An empirical analysis of alternative ways that terrorist groups end

This paper implements discrete-time survival models to ascertain the determinants behind specific endings for terrorist groups during 1970–2007. Based on multinomial logit regressions, we estimate the hazard probabilities associated with three endings for terrorist groups: splintering from internal factors, being defeated by force, and joining the political process or achieving victory. We find that different covariates differentially impact each of these endings. In a second exercise, we split our sample of 586 terrorist groups into those that started before and after the beginning of 1990. In so doing, we find that survival factors differ between the two cohorts of groups. For both exercises, the determinants of survival comprise terrorist groups’ goals, their tactics and size, and base-country characteristics. Robustness tests conclude the paper.     

Terrorist networks, support, and delegation

The paper presents a game-theoretic representation of a general terrorist organization (GTO) that delegates responsibility to local terrorist representatives in n countries. The GTO achieves a strategic advantage by deploying a more radical representative when the government is perceived to be weak and terrorist supporters are committed. When the government or terrorist supporters alter their posture, the GTO may regret its local representative. Outside assistance can change a besieged government’s posture, thereby removing the GTO’s delegation advantage. When both the GTO and the government delegate to surrogates, the delegators are worse off if the government appears to be weak.     

Terrorism and the Railroads: Redefining Security in the Wake of 9/11

This article examines the impact of the 9/11 attacks on railroad security. Railroad security has been traditionally defined as a problem of trespass and liability for deaths, injuries, and property damage sustained or caused by trespassers. It argues that the private freight railroad industry, not government, has largely directed the efforts to prevent terrorism and share information on suspected terrorist threats, through the prompt formation of a loosely coupled network of organizations coordinated by the industry trade association, the American Association of Railroads. The freight railroad network approach is contrasted with the efforts of Amtrak to gain public funds for its security efforts by connecting its survival with homeland security. Kingdon's model of the policy process is used to explain how 9/11 has presented an opportunity for railroads to use policy windows to gain benefits for the industry while at the same time resisting possible reregulation. It contrasts the network approach with the traditional hierarchical-bureaucratic form of organization used in the design of the Department of Homeland Security, and suggests it poses a valuable case study to see how information can be shared between widely divergent types of organizations, and test how best to prevent future terrorist events.     

Terrorist Threat,Leadership, and the Vote: Evidence from Three Experiments

From 9/11 in the U.S. to train, subway, and airport bombings elsewhere, individuals frequently must make political decisions in the shadow of terrorist attacks. To date, few studies have examined how times of terror threat influence voters’ decision-making processes. Using data generated from three experiments we show that, in times of terrorist threat (compared to good times), individuals weight leadership more heavily in the voting booth. Our results also shed light on how much weight is given to other determinants of the vote (issues and partisanship) across these two conditions.     

Seeking Life, Finding Justice: Russian NGO litigation and Chechen Disappearances before the European Court of Human Rights

This article presents findings from an interview study of human rights practitioners who assist relatives of the disappeared from Chechnya with their complaints before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). These practitioners work for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The study contributes to the scant literature on NGO litigation before the ECtHR and to the social scientific literature on how human rights are actively practiced. It investigates the NGOs?? intermediary position between the ECtHR and the relatives of the disappeared in Chechnya. Consequently, this article asserts that a significant aspect of this position lies in the practitioner??s capacity to mediate between an ambition to externalize local grievances to the ECtHR and the relatives?? hopes that the ECtHR can bring certainty to the uncertain loss of their disappeared relatives. From this position, several dilemmas emerge as to how international legal mechanisms can provide remedies following disappearances.     

Risk Sensitivity and Terrorism

One enduring question about terrorism is why individuals choose to join terrorist groups. Past studies have shown that terrorists are not always poor, and they can in fact come from more privileged groups in society. Risk sensitivity and prospect theory are approaches that can help explain some of the anomalies. They suggest that two types of group are likely to supply members for terrorist organizations in disproportionate numbers. One group consists of those who face a loss of status or position due to ongoing changes in society. A second group consists of those who have an opportunity to gain a major advance in status or position. Both groups are thus more likely or more willing to take risks such as joining dissident terrorists – either to maintain their position or to improve it. An analysis of the situation of Palestinian nationalists, nationalists in Northern Ireland and the Tamils in Sri Lanka provides support for the idea that sensitivity to risk can be an important factor in explaining the willingness of individuals to join terrorist groups.     

