The Puzzling Case (From a Western Perspective) of Lone Terrorist Faheem Khalid Lodhi
Lone terrorists will continue to pose a challenge for intelligence analysts; particularly before they perpetrate an offence. The main lead to these types of individuals will come from their contact with others, behavioural patterns and attempts to purchase or access terrorism-related materials. T...
The rise and fall of American's freedom agenda in Afghanistan: counter-terrorism, nation-building and democracy
The US invasion of Afghanistan, in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, was originally conceived in narrow strategic terms. However, what began as a counter-terrorism policy, based on eliminating and eradicating al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime, led to increasing calls for nation-building and the esta...
The use of family networks in suicide terrorism: a case study of the 2018 Surabaya attacks
This article investigates the use of family networks in suicide terrorism using the 2018 Surabaya suicide attacks as a case study. The Surabaya attacks were the first case in the region that involved entire family networks including parents and their young children. The main aim of the article is to...
Transparent Communication in Counter-Terrorism Policy: Does Transparency Increase Public Support and Trust in Terrorism Prevention Programmes?
Within research and policy on preventing and countering terrorism, transparency is viewed as a necessity to generate public support and trust for counter-terrorism policies. Yet there is no systematic evidence to support these assumptions while research in other policy areas has challenged these ...
Turning Counter-Terrorism into CounterRevolution: Russia Focuses on Kazakhstan and Engages Turkmenistan
From the early days of Putin’s presidency, Russia’s energy policy towards Central Asia has been intertwined with the policy of counter-terrorism, which initially was aimed at exploiting the threat of the Taliban in order to cajole the post-Soviet regimes into closer cooperation with Moscow. The ...
United Nations resolution for Moratorium on death penalty and its implications on counter terrorism
Death Penalty is one of the most common punishments that have existed throughout history and was considered an effective measure to reduce criminal activities. Capital Punishment is being viewed as a violation of humanistic approach which guides the foundational infrastructure of International Or...
US-Pakistan Counter-Terrorism Cooperation: Dynamics and Challenges
Pakistan is a frontline ally of the US in its Global War on Terrorism. After the 9111 terrorist attacks, the military regime was compelled by Washington to join the US effort to dismantle the Taliban-Al Qaida terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan and Pakistan that successive regimes had nurtur...
Group desistance from terrorism: A dynamic perspective
This paper examines recent efforts to conceptualize group-level desistance from terrorism, identifies relevant actors and actions in the competition of terrorist groups and the governments they target, and identifies the multiple forms of desistance that can emerge from this competition. This dynami...
Terrorism and Political Violence in the Nordic Countries
The introductory article to the special issue discusses terrorism and political violence in the Nordic countries and reviews the state of academic research on the topic. Even though the Nordic countries appear to have suffered from lower levels of terrorism and political violence than many other Wes...
Counter-terrorism in Europe: the elusive search for orde
Many experts underscore a firm difference between (US) American and European approaches to combating terrorism. Other scholars contend that, since 11 September 2001, European governments have emulated the USA by “securitising” immigration and trampling on the civil and human rights of immigrants...
The ethics of researching ‘terrorism’ and political violence: a sociological approach
In this article, we propose a sociological model for the assessment of ethics in research on conflict and terrorism. We move beyond the rather narrow, procedural approaches that currently dominate contemporary discussion, seeking to broaden ethical considerations to include questions of social power...
A history of drones: moral(e) bombing and state terrorism
This article argues that an historical investigation of air power makes possible the critique of current regimes of drone surveillance and bombing as a practice of state terrorism. By identifying certain key themes regularly used in terrorism studies for the classification of violence as “terrori...
A Battlefield of Meanings: The Struggle for Identity in the UN Debates on a Definition of International Terrorism
For nearly forty years, debates on a definition of international terrorism as part of a comprehensive convention have been preoccupying the United Nations. This article challenges conventional approaches referring to divergences in national interests and preferences, or to institutional constraints ...
