On the optimal retaliation against terrorists: The paid-rider option

We examine whether nations, faced with the threat of terrorism, will be motivated to engage in the efficient amount of retaliation against terrorists. We demonstrate that the problem confronting the efforts of nations to achieve an optimal retaliation against terrorists is understated by the traditional free-rider analysis. In particular, nations have the option of actually selling or reducing the public good of retaliation, provided through the efforts of others, by offering safe havens to terrorists in return for the terrorists' pledge to attack elsewhere. This paid-rider behavior is also shown to apply to other public good scenarios.The authors gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of Gordon Tullock on an earlier draft. Sole responsibility for the paper's content rests with the authors. Todd Sandler's research was supported by a Science and Humanities Research Institute Summer Grant at Iowa State University.     

All Glory is Fleeting: Sigint and the Fight Against International Terrorism

This article discusses the important role that Signals Intelligence (Sigint) has played, and continues to play, in the war against international terrorism. It sets out what is known or can be authoritatively established about the role that Sigint played in the events leading up to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, especially the performance of America's Sigint organization, the National Security Agency (NSA). The article also analyzes what the potential future role of Sigint may be in the war on terrorism given the ever changing nature of terrorist operations, the growing number of technological impediments to effective Sigint collection against terrorist targets, and shifting geostrategic considerations on the part of the nations engaged in the fight against the international terrorists.     

Appeasing nihilists? Some economic thoughts on reducing terrorist activity

Recent contributions to the economics of terrorism have given contradicting recommendations for campaigning against terrorism, from the proposal to deprive terrorists of their resources to the proposal of raising the opportunity costs of terrorism by increasing the wealth of the affected regions. Within a simple framework which differentiates between the decision to become an active terrorist and the decision to support terrorists and which allows for reciprocal reactions to anti-terrorism policies, it is argued here that undifferentiated deterrence may indeed backfire, but so may an increase of the opportunity costs of terrorism. A very targeted anti-terrorism policy aimed only at active terrorists would then be the most reasonable remaining approach.     

Threat, Anxiety, and Support of Antiterrorism Policies

The perception of threat and the experience of anxiety are distinct but related public reactions to terrorism. Anxiety increases risk aversion, potentially undercutting support for dangerous military action, consistent with terrorists' typical aims. Conversely, perceived threat increases a desire for retaliation and promotes animosity toward a threatening enemy, in line with the usual goals of affected governments. Findings from a national telephone survey confirm the differing political effects of anxiety and perceived threat. The minority of Americans who experienced high levels of anxiety in response to the September 11 attacks were less supportive of aggressive military action against terrorists, less approving of President Bush, and favored increased American isolationism. In contrast, the majority of Americans who perceived a high threat of future terrorism in the United States (but were not overly anxious) supported the Bush administration's antiterrorism policies domestically and internationally.     

Terrorism,Dynamic Commitment Problems,and Military Conflict

Since 9/11, several states have initiated military conflicts in the name of fighting terrorism. However, studies indicate that the costs of terrorism are insignificant compared to the damage created by war. This raises the question: Why do states initiate costly wars when the risk posed by terrorism appears marginal? This study presents two explanations. First, we argue that while terrorists frequently fail to achieve their strategic objectives, terrorists can accomplish tactical objectives and may transition to insurgencies by seizing control of pockets of territory. States may respond by initiating preventive wars to stop terrorists from consolidating control over their strategically valuable territories (e.g., resource‐rich areas). Second, rival states may opportunistically exploit terrorist violence by declaring that the government is a “weak state.” This allows rivals to seize portions of the government's territory under the cover of fighting terror. We test these hypotheses using post–Cold War African dyads from 1990 to 2006.     

The political economy of freedom, democracy and transnational terrorism

We conduct an empirical analysis of data relating measures of economic and political freedom to the occurrence of transnational terrorism 1996–2002. We use binary logistical regression models to predict the probablities that a country will experience transnational terrorist attacks and that a given terrorist originates in a particular country. We find that the extent of political rights and civil liberties is negatively related with the generation of transnational terrorists from a country, but where the former is also negatively related with the occurrence of transnational terrorism in a country, the latter exhibits a non-linear relationship. A number of alternative explanations are disconfirmed: transnational terrorism is unrelated to inequality, economic growth, education, poverty, etc., while a society's fractionalization has mixed importance, and the religious composition has no or little association with attracting or producing transnational terrorism. A more trade-oriented economy seems consistently to associate with smaller probabilities of a country experiencing and generating transnational terrorism.     

