“Terrorism”, “democracy” and the Spanish 1978 “constitution”: transitional concepts, post-transitional metaphor
In this article, I argue that during the Spanish Transition (1975– 1982) there was a gradual semantic displacement that would strongly condition subsequent usages of the terms “terrorism”, “democracy” and “Constitution” in mass public discourse as suppo sedly designating self-evide...
TERRORISM: FACTS FROM FIGURES
If Iternational terrorism is on a rising trend, an important source of confirmation or refutation of this is time-series data on terrorist activity. Using chiefly data collected by the RAND/MIPT consortium we show using basic statistical analysis that in the period 1968–2005 the yearly number of...
Terrorism, Signaling, and Suicide Attack
This article examines the strategic utility of suicide terrorism. Suicide terrorism, we suggest, can be thought of as a form of strategic “signaling.” We define terrorism as a signaling game in which terrorist attacks are used to communicate a group’s character and objectives to a set of t...
Terrorism in an Era of Unconventional Warfare
Academic studies of terrorism and mass political violence have developed largely independently of one another. Insurgents, in contrast, have tended to incorporate terrorism tactics along with other types of unconventional warfare in their repertoire of action. This tendency has become more appar...
Terrorism in Nigeria
Using the Boko Haram terrorist group in Nigeria as a point of departure, this paper examines the implications of the operations of terrorist groups on the security and stability of states in West Africa. It predominantly utilises secondary sources of data. Findings indicate that the membership an...
The Challenge of Understanding Terrorism in a New Era of Threat
A new approach is needed to manage the UK’s increasingly nebulous terrorism threat, argues George Glover. The UK’s terrorism definition relies on a determination of what ideological or political cause an individual or group is trying to advance. However, the predominance of self-initiated ter...
The Psychology of Terrorism: “Syndrome” Versus “Tool” Perspectives
Two psychological perspectives on terrorism are distinguished, approaching it as a ‘‘syndrome’’ and as a ‘‘tool,’’ respectively. According to the ‘‘syndrome’’ view, ter rorism represents a psychologically meaningful construct with identifiable character istics on individual...
The Uberization of the United Nations’ regime to prevent the online financing of terrorism: tackling the problem of obfuscation in virtual currencies
This article examines an Uberization model of governance that can enable the existing United Nations (UN) regime for preventing the f inancing of terrorism to overcome the problems caused by the obfuscation techniques employed by virtual currencies (VCs). This new global governance model envisi...
United Nations peacekeeping and terrorism: short-term risks and long-term benefits
Does the introduction of UN forces impact terrorism? We argue that at least initially, UN peacekeeping missions may signifi cantly shift the local conflict bargaining process, creating incentives for terrorist and insurgent groups to increase their attacks against civilians. UN missions create a ...
Themes in official discourses on terrorism in Central Asia
This article explores the manner in which the governments of Central Asia, in particular Uzbekistan, have analysed and portrayed the actual and perceived threat from Islamist terrorism. It examines and critiques the core themes in this discourse, including the theoretical and legal definitions of...
The War on Terrorism and the Decline of Terrorist Group Formation: A Research Note
Over the course of the twentieth century, terrorist organizations possessing different political and religious outlooks have been formed in different regions of the world. This note reports that the peak decades for the formation of terrorist groups were the 1970s and 1980s. Since that period, th...
The Uberization of the United Nations’ regime to prevent the online financing of terrorism: tackling the problem of obfuscation in virtual currencies
This article examines an Uberization model of governance that can enable the existing United Nations (UN) regime for preventing the f inancing of terrorism to overcome the problems caused by the obfuscation techniques employed by virtual currencies (VCs). This new global governance model envisi...
“Terrorism”, “democracy” and the Spanish 1978 “constitution”: transitional concepts, post-transitional metaphors
In this article, I argue that during the Spanish Transition (1975– 1982) there was a gradual semantic displacement that would strongly condition subsequent usages of the terms “terrorism”, “democracy” and “Constitution” in mass public discourse as suppo sedly designating self-evide...
Maritime Terrorism in Southeast Asia: A Risk Assessment
This article seeks to investigate the extent of the threat posed by maritime terrorism to commercial ports and shipping in Southeast Asia. It shall focus in particular on the threat from the terrorist groups located in Indonesia and the Philippines and the vul nerability of vessels passing throug...
In the name of national security: articulating ethno political struggles as terrorism
The discourse of terrorism is one of the most powerful political discourses of our times. More often than not, its labels and assumptions– including the division of the world into sharp dichotomies of ‘free’ and ‘civilized’ states vs. ‘evil’ and ‘barbarian terrorists’–go un...
Chapter 3: Somalia, Global Security and the War on Terrorism
Prior to 11 September 2001, external interest in Somalia’s prolonged crisis was mainly humanitarian. The famine of 1991–92 attracted a massive emergency relief presence in the south of the country, culminating in the ill-fated UNOSOM peacekeeping intervention in 1993–95. Following the dep...