A critical study of space in the geopolitics of terrorism
This article theorises epistemologies of ‘space’ in critical studies on terrorism, expanding the research agenda beyond the straitjacket of historicism and discourse-centrism. It traces two theoretical approaches: 1) rescaling terrorism as mundane, situated and private, and 2) treating the ...
A Palestinian Woman's Place in Terrorism: Organized Perpetrators or Individual Actors?
This article analyzes a novel comprehensive database of attacks by Palestinian women between 1965 and 1995. During this period, women’s participation in terrorism evolved and their participation can be divided into two distinct eras, before and after 1986. The article argues that the entrance of r...
A Plague of Locusts? A Preliminary Assessment of the Threat of Multi-Drone Terrorism
Emerging technologies provide new opportunities for terrorist organizations. Future terrorists may use multiple drones—either en masse or coordinated with each other in cruder or more sophisticated ways—to cause harm, potentially at scale. This study explores the topic via theoretical explora...
A Typology of Terrorist Attacks: The “32 Profiles” Model
Typologies of terrorist attacks enable researchers to analyze the complex phenomenon of terrorism in an organized manner, while facilitating the formulation of effective counter-terrorism policies. This paper contributes to the literature on typologies of terrorism by proposing a new conceptual mo...
A Typology of Terrorist Attacks: The “32 Profiles” Model
Typologies of terrorist attacks enable researchers to analyze the complex phenomenon of terrorism in an organized manner, while facilitating the formulation of effective counter-terrorism policies. This paper contributes to the literature on typologies of terrorism by proposing a new conceptual mo...
Accountability, Counter-Terrorism and Civil Liberties
When the Conservative-led Coalition government was elected in 2010, it was at a time when terrorism had started to decline, both domestically and on a global level. In the UK, only one person1 had been killed as a result of international terrorism since the 2005 London attacks.2 Globally, after a sh...
Applying the Notion of Noise to Countering Online Terrorism
The growing presence of modern terrorism on the Internet is at the nexus of two key trends: the democratization of communications driven by user-generated content on the Internet; and the growing awareness of modern terrorists of the potential of the Internet for their purposes. How best can the ter...
Are mass shootings acts of terror? Applying key criteria in definitions of terrorism to mass shootings in the United States from 1982 to 2018
Scholars and policymakers often make noticeable distinctions between acts of terrorism and mass shooting incidents. In order to assess if these distinctions are generally accurate, we identity four key criteria from standard international and domestic definitions of terrorism. The criteria include: ...
Assessing the role of the United Nations in countering terrorism in Africa: A case study of the Lake Chad Basi
This study examines the United Nations’ counterterrorism efforts in the Lake Chad Basin (LCB), with a focus on the persistent challenges posed by the Boko Haram insurgency. Using a critical analysis approach, the research appraises the legal, policy, and empirical dimensions of the UN’s counter...
Bringing suspected terrorists to justice? Revealing bias against Muslims in applied counter terrorism by the U.S
This study analyzes the conditions under which the U.S. engages in active counterterrorism approaches. Specifically, it examines the active criminal justice approach which views terrorism as a crime and the military approach which views terrorism as an act of wars and seeks to uncover under what con...
Campus conspiracies: security and intelligence engagement with universities from Kent State to counter-terrorism
Security and intelligence agency concerns with universities range from the commissioning and protection of security-sensitive research, the ongoing recruitment of staff and students for covert security and intelligence work, as well as prominent counterterrorist concerns. This is an ethically charg...
Can terrorism become a scientific discipline? A diagnostic study
This study offers a meta-information analysis of the state of the art of terrorism research from structural disciplinary perspectives, and by comparisons with several other fields of study. It observes the interrelationship of disciplinary characteristics, specifically, scientific collaboration amon...