Political Marketing and Propaganda: Uses,Abuses, Misuses

Although previous issues of well-respected marketing journals (e.g., Revue Française du Marketing, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing) have focused on political marketing, and although there are now journals which regularly publish papers on political marketing including, of course, this one and the Journal of Public Affairs, none has focused exclusively on how the techniques developed for use in electoral and governmental campaigning, in lobbying and party fundraising campaigns, are now being used more generally in the military, in public diplomacy programs, and by companies, not-for-profit organizations, and even terrorist groups, with a focus on “winning hearts and minds.” The aim of this special issue is to seek to fill in this gap in our knowledge and encourage further research into the political marketing/propaganda interface. In this special issue, we seek to elucidate the meaning of propaganda and political marketing by exploring their parameters, both contemporary and traditional.     

Social cohesion and self-sacrificing behavior

A model developed in this paper shows a mechanism for inducing self-sacrificing contributions among members of closely knit organizations, such as cults, terrorist groups and military forces. Members are assumed to gain utility from social cohesion and their in-group reputations. When social cohesion strengthens, members ascribe more importance to their reputations. This prompts them to increase their contributions to group goals, which causes social cohesion to strengthen further. The model identifies three ways for leaders to initiate this multiplier process: increasing their own contribution, putting effort into indoctrinating members, and raising the obstacles that members face when they contribute.     

The charitable activities of terrorist organizations

Violent groups sometimes invest significant resources in social work, notably in the form of charities and NGOs. The present paper models a terrorist group's charities as a means to advertise its cause in order to raise popular support. The analysis explains how different types of organizations arise in equilibrium, depending on government policies. Then, the interaction between a purely terrorist group and an independent local NGO is examined. It is shown that a purely terrorist group always invests in more attacks than an integrated terrorist-charity organization. Furthermore, the latter may have more NGO activity than a separate local NGO.     

Lock, stock, and barrel: a comprehensive assessment of the determinants of terror

We assess the robustness of previous findings on the determinants of terrorism. Using extreme bound analysis, the three most comprehensive terrorism datasets, and focusing on the three most commonly analyzed aspects of terrorist activity, i.e., location, victim, and perpetrator, we re-assess the effect of 65 proposed correlates. Evaluating around 13.4 million regressions, we find 18 variables to be robustly associated with the number of incidents occurring in a given country-year, 15 variables with attacks against citizens from a particular country in a given year, and six variables with attacks perpetrated by citizens of a particular country in a given year.     

The effects of the electoral calendar on terrorist attacks

The goal of this paper is to study the linkages between the timing of terrorist events and elections. As strategic actors terrorists may respond to electoral environments by altering the frequency of their attacks around election times. Focusing on democracies, we examine variations in transnational and domestic terrorist incidents before elections over a 40 year span. We find distinct pre-electoral changes in the incidence of terrorist events. In the ITERATE data set, where only transnational terrorist events are included, terrorist activities decline in election months, while in the partitioned GTD data set, where only domestic terrorist events are kept, terrorist activities rise in election months. The findings suggest electoral calendars can dissuade and attract terrorist threats, depending on the origin of the threat, but these effects occur only very close to election time.     

Indigenous Rights, Global Governance, and State Sovereignty

This article discusses indigenous rights within the context of global governance. I begin by defining the terms ??global governance?? and ??indigenous peoples?? and summarizing the rights that are most important to indigenous peoples. The bulk of this article studies the global governance of indigenous rights in three areas. The first example is the creation of the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. A second example involves violations of indigenous rights brought before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. A third case looks at a relatively new international regime created by indigenous peoples themselves??the Inuit Circumpolar Council. I conclude by using theories of sovereignty to assess the relative successes and failures of indigenous efforts to secure their rights.     

Compensating for the ‘Authoritarian Advantage’ in Crisis Response: A Comparative Case Study of SARS Pandemic Responses in China and Taiwan

Why do some countries more effectively respond to crises than others? This paper compares China??s relatively effective response to the 2002?C3 SARS outbreak with Taiwan??s relatively ineffective response, focusing on three variables that constitute China??s ??authoritarian advantage?? - centralized decision making powers; public support; and, relations with the mass media. The paper rejects a fourth explanatory variable specific to the Taiwan case ?C membership in international organizations. Drawing heavily on the Taiwan example, the paper concludes by suggesting options for overcoming the authoritarian advantage in pandemic response.     

