the Arab states, which were prodded to work harder for the deportees’ return. The poetry was part of a successful media and information campaign, which annoyed Israel so much that it allowed all the deportees to return home by December 1993. Some of the poems were later published and helped cultivate the myth of the Marj al-Zuhur deportation, which Hamas viewed as a victory and symbol of steadfast resistance to Israel.