Building the Bomb: A Further Exploration of an Organizational Approach to Nuclear Terrorism
Aterrorist organization constructing and detonating a nuclear device is often a topic of popular, academic, and political concern. Yet, assessing this risk is a challenging task. This article aims to contribute to the encompassing nature of any future nuclear terrorism threat assess ments by furt...
A Tale of Terror: Autoethnography and the Study of Terrorism
Although terrorism is the only form of violence named after an emotion, terror, there appears to be negligible attention paid to comprehending and analysing this core emotion. Due in large part to the unique subjective factors of terror, there is immense difficulty in quantifying the emotion. Si...
Whispers from Below: Zionist Secret Diplomacy, Terrorism and British Security Inside and Out of Palestine, 1944–47
This article discusses the global aspect of Zionist terrorism against Britain during 1944 47, relying on recently declassified documents and Hebrew records. Britain struggled against a global terrorist campaign which attacked British targets in Palestine, Egypt and the wider Middle East, continent...
Two views on countering terrorism and counter insurgency
During the month of September 2013, the world was watching with concern as President Obama considered what action the USA should take over the disposal of chemical weapons in Syria. On this occasion, he chose the route of diplomacy rather than military action. Although his decision subjected him ...
‘The war on terrorism would not be possible without NATO’: a critique
The bold statement quoted above from the then Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Lord Robertson of Port Ellen,1 places the organization at the very centre of the ongoing ‘war on terror’. Given his role as institutional cheerleader and trailblazer for NATO, suc...
The Trouble with Terror: The Apologetics of Terrorism —a Refutation
This essay warns against a recent philosophical confusion concerning the definition of ‘‘terrorism,’’ which has dominated the post 9=11 literature. Terrorism, it is sug gested, is nothing but the intentional random murder of defenseless non-combatants, with the intent of instilling fear of...
The Proscription or Listing of Terrorist Organisations: Understanding, Assessment, and International Comparisons
This article serves as an introduction to this Special Issue on the banning or proscription of terrorist organisations around the world. It begins by arguing for greater attention to proscription powers because of their contemporary ubiquity, considerable historical line age, implications for pol...
The persistence of global terrorism
This study investigates the persistence of global terrorism in a panel of 163 countries for the period 2010–15. The empirical evidence is based on generalized method of moments. The following findings are established. First, persistence in terrorism is a decreasing function of income levels bec...
The Hybrid Terrorist Organization: Hezbollah as a Case Study
Since 1982, Hezbollah has evolved from a “revolutionary vanguard” terrorist organi zation bent on violently overthrowing the Lebanese government to a hybrid terrorist organization that uses legitimate political tools to the same end. Today Hezbollah operates on the civilian plane of da’wa, ...
The Geopolitics of Terrorism: Russia's Conflict with Islamic Extremism
A British specialist on the Russo-Chechen wars and international terrorism exam ines Russia’s role in the Global War on Terror and, in particular, its long-term campaign against both separatists and Islamic extremists in Chechnya and elsewhere in the North Caucasus. The author advances the argum...
The Four Horsemen of Terrorism: It's Not Waves, It's Strains
David Rapoport’s concept of Four Waves of terrorism, from Anarchist terrorism in the 1880s, through Nationalist and Marxist waves in the early and mid-twentieth cen tury, to the present Religious Wave, is one of the most influential concepts in terrorism studies. However, this article argues tha...
“The Fighting Made Me Feel Alive”: Women’s Motivations for Engaging in Left-wing Terrorism: A Thematic Analysis
Even though it is well documented that women have had, and continue to have, much more prominent positions and stronger participation in violent left-wing extremism and terrorism compared to other forms of political vio lence, the literature on their motivations to join militant left-wing milieus ...
Terrorist Organization Typologies and the Probability of a Boomerang Effect
Since the 1970s, many researchers have proposed typologies to sort the phenomenon of terror into different categories and to divide terror organizations into groups based on various characteristics of their activities. These typologies were designed to facilitate understanding of the phenomenon o...
Terrorism with Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Congressional Response
America’s concern with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) terrorism has steadily risen as a national security priority throughout the 1990s. High profile terrorist attacks and the well-publicized proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons have combined to cause many America...
Terrorism in Southeast Asia: expert analysis, myopia and fantasy
Most of the major studies of terrorism in Southeast Asia emphasize inter nationalterroristlinksandreligiousideology,whilemorelocally-embeddedaccounts draw attention to historical and political context. Despite this plurality in terrorism studies, flaws and omissions across four issues are common:...
Terrorism in Colombia: Logic and Sources of a Multidimensional and Ubiquitous Phenomeno
This article examines contemporary uses of terrorism in Colombia. Combining an historical analysis with the most complete database available on political violence, we illustrate how terrorism in Colombia constitutes a specific strategy that can be distin guished from other manifestations of violen...
Terrorism and trust
Trust enables us to simplify and understand complicated realities and orientate ourselves in them, which we do through symbolic systems, including myth and religion. Terrorism results when those systems generate extreme distrust, especially between ethnic or reli gious groups. Within nation-state...