谈铁路反暴力恐怖中的防范与保卫

铁路联系着国民经济的各行各业,往往是恐怖分子进行恐怖活动的首选目标。事实上来自新疆、西藏等地的“东 突”、“藏独”民族分裂势力、暴力恐怖势力、宗教极端势力已对铁路构成了严重威胁。面对严峻的恐怖敌情,我们必须加强防 范与保卫工作,通过提高安全意识、加强安全措施,对可能遭受恐怖袭击的目标进行保护,防范潜在的恐怖威胁。根据铁路的 实际情况,防范工作重点是:建立和完善反暴力恐怖协调机制;加强反暴力恐怖宣传教育工作,树立全民防范意识;明确目标, 落实责任;运用手段,获取情报;加强对危险物品的监督管理。     

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.     

Terrorism: The relevance of the rational choice model

Terrorism in general, and suicidal terrorism in particular, is popularly seen as “irrational,” but many economists and political scientists argue otherwise. This paper distinguishes three different senses of irrationality: unresponsiveness to incentives, deviation from narrow self-interest, and failure of rational expectations. It concludes that an intermediate position on the rationality of terrorism is appropriate. The typical terrorist sympathizer deviates only slightly from homo economicus. But active terrorists arguably stray from narrow self-interest and rational expectations, and suicidal terrorists probably violate both. Deterrence remains a viable anti-terrorism strategy, but deviations from rational expectations increase the potential of persuasion and appeasement.     

Intelligence to counter terror: The importance of all-source fusion

The modern digital environment has made terrorism and other transnational crimes vastly easier to coordinate on a worldwide scale than was possible before World War II. It has also exacerbated a most serious challenge: governments attempting to stop terrorists – particularly democracies – are expected to do so without undermining the laws, representative principles and informal confidences upon which a culture of democracy depends. The purpose of this article is to examine the modern intelligence requirements for countering terror in order to appreciate this challenge in greater depth and to develop a reasoned basis for balancing counterintelligence capabilities with civil liberties. It begins by considering the nature of the terrorists we face and the requirements for good intelligence operations against them. Historical examples illustrate those lessons that can be learned from the defeat of similar threats in the past, including the recurring ways in which challenges to civil liberties arise as democracies optimize intelligence in the name of security. In discussing the special opportunities and challenges modern technology poses in this contest, the analysis suggests an essential next step for democracies threatened by terrorists in their midst.     

International political system, supreme values and terrorism

Terrorism is becoming a weapon of ever increasing importance to reach certain ends, given the potential of mass destruction available to leading international powers and the rise of one superpower dominating the international system. In most cases terrorism is driven by an ideology comprising a world view with supreme values. Since these values are absolutely true to believers, they have to be preferred to everything, so that terrorists are required to sacrifice not only the lives of others but also their own. It is therefore difficult to prevent this kind of terrorism. But the threatening damages can be mitigated by economic, technological and political decentralization. In the long run, it is even more important to win the spiritual fight. This can be done by starting from the fact that believers in ideologies whose supreme values are conflicting, can only live together peacefully, if they accept that each individual has the right to choose his or her own belief. A corresponding education has to prevent fundamentalist instruction and to inculcate the basic rules of a free society.     

The several costs of responding to the threat of terrorism

This paper describes several dimensions of the cost of the U.S. response to the threat of terrorism. Following an evaluation of the nature and magnitude of the threat of terrorism against the United States, the paper describes the restrictions on our civil liberties, the fiscal and other costs of the major homeland security measures, the fiscal cost of programs that make no contribution to the defense against terrorism but are rationalized on that ground, and the effects on our language and the potential for civil discourse of an extended defense against terrorism.     

集体腐败的情景预防理论分析

因集体腐败引致损失更大、影响更恶劣、作案更隐蔽使其成为了近期反腐工作中的焦点,集体腐败具有集体腐败主体的潜在性特征、集体腐败行为的被动性特征及集体腐败行为被动性转化的特征,聚焦腐败主体本位是目前集体腐败进行类型划分及其成因探源的主要方式,内因驱动是其主要逻辑起点。然而,忽视外因是这一研究路径的主要局限。情景预防理论为认知和防治集体腐败提供了新的理论视角和实践引导。因此,必须在集体腐败特征、类型及其成因分析的基础上,从削减外在引致环境、强化内在防控机制,切断内外关联三方面入手严惩集体腐败。     

Terrorism as theater: Analysis and policy implications

In some regards the production of terrorism resembles the production of culture, especially television and theater. Terrorism is a spectacle produced for viewers, many of whom live apart from the violent staged events. Spectacular theater and the telling of memorable stories are inputs for fundraising and motivating subsequent terrorists. This understanding of terrorist motivation has concrete policy implications.     

