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ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF TERRORISM AND COUNTERTERRORISM
This new Handbook provides a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of current knowledge and debates on terrorism and counterterrorism, as well as providing a benchmark for future research. The attacks of 9/11 and the ‘global war on terror’ and its various legacies have dominated international politics in the opening decades of the 21st century. In response to the dramatic rise of terrorism, within the public eye and the academic world, the need for an accessible and comprehensive overview of these controversial issues remains profound.The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism and Counterterrorism seeks to fulfil this need. The volume is divided into two parts: ••
••
Part I: Terrorism: This section provides an overview of terrorism, covering the history of terrorism, its causes and characteristics, major tactics and strategies, major trends and critical contemporary issues such as radicalisation and cyber-terrorism. It concludes with a series of detailed case studies, including the IRA, Hamas and the Islamic State. Part II: Counterterrorism:This part draws on the main themes and critical issues surrounding counterterrorism. It covers the major strategies and policies, key events and trends and the impact and effectiveness of different approaches. This section also concludes with a series of case studies focused on major counterterrorism campaigns.
This book will be of great interest to all students of terrorism and counterterrorism, political violence, counter-insurgency, criminology, war and conflict studies, security studies and IR more generally. Andrew Silke is Professor of Terrorism, Risk and Resilience at Cranfield Univerity, UK. He is author or editor of many books on terrorism, including, most recently, Terrorism: All that Matters (2014), Prisons,Terrorism and Extremism (Routledge 2013) and The Psychology of Counter-Terrorism (Routledge 2010).
‘The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism and Counterterrorism offers the best overview of current terrorism research on the market today.With over fifty concise and accessible chapters by leading specialists in the field, the book is a godsend for instructors and a reference work for students, professionals, and scholars alike.’ – Thomas Hegghammer, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) and University of Oslo, Norway ‘The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism and Counterterrorism is an immensely valuable collection that is impressive in terms of scope, variety, and depth of knowledge. Editor Andrew Silke has assembled top experts in the field to analyze key contemporary issues as well as a broad range of important case studies.’ – Martha Crenshaw, Stanford University, USA ‘A standard complaint in the social sciences is that more research is needed. This does not apply to terrorism research; there is too much of it – although of uneven quality. What was needed is a synthesis of knowledge from various disciplines. Andrew Silke’s Handbook of Terrorism and Counterterrorism does just that. It is a comprehensive compendium that should be on the shelf of every library.’ – Alex P. Schmid, Editor-in-Chief, Perspectives on Terrorism ‘Andrew Silke has pulled together an extremely timely and comprehensive single volume that offers much-needed insight. Readers will profit from its extensive and state-of-the-art treatment of the very latest trends in both terrorism and counterterrorism.’ – Kumar Ramakrishna, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF TERRORISM AND COUNTERTERRORISM
Edited by Andrew Silke
First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 selection and editorial material, Andrew Silke; individual chapters, the contributors The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Silke, Andrew, editor. Title: Routledge handbook of terrorism and counterterrorism / edited by Andrew Silke. Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017042245 | ISBN 9781138819085 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315744636 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Terrorism. | Terrorism–Prevention. Classification: LCC HV6431 .R684 2018 | DDC 363.325–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042245 ISBN: 978-1-138-81908-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-74463-6 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their permission to reprint material in this book. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not here acknowledged and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future editions of this book.