Terrorism and Party Systems in the States of India
The incidence of domestic terrorism varies dramatically across the states of India. This study demonstrates that important state-level differences in political party systems help to explain different levels of terrorist activity within the Indian states. Analysis of statisti cal data on terrorist...
Terrorism Analysis and Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project: The Missing Element
The decision in the case of Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project raised important issues about civil liberties in the United States (2010), including freedom of speech and freedom of association, in relation to U.S. foreign policy actions. While the decision has the potential to infringe on certain...
Structural Violence and Terrorism in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan came under the international spotlight following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Mainly due to being a semi-autonomous region where British-colonial-era laws were practised until May 2018, FATA remains one of the most marginal...
State Legitimacy and Terrorism
Studies that focus on the causes of terrorism often overlook the issue of legitimacy. Ehud Sprinzak first spoke about the relationship between legitimacy and terrorism to explain why mobilized groups transition from political opposition movements to terror ism. This study advances upon this analy...
State Capacity and Terrorism: A Two-Dimensional Approach
Conventional wisdom suggests that dissident groups use terrorism when they face an overwhelmingly more powerful state, yet attacks in developing countries have predominated in the post-Cold War era, suggesting that terrorism is an increasingly weak state phe nomenon. Cross-national studies of ter...
Special Issue Introduction for Terrorism, Gender and Women: Toward an Integrated Research Agenda
This special issue encourages a greater integration of gender-sensi tive approaches to studies of violent extremism and terrorism. It seeks to create and inspire a dialogue by suggesting the necessity of incorporating gender analysis to fill gaps within, and further enhance, our understanding of ...
Sovereignty and Ethical Argument in the Struggle against State Sponsors of Terrorism
In prosecuting the war on terror, the Bush Administration asserts that the pro tections inherent in state sovereignty do not apply to state sponsors of terrorism. I examine three elements of normative arguments to assess the administration’s policies. The administration sought to delegitmize ter...
Security vs. Liberty: The Discourse on Terrorism in the United States and Morocco and Its Societal Effects
This article first analyzes some of the main features of the political discourse on ter rorism interlinked with the counterterrorism discourse as first instantiated under the Bush administration. It then focuses on the appropriation of the US-led discourse by the Moroccan government as well as on ...
Running the Blockade: Information Technology, Terrorism, and the Transformation of Islamic Mass Culture
Arab media is no longer limited to state-sponsored sources, opening a door of opportunity to the Muslim world. Islamic terrorist groups leverage information tech nology to form resilient, networked organizations that influence how many Muslims perceive events and U.S. political goals. This article...
Richard English, Terrorism: How to respond, James Dingley, Combating terrorism in Northern Ireland, Martin N. Murphy, Small boats, weak states, dirty money. Piracy and maritime terrorism in the modern world, Olivier Roy, The politics of chaos in the M
This is a book with a message: pay attention to historians! Good advice for all you non historians out there, of course, but Richard English (who teaches in the School of Politics at Queen’s University, by the way, so he is not just promoting his own discipline) has appar ently written with the ...
Refugees, Perceived Threat & Domestic Terrorism
Refugees’ effect on domestic terrorism is conditioned by host-country social perception (attitude about living next-door to foreigners) and economic competition. These hypotheses are tested cross-nationally from 1995-2014 leveraging data from the World Values Survey. The results show social pe...
Public opinion and terrorism: does the national economic, societal and political context Really Matter?
For national publics, terrorism is today one of the key policy challenges facing European governments. Yet little is known about whether and how the objective national economic, societal and political context influences public opinion about terrorism. The present article addresses this gap in t...
Mishandling suicide terrorism
The past three years saw more suicide attacks than the last quar ter century. Most of them were religiously motivated. Repeated suicide ac tions show that massive counterforce alone does not diminish the frequency or intensity of suicide attack. Like pounding mercury with a hammer, this sort of t...
Look who's talking: terrorism, dialogue and conflict transformation
I have aproblem with the critical terrorism studies agenda. Using the term “terrorism” risks reinforcing the orthodox terrorism policy and studies agendas. I whole-heartedly welcome the critical aspect of the critical terrorism studies agenda but have never been comfortable with the T word, e...
International Terrorism
In 2003, there were several positive developments in longstanding conflicts involving terrorism. Sri Lanka saw the continuation of a ceasefire and of peace negotiations between the government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. In Nepal, there was a diminution in Maoist terrorist act...
In the name of national security: articulating ethno-political struggles as terrorism
The discourse of terrorism is one of the most powerful political discourses of our times. More often than not, its labels and assumptions– including the division of the world into sharp dichotomies of ‘free’ and ‘civilized’ states vs. ‘evil’ and ‘barbarian terrorists’–go unqu...
Homegrown terrorism and transformative learning: an interdisciplinary approach to understanding radicalization
Since 2001, a preponderance of terrorist activity in Europe, North America, and Australia, has involved radicalized Westerners inspired by al Qaeda. Described as ‘homegrown terrorism’, perpetrators are citizens and residents born, raised, and educated within the countries they attack. While m...
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