Civil society and counter-terrorism governance: implementing the WPS agenda in Nigeria
Women-led civil society activism contributed to the adoption of the WPS Agenda and the Security Council’s recognition of these organisations as key WPS actors. However, civil society organisations (CSOs) are often allocated tokenistic roles during the national implementation of WPS resolutions. Dr...
Comments on Marc Sageman's Polemic “The Stagnation in Terrorism Research”
Marc Sageman’s lamenting about the ‘‘Stagnation in Terrorism Research’’ stands in stark contradiction to my conclusion in the Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research (2011) that ‘‘Terrorism Studies—despite many shortcomings—has matured’’ and that ‘‘Terrorism Studies has ne...
Conceptualizing Terrorism
This article argues that, while there have always been good reasons for striving for a universally agreed definition of terrorism, there are further reasons for doing so in the post 9/11 environment, notwithstanding the formidable challenges that confront such an endeavour. Arguing that the essence ...
Contemporary terrorism challenges and responses in the Indo-Pacific
Since the seminal terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, the emergence of the new terrorism has been epitomised by rise of radical Islamist terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Through the use of new terrorism techniques and strategies, such movements have been able to transform...
Countering terrorism in Northern Ireland: the role of intelligence
This article aims to review some of the key lessons learnt by the Royal Ulster Constabulary’s (RUC) Special Branch in the 37 years of the troubles in Northern Ireland. Above all counter-terrorism is an intelligence led operation and Special Branch are the key agency for this in all UK police force...
Counter-Terrorism in Pakistan’s “Tribal” Districts
Pakistan’s Pashtun tribal region, formerly known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), has witnessed decades of instability, conflict, and deterioration in the postcolonial state of Pakistan. Soon after Pakistan’s independence on August 14, 1947, the Pashtun tribal frontier (later k...
COVID-19: a challenge or opportunity for terrorist groups?
The Covid-19 contagion has emerged amid a rapidly changing geopolitical environment and technological transformations. These developments have created new opportunities and challenges for terrorist groups. Whereas terrorist groups are struggling to launch conventional attacks during the lockdown, th...
Criminalizing peace: anti-terrorism law and its impact on peacemaking in the Basque Country and Northern Ireland
This paper investigates anti-terrorism law’s impact on peace-making efforts of the nonviolent allies of Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA) and the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). Drawing on debates concerning ‘enemy criminal law’, I argue that anti-terrorism law is actor-focused and t...
Critical terrorism studies (CTS): (State) (sponsored) terrorism identified in the (militarized) pedagogy of (U.S.) law enforcement agencies
For over a decade, scholars of Critical Terrorism Studies (CTS) – a subset of terrorism studies identifying with the widening and deepening era of International Relations (IR) – have persuaded scholars of political sociology to push the disciplinary boundaries imposed by Orthodox Terrorism Studi...
Does Country-Level Social Disorganization Increase Terrorist Attacks?
This study examines the effects of a measure of country-level social disorganization on levels of terrorist attacks and fatalities in 101 countries from 1981 to 2010. We measure social disorganization as the presence of state instability: revolutionary and ethnic war, adverse regime change, and geno...
Does Terrorism Dominate Citizens’ Hearts or Minds? The Relationship between Fear of Terrorism and Trust in Government
Terrorism only poses a small risk to people but tends to be a major source of public fear. Through fear, terrorism has far-reaching implications for public governance. In this paper we look at trust in government as a potential mitigating factor of fear of terrorism. We discern between calculative ...
Epistemological failures: everyday terrorism in the West
This article attempts to problematise the disparate levels of attention paid to similar violences globally, whereby violence against women in the developing world is seen as a security concern to the West, and yet violence against women in the West is minimised or ignored. It will do this, first, by...
Equidistance and positive neutrality: Spanish Jesuits on terrorism, peace, and democracy in the Basque Country from 1978 to 1988
This study focuses on the question of how Jesuits in Spain contributed to the deradicalisation of the ETA conflict during the 1980s. It analyses Spanish Jesuit discourses on peace and democracy in their broad historical context during the Second Cold War. The first part of this study analyses co...