CONTENTS
List of figures x List of tables xi Note on editor xii Notes on contributors xiii Acknowledgementsxxv 1 The study of terrorism and counterterrorism Andrew Silke
1
PART I
Terrorism11 2 Defining terrorism Anthony Richards
13
3 Conceptualizing and measuring terrorism Gary LaFree
22
4 A history of terrorism Leonard Weinberg
34
5 Root causes of terrorism Tore Bjørgo and Andrew Silke
57
6 State terrorism Andrew Silke
66
7 Nationalist and separatist terrorism James J.F. Forest
74
Contents
8 Left-wing terrorism Leena Malkki
87
9 Right-wing terrorism George Michael
98
10 Lone-actor terrorism: radicalisation, attack planning and execution Noémie Bouhana, Stefan Malthaner, Bart Schuurman, Lasse Lindekilde, Amy Thornton and Paul Gill
112
11 Terrorist psychology and radicalisation Zoey Reeve
125
12 Children as agents of terrorism and political conflict Deborah Browne
135
13 Social media, the online environment and terrorism Katherine E. Brown and Elizabeth Pearson
149
14 Terrorist group structures: balancing security and efficiency Joshua Kilberg
165
15 The effectiveness of terrorism Sarah Marsden
174
16 The economic impact of terrorism Mikel Buesa and Thomas Baumert
185
17 Fundraising, organised crime and financing terrorism James Windle
195
18 Foreign fighters and terrorism David Malet
207
19 Suicide terrorism Assaf Moghadam
216
20 Terrorist hostage-taking Margaret Wilson
226
21 Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) terrorism Gary A. Ackerman
240
vi
Contents
22 Cyber terrorism Marcus Rogers
253
Part I: case studies
265
23 Al-Qaeda: formation and evolution Donald Holbrook
267
24 Boko Haram Jacob Zenn and Zacharias Pieri
278
25 Hamas Sagit Yehoshua
292
26 Hizbullah Raphael D. Marcus
302
27 Islamic State Francis Gaffney
315
28 The Provisional Irish Republican Army John F. Morrison
325
29 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Ahmed Salah Hashim
336
30 Red Army Faction Jennifer Schmidt-Petersen
350
PART II
Counterterrorism361 31 Conceptualising counterterrorism Ronald Crelinsten
363
32 Policing in counterterrorism Lindsay Clutterbuck
375
33 The military approach to counterterrorism Michael J. Boyle
384
34 Intelligence and counterterrorism Julian Richards
395
vii
Contents
35 Anti-terrorism laws: the United Kingdom’s unfinished history Clive Walker
406
36 Public support and (counter) terrorism Isabelle Duyvesteyn and Bart Schuurman
416
37 Tackling terrorist fundraising and finances Marc Parker
425
38 Deterring and preventing terrorism Joshua D. Freilich, Steven M. Chermak and Henda Y. Hsu
434
39 Prisons and detention: reflections on the Northern Ireland experience Jacqueline Bates-Gaston
444
40 Terrorist disengagement and de-radicalization Kurt Braddock
458
41 Targeted killings: perpetual war for perpetual peace? Rory Finegan
471
42 Ethics and human rights in counterterrorism Lyndsey Harris and Rachel Monaghan
483
Part II: case studies
493
43 Argentina: a case study in Dirty War Itai Sneh
495
44 Canada Stéphane Leman-Langlois
504
45 China: people’s war on terror Elena Pokalova
517
46 France Frank Foley
528
47 Great Britain: terrorism and counter-terrorism since 1968 Steve Hewitt
540
48 India Arijit Mazumdar
552
viii
Contents
49 Iraq: terrorism and counter-terrorism in Iraq, 2003–2011 Michael Clarke
563
50 Israel: can terrorism be curbed? Ami Pedahzur, Lusaura Gutierrez and Arie Perliger
574
51 Italy: the process of disengaging the Italian left-wing armed groups from political violence Lorenzo Bosi and Donatella Della Porta
585
52 Spain Rogelio Alonso
593
53 Russia Cerwyn Moore
604
54 The United States of America: counterterrorism pre-9/11 Aaron Winter
615
55 The United States of America: domestic counterterrorism since 9/11 Joshua Sinai
635
Index649
ix
FIGURES
1.1 Scholarly publications on terrorism and counterterrorism, 1980–2016 2 1.2 Methods in terrorism research 3 6.1 The spectrum of political violence 68 13.1 4Chan ‘Allah Quackbar’ photographs 157 21.1 Required capabilities for CBRN attack by desired consequence 246 21.2 CBRN terrorism events over time 247 21.3 Event type: actual weapon used compared to failed attempts/major interest plots 247 21.4 Casualties from CBRN terrorism 248 21.5 Perpetrator type 248 21.6 Delivery mechanisms 249 23.1 Selected milestones in the history of Al-Qaeda 270 23.2 Public statements from bin Ladin and Zawahiri in the interest of Al-Qaeda (1994–2015)272 44.1 Chronology of serious and nuisance political violence events in Canada, 1973–2014507
TABLES
5.1 Indicators pointing towards the formation of terrorist groups and the occurrence of terrorist campaigns 5.2 Top ten countries suffering casualties due to terrorism, 1986–2002 14.1 Terrorist group structures 22.1 Risk indicators 32.1 The core elements of police counterterrorism 47.1 Deaths in England, Scotland, and Wales from terrorism, 1970–2017 50.1 Counterterrorism models 52.1 Number of victims in Spain and terrorist group responsible (1968–2015) 53.1 Hostage incidents in the First Chechen War 53.2 Hostage incidents in the second conflict
60 61 167 258 378 542 575 595 606 607
EDITOR
Andrew Silke has a background in forensic psychology and criminology and has worked both in academia and for government. His primary research interests include terrorism, conflict and crime, and he is widely recognised as a leading expert on terrorism and low-intensity conflict. He is the author and editor of several books on terrorism and counterterrorism, including The Psychology of Counterterrorism (Routledge 2011), Prisons,Terrorism and Extremism (Routledge 2013) and Terrorism: All That Matters (2014). He tweets at @andrewpsilke.
