Balancing tolerance,security and Muslim engagement in the United Kingdom: the impact of the ‘Prevent’ agenda

In this article, we consider how engagement with Muslims by the state has been conducted under the UK government's counter-radicalisation ‘Prevent’ agenda. New Labour's ‘hearts and minds’ approach to Prevent emphasised, and innovated, engagement with Muslim ‘communities’. This approach was widely criticised, however, particularly in the way it merged Prevent with ‘Community Cohesion’. By contrast, the current Coalition government's new Prevent strategy operates with a much thinner conception of engagement and stipulates that in future, Prevent and cohesion work will be kept separate. This new strategy signals less community engagement and a hardened line on the types of Muslim groups that can be engaged with. However, local actors driven by operational or normative concerns are pursuing somewhat different objectives, often outside of central funding streams. Such unintentional localism may sustain more participatory and inclusive modes of engagement with Muslims.     

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.     

The Urban Environment and its Influences on Insurgent Campaigns

For a long time, insurgency was a rural affair. The growing modernization of the modern world, however, shifts conflicts to the cities and requires us to explore the logics of armed struggle in urban environments. This article explores how the urban environment shapes armed conflicts, and argues that insurgents face severe practical constraints when acting in the cities. The urban environment offers the insurgents alternative ways of financing and of operating while close state control impedes them in pursuing a classic strategy of insurgency. Although state control cannot prevent attacks as such, it particularly hampers insurgents in relating to the population and organizing opposition. However, without massive and active support, armed struggle will remain sectarian and, thus, fail to achieve major political changes. This article argues that urban insurgents face a paradoxical relationship with society. While urban insurgents become independent of social support on an operational level, they depend more than ever on spontaneous massive and active social support on a strategic level.     

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.     

Visible Counterterrorism Measures in Urban Spaces—Fear-Inducing or Not?

Many scholars working within the tradition of critical studies are sceptical of the presence of visible security measures in urban spaces, arguing that they cause fear and facilitate the political control of citizens. A study carried out in Denmark in 2011 sought to capture, describe, and rank factors impacting positively or negatively on the feelings of safety of Danish citizens, when being in a crowded place. Surprisingly, the response to security measures like fences, cameras, and uniformed guards was positive. More visible security apparently reinforced feelings of safety. This article discusses the findings and points to, amongst others, a high level of societal trust as one possible explanation.     

从马德里铁路大爆炸看我国铁路反恐体系的建立

2004年3月11日,西班牙首都马德里及附近地区3列火车4节车厢连续发生10余起爆炸,造成2O0余人死亡,18O0余人受伤。这次系列爆炸震撼了全球,也给我们敲响了铁路反恐工作的警钟。铁路成为恐怖主义分子制造爆炸、投毒等破坏的重要目标的主要原因:(一)铁路是社会的主要交通运输工具,铁路在一个国家的经济生产和人民生活,甚至军事、涉外等方面具有重要影响;(二)铁路是社会人财物高度聚集的流动性很强的公共场所,铁路发生爆炸可以造成大量的人财物损失,破坏程度巨大;(三)铁路的分布范围广,列车昼夜固定高速运行,安全防范体系薄弱。对于恐怖主义采取在铁路站车制造爆炸的新型恐怖主义犯罪,我们应该有清醒的认识,应该从我国的反恐斗争需要出发,研究、制定国家的铁路反恐体系,以确保铁路的安全。     

城市轨道交通安全反恐建设规划研究

城市轨道交通已成为当今各国解决城市交通拥挤最有效的手段。城市轨道交通安全的特点以及当前轨道交通安全反恐建设方面遭遇的困境,需要公安安全保卫部门提前参与到轨道交通建设规划的编制中,要求我们根据危机管理、安全防范理论来构建有实际操作意义的轨道交通安全反恐系统,从而保障轨道交通和谐有序发展,为民众提供便捷、高效的服务。     

An epistemic break from “expertise”: Misunderstanding Terrorism by Marc Sageman

ABSTRACT

Professor Marc Sageman’s latest contribution to terrorism “studies” builds on an ever-increasing critique of a field in which “expertise” is something that is largely taken for granted, rather than empirically “known”. His book Misunderstanding Terrorism seeks to refocus our attention towards what is knowable through a Bayesian analysis based on his unique access to acts of terrorism within the Western world. Key, however, is his framing of what terrorism “is”, and to that effect, this review article first assesses the work of two individuals writing on terrorism, Rafaello Pantucci and Shiraz Maher, to place Sageman’s significant book within a wider context of terrorism literature.     

A CTS model of counterterrorism

To date, critical terrorism studies (CTS) has been very good at critiquing contemporary counterterrorism, but has not yet offered an alternative model which could be used for research and evaluation, as well as policy advice. This article seeks to address this gap by constructing a CTS model of counterterrorism. The first section of the article explicates the appropriation of “emancipation”, and why it is key for an alternative model of counterterrorism. The article then goes on to outline a CTS model and explain how it addresses all the main weaknesses of contemporary counterterrorism models, because it is based on a more robust ontology and epistemology which addresses terrorism as deep politics, it is normatively based on emancipation, it approaches terrorism and security holistically, and it is rooted in means/ends consistency. The final section of the article argues that the CTS model is not a theoretical utopia. A comparison with Norwegian counterterrorism shows that it can be useful for evaluating and advising real-world counterterrorism.