Escalating Complexity in Regional Conflicts: Connecting Geopolitics to Individual Pathways to Terrorism in Mali
In 2012, Northern Mali was the theater of a Tuareg rebellion that has rapidly transformed into a much more complex armed conflict. The current situation is affected by various factors, such as the influence of regional geopolitical dynamics, the increasing presence of terrorist, pro-government or se...
ETHICS, NUCLEAR TERRORISM, AND COUNTERTERRORIST NUCLEAR REPRISALS – A RESPONSE TO JOHN MARK MATTOX'S ‘NUCLEAR TERRORISM: THE OTHER EXTREME OF IRREGULAR WARFARE’
This paper critically examines John Mark Mattox’s view of the nature of the moral appropriateness of particular response options. By so doing, I aim to engage the wider readership in a debate, which I hope leads to greater clarity and precision of thinking on these topics. After summarizing Mattox...
Examining the Distinct Effects of Emotive Triggers on Public Reactions to International Terrorism
In recent years, a growing body of research has set out to examine the role that emotions play in shaping political attitudes and behaviors regarding terrorism. However, one major issue that is generally overlooked is whether the thematic relevance of emotive triggers leads to differential effects o...
Exploring the possible effects of social vulnerability components on terrorism
Although many studies on social vulnerability focus on mitigating negative effects and crisis management in terms of the physical, economic, structural, and non-structural resilience of countries we found limited research on the effects of these indicators on terrorism that has a great unfavourab...
FIGHTING TERRORISM: ARE MILITARY MEASURES EFFECTIVE? EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM TURKE
The present article aims at investigating the causal relationship between defense spending and terrorism in Turkey using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing procedure and Granger-causality analysis. The findings reveal that there exists a unidirectional causality running form t...
From Underground Terrorism to State Terrorism and Beyond: The Question of Terrorism in the Finnish Jäger Movement during and after the First World War
Political terrorism has played an integral part in the independence struggle of several sovereign nations, and resistance and liberation movements have often had to resort to terrorism as a deliberate strategy. In the Finnish nationalist struggle for independence, a key role was played by the Jäge...
Gender, race and Orientalism: The governance of terrorism and violent extremism in global and local perspective
In this article, we investigate two complementary elements of the Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) agenda. The first concerns the ways in which race and gender structure the logics of the multilateral counterterrorism landscape that has taken form since the adoption of UNSC Re...
Has Nigeria Defeated Boko Haram? An Appraisal of the Counter-Terrorism Approach under the Buhari Administration
One of the campaign promises of President Muhammadu Buhari was that he would eliminate Boko Haram six months after assumption of office. By December 2015, the Buhari-led government gave itself a pass mark for countering the terrorists. The government declared that the group had been ‘technically d...
Hearts and minds and votes: the role of democratic participation in countering terrorism
There has been a growth in the level and variety of political activism within Muslim communities in the UK in recent years. It takes a variety of forms, from formal political organization and activism, to volunteering, civic entrepreneurialism and the assertion of politics through personal acts and ...
Imprisonment and Terrorism
While policymakers frequently praise the impact of law enforcement for addressing the threat of terrorism, several cases suggest that the imprisonment of terrorists and potential perpetrators may actually lead to (more) radicalization and, ultimately, a higher risk of terrorism. We take systemati...
Intelligence Dilemma? Contemporary Counter terrorism in a Liberal Democra
The post-9/11 period and its emphasis on tackling terrorism has had a fundamental impact on the business of intelligence, not least in raising some very difficult ethical issues to the forefront of debate. Many of these issues are intertwined with the business of ‘policing globalisation’ in the ...
“International terrorism” in the League of Nations and the contemporary terrorism dispositif
This article recovers states’ discursive practices regarding “international terrorism” in the 1930s. It examines the internal conditions of the discourse of terrorism among states in this period with a particular focus on its conspiratorial elements and suggests external conditions for this di...
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