CONTRIBUTORS
Gary Ackerman is the director of the Unconventional Weapons and Technology Division at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. His research encompasses various areas relating to terrorism and counterterrorism, including terrorist threat assessment, radicalization, terrorist technologies and motivations for using chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons, and the modelling and simulation of terrorist behaviour. He completed his PhD in War Studies at King’s College London, dealing with the impact of emerging technologies on terrorist decisions relating to weapons adoption. Rogelio Alonso is an associate professor of Politics at Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid, where he coordinates its Master’s programme on Terrorism. He has been a member of the Expert Group on Violent Radicalisation of the European Commission and a member of the Editorial Board of the Centre of Excellence of the Radicalisation Awareness Network, as well as senior advisor on counterterrorism for the Spanish Government. He has received several international awards for his publications on terrorism and radicalization. He has been Principal Investigator of numerous international projects on terrorism, antiterrorism and radicalisation, as well as the author of several books and peer-reviewed articles in top academic journals. Jacqueline Bates-Gaston was Chief Psychologist and Head of Forensic Psychology and Interventions in the Northern Ireland Prison Service from 1991 until 2015, during which time she had extensive experience in the management of those convicted of terrorist offences. In the 1990s she was instrumental in developing and implementing specialist support services for prison staff and their families who were under intense psychological and physical threats from paramilitary organisations. She is hopeful that the political developments will bring an end to terrorist activities in Ireland. Thomas Baumert is Professor of Economics and History at the ESIS Business and Marketing School in Madrid. He obtained his PhD at the Complutense University of Madrid (2006). His main areas of research focus on the economics of innovation, the economics of terrorism, the economic analysis of premial law, and the history of economic thought. Among others, he coedited the much-acclaimed book La hora de los economistas (Madrid: Ecobook, 2010) and, with Mikel Buesa, The Economic Repercussions of Terrorism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) and Juan Velarde: testigo del gran cambio (Madrid: Encuentro, 2016).
Contributors
Tore Bjørgo is Professor at the University of Oslo and Director at Center for Research on Extremism: Right-Wing Extremism, Hate Crime and Political Violence (C‑REX). He is also Adjunct Professor at the Norwegian Police University College (PHS), where he has been Professor of Police Science (since 2004) and Research Director (2005–2007). The main recurring theme in his research has been violent extremism and terrorism in general and right-wing extremism in particular, and with a focus on prevention. He is widely recognized as a pioneer in the study of deradicalisation and disengagement from extremist groups. He has (co)edited six volumes, and (co)authored eight other books. Lorenzo Bosi is Assistant Professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore and Research Fellow at the Centere for Social Movement Studies (COSMOS). He is a political sociologist pursuing comparative analysis into the cross-disciplinary fields of social movements and political violence. He has directed and collaborated on a number of national and international research projects on topics relating to social movements, political violence, and political participation. For the next few years his main research agenda will be to investigate those socio-spatial relations between armed groups and their constituencies that drive shifting forms of political violence. Noémie Bouhana is Senior Lecturer in Security and Crime Science at University College London, where she leads the Counter-Terrorism Research Group. Noémie is Principal Investigator of the €2.9M FP7 PRIME project, an international consortium researching lone actor terrorist events. She is also Principal Investigator of the $1M project “The Social Ecology of Radicalisation”, funded by the US DoD Minerva Initiative. Prior work was funded by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), the Office of Security and CounterTerrorism (OSCT), the MOD Science and Technology Centre, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and the US National Institute of Justice (NIJ). Michael Boyle is an associate professor of Political Science at La Salle University in Philadelphia and a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). His most recent books are Violence after War: Explaining Instability in Post-Conflict States (2014) and the Legal and Ethical Implications of Drone Warfare (2016). Kurt Braddock is a post-doctoral fellow and researcher in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State University. His work centres on psychological responses to terrorist messaging, as well as how different communication strategies can be