Framing hostage negotiations: analysing the discourse of the US government and the Islamic State

Since August 2014, there has been a marked increase in the violence perpetrated by the Islamic State against Western hostages. Videos released by the Islamic State depicting the brutal executions of hostages have been circulated widely on social media. This has prompted a dialogue about governments’ policies regarding negotiation with terrorist organisations to secure the release of their citizens held overseas. The United States and Britain, two non-negotiating countries, have faced significant criticism for this policy, which has led to the beheadings of several American and British citizens. This article analyses the discourse of two spokesmen – White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, and British hostage John Cantlie – in framing the issue of hostage negotiations on behalf of their organisations. A grounded theory approach informed by framing analysis is utilised in order to identify dominant discourses employed in White House press briefings and John Cantlie’s videos and articles. This article concludes that, through the deliberate use of discourse, the US government and the Islamic State shape public perception of hostage negotiations in pursuit of distinct policy goals.     

The terrorism of the other: towards a contrapuntal reading of terrorism in India

This article advances an argument for a contrapuntal reading of terrorism using the case study of India. In recent years, the work of Edward Said has received some attention in the field of international relations. As yet, however, most readings of terrorism, either in its traditional form of terrorism studies or in the guise of critical terrorism studies, have not addressed the interface between terrorism and security, drawing on the work of Said. We take his work as a point of departure, enabling the analysis in this article to critique the ‘clash of civilisations’ thesis whilst also exploring the relationship between mass casualty terrorism and crowded places. In doing so, we draw attention to the instantiation of a series of attacks in India. The final section of this article pulls the analysis together so as to question the relationship between poverty and resilience.     

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.     

Why terrorism can,but should not be defined

This article seeks to turn the debate about the definition of terrorism on its head by arguing: (1) that the definitional debate has served to obscure the substantial scholarly consensus that actually exists on what terrorism is; (2) that this consensus is, however, largely unnecessary and irrelevant to the effective use of the term in the heterogeneous contexts within which it is employed; and (3) that by focusing on the quest for a definition of terrorism, terrorism scholars have largely missed the really interesting question about the word, namely, why it is that, given the heterogeneous purposes and contexts for which the word is used, we nonetheless continue to use a single word for all. In other words, how is it that we continue to know terrorism when we see it?     

Issues in teaching terrorism as cultural artefact

From a humanities course on terrorism that focuses on how terrorist ideology and acts are transformed into cultural artefacts, several pedagogical–theoretical issues have emerged: the incongruity of viewing terrorist violence as art; 9/11 as an ahistorical event; the impossibility of defining terrorism; the infiltration (trivialisation?) of terrorism into popular culture; subgenres of terrorist works, each with its own paradigm; and the iconoclastic potential of many terrorist texts and films. These issues have implications for the curricular design of terrorism courses and for the role of instructors – in academia and in the larger community.     

HIGH TIMES FOR HATE CRIMES: EXPLAINING THE TEMPORAL CLUSTERING OF HATE‐MOTIVATED OFFENDING

This research explains the temporal clustering of hate crimes. It is hypothesized that many hate crimes are retaliatory in nature and tend to increase, sometimes dramatically, in the aftermath of an antecedent event that results in one group harboring a grievance against another. Three types of events are used to test and refine the argument: 1) contentious criminal trials involving interracial crimes, 2) lethal terrorist attacks, and 3) appellate court decisions concerning same‐sex marriage. The results from time‐series analyses indicate that contentious trial verdicts and lethal domestic terrorist attacks precede spikes in racially or religiously motivated hate crimes, whereas less evidence is found for antigay hate crimes after appellate court rulings that grant rights to same‐sex partners. The model put forth in this article complements prior work by explaining in part the timing of hate crime clusters.     

Response to Cilluffo and Gergely

Research on the motives of those who engage in small group political violence typically takes a qualitative or quantitative form. I argue that researchers should seek to understand why people engage in small group political violence, and that the best way to achieve such understanding is to employ both. The advantages of this approach are discussed in this paper, as is the importance of recognizing that the activities of all actors in any given violent location, including state actors, should be accounted for in research.     

Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami: Evaluating the Threat Posed by a Radical Islamic Group That Remains Nonviolent

ABSTRACT

Hizb ut-Tahrir is a transnational movement that currently finds support among young Muslims in Central Asia and Western Europe. It presents a complex challenge to both Western and Muslim governments because it calls for the unification of all Muslim countries into a single Caliphate but has consistently rejected violence as a tool of political change. In this paper we focus on Hizb ut-Tahrir in Uzbekistan, a country that is a key U.S. ally in the war on terrorism. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Central Asia, we find that social movement theories (resource mobilization theory, political opportunities theory, framing theory) cannot explain why Hizb ut-Tahrir has remained opposed to violence under the same circumstances in which the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the other important radical Islamic group in the region, has embraced violence. We suggest that ideology is crucial for understanding why Hizb ut-Tahrir remains peaceful, and consider several scenarios in which the group might reconsider its ideology and turn to terrorism.     

A Conceptual Framework for Addressing Psychological Process in the Development of the Terrorist

A conceptual framework is presented for addressing psychological issues in the development of the terrorist. In particular, the authors suggest that viewing terrorism as a process may lead not only to better conceptual development in analyses of the terrorist, but may also lead to the development of more practical and efficient counterterrorism initiatives. Additionally, viewing terrorism in this way may finally lead to the formation of a clear and unambiguous position for psychology within an interdisciplinary approach to analyses of both terrorism and the terrorist.     

A Review of: “Audrey Kurth Cronin and James M. Ludes, (eds.). Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy.”

Because of its dynamic nature, those confronting the al-Qaeda threat must follow its evolution very closely. As demonstrated here, this task is particularly challenging when counterterrorism is carried out under the aegis of international organizations. This article explores the threat identification function of the al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee (also known as the 1267 Committee) charged with supervising the UN sanctions regime against al-Qaeda and its associates. Examination of the role of threat identification in the committee's work, and of the content of the threat analysis presented in the periodic reports of its subsidiary monitoring team, suggests the marginality of strategic threat assessment and underscores the constraints created by bureaucratic and political factors. The article also demonstrates the failure of the Committee and the monitoring team to thoroughly engage in central questions regarding al-Qaeda's nature, objectives, and organizational strategy.