Early Innovation Adoption: Effects of Performance-Based Motivation and Organizational Characteristics

Abstract

Early adopters of innovation play a critical role in the successful spread of the innovation by legitimizing the adoption of the innovation and/or providing evidence of its effectiveness. This article explores why some organizations adopt innovations before than others by focusing on determinants of early innovation adoption. Analysis reveals that there is a U-shaped influence of organizational performance on early innovation adoption. Most organizations are encouraged to be early adopters by their poor performance, but some organizations with very high performance tend to be innovation-friendly. Other organizational characteristics such as organizational size and pro-innovation bias also have positive impacts on early innovation adoption. These findings have practical implications about strategies for successfully diffusing innovations.     

Governance of Terror: New Institutionalism and the Evolution of Terrorist Organizations

A preoccupation with network approaches in terrorism studies has inadvertently marginalized the fact that terrorist groups are subject to many of the same bureaucratic forces that impact all purposeful organizations. Because typical organizations are subsumed in the concept of networks, it is curious that scholars have been so quick to bypass more traditional models of organizations and bureaucracy that may help us understand network topology. This article relies on the new institutional approach to organizational behavior. Using the Coase theorem to explain the costs and benefits associated with different organizational structures, it follows that counterterrorism efforts may drive some groups toward greater autonomy while compelling others to adopt common bureaucratic processes, often referred to as isomorphism. By exploring the different costs that terror groups face and examining the characteristics of terrorists associated with different groups, organizational theory can help explain a divergent trend in terrorism research: leaderless jihad and increased bureaucratization.     

Research institutes as hybrid organizations: central challenges to their legitimacy

Research institutes, here defined as organizations involved in research and development but outside of the higher education sector and often in close cooperation with users, are found in most countries but not very well understood. This paper argues that institutes can be considered ??hybrid organizations??, caught in between dichotomous cultural spheres with differing values. To retain their hybridity and to survive in the long run, research institutes need to create and sustain organizational legitimacy by establishing congruence with values from these different spheres. The paper discusses how institutes try to establish legitimacy in the science?Cnon-science dimension and the public?Cprivate dimension and that these attempts sometimes come into conflict with one another. The framework of the legitimacy of hybrid organizations could constitute a fruitful starting point for a discussion of the future place of research institutes in society.     

Strengthening Effective Government–Citizen Connections through Greater Civic Engagement

Citizens are more trusting of government since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but their civic behaviors are little changed. One reason is that they mostly have been asked for monetary gifts to fund disaster relief and to serve others through existing nonprofit organizations. Available theoretical and empirical analyses suggest the three factors of motivation, skills, and network connections contribute to increased civic engagement, which is defined by behaviors such as seeking to persuade others to join in mobilizing commitment and resources to address a collective problem. Responses to 9/11 have not addressed these three factors. Increased civic engagement strengthens democracy and can contribute to the development of public judgment, which is critical to sustaining support of efforts to thwart terrorism. Success in any effort to increase civic engagement requires different strategies and actions by public officials.     

Working or shirking? Expenses and attendance in?the?UK?Parliament

This paper studies the determinants of MPs?? expense claims and of their attendance at Parliamentary meetings. Using a multiple regression framework, we correlate the expenses with three sets of variables: constituency characteristics, political variables, and individual characteristics. We then look at the ratio of parliamentary expenses claimed to votes cast in Parliament as a crude measure of value for money. This take on the data provides a somewhat benign view of the usage of expense claims. We use the results to reflect on two views of the motivation of MPs??the public choice view and the public service view.     

国际恐怖犯罪的特点、成因及对策

国际恐怖主义是当前国际社会所面临的主要挑战之一,它严重危害了国际社会的整体利益。尤其是近几年来,国际恐怖犯罪活动猖獗,以本.拉登为首的恐怖组织,更是制造了几起震惊世界的恐怖犯罪事件。这种特殊的犯罪形式引起了国际学术界和实务界的广泛关注。因此,研究这种犯罪的特点、成因及其处置对策具有十分重要的意义。