The politics of warning: Terrorism and risk communication

The problem of risk communication in the context of imperfect intelligence regarding a prospective, rather than actual, terrorist attack is examined in order to assess recommendations for precise guidance for the public. Particular problems are noted with the iterative quality of risk communications about terrorism, as they allow the terrorists to change their behaviour, the difficulty of offering tactical warning without a prior strategic analysis, and the tendency to focus on the vulnerabilities of a society rather than the intent of the terrorists. These issues are assessed through a case study of the Bali attacks of 2002, before an analysis of the American experience following the attacks of 9/11. This experience confirms the difficulties of attempting to convey risks to the public by altering public alert levels.     

Is Antifa a Terrorist Group?

Starting in 2016, a number of protests and physical confrontations aimed at individuals and groups associated with right wing politics in the United States have been attributed to an ill-defined entity called “antifa”: short for anti-fascist. A high profile example took place in Charlottseville, Virginia on August 11-12, 2017. During two days of conflict and violence, anti right wing protesters clashed with right wing supporters. During the second day of the confrontation, a right-wing supporter drove a car into a crowd of protesters, killing one person and injuring 35 others. While many antifa supporters see it as a defense against right wing extremism, some on the right view supporters instead as terrorists. I tackle these issues in this essay by applying the guidelines of the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) to determine whether the actions by antifa supporters during the Charlottesville incident consitute terrrorism. I conclude that while the events share many characteristics of terrorist attacks, they do not include all of the elements of terrorism required by the GTD. I also question whether antifa can be considered to constitute a “group” at this point in time. My essay highlights how complicated it is to distinghish terrorism from other forms of illegal violence.     

去组织化:业主集体行动的策略——以G市反对垃圾焚烧厂建设事件为例

组织化动员和草根动员是促成集体行动的两种常见形式,然而,G市反对垃圾焚烧厂建设的业主集体行动不仅没有组织化动员力量(如业委会)的参与,也没有草根行动者刻意维持的名实分离的弱组织,那么,业主集体行动如何可能?分析G市案例发现,"去组织化"是业主集体行动的策略选择。它包括三个特征,无领导有纪律、行动上自我定位和网络虚拟串联。"去组织化"依托政治认知、网络传播和情感动员消解合法性、安全性和搭便车三重集体行动困境。它与组织化动员和草根动员的差异在于,动员结构既不是有组织也不是弱组织,政治取向上呈现认知和行动的分裂。实践层面,它表明公民在治理参与中成长,也预示中国公民社会构建及其与国家良性互动的艰难;理论层面,个案研究的发现为考察业主集体行动的动员提出了新的问题。     

Making the World a Better and Safer Place: The Time for Action is Now

This article argues that the events of 11 September 2001, and their aftermath, have heightened the need both to confront terrorism directly, increase global security and enhance the structures of global governance. The article concentrates on measures to enhance global security and gover-nance. In particular, measures must be taken to address some of the root causes of terrorism: those of economic exclusion, poverty and under-development. The article argues that the World Bank, along with other international financial institutions and the UN system, have a central role to play. The article concludes by identifying four priority areas for international action.     

国际反恐联合侦查研究

面对日益猖獗的国际恐怖主义犯罪,国家之间只有实施联合侦查,才能够及时、有效地侦破此类案件。在联合侦查过程中,合作各方应严格遵守订立的协定,在国际和国内法律许可的范围内,积极选择各种有效的途径和方法,密切合作,共同开展侦查行动。针对联合侦查实施中的各种阻碍因素,我国立法和司法实践应采取务实的态度,作出立法调整和司法观念的转变,建立适应国际趋势的联合侦查制度。     

从国际法角度看美国的“先发制人“战略

恐怖主义分子是隐蔽的,可能随时会发动恐怖袭击,为了防止恐怖袭击的发生,应当防患于未然。但从国际法来看,一般认为国家行使自卫权应当在遭受外来袭击之后,否则可能会造成一国侵略他国之实。因此,面对恐怖主义威胁,自卫权何时行使成为一个新的课题。另一方面,美国打击阿富汗之后,“基地”组织及其恐怖分子已经分解到一些国家潜伏下来,若美国对这些国家进行打击,也将显得于法无据,因为从国际法来看,国家对个人或社会组织的行为不承担国际法律责任,除非该人或社会组织代表国家行事或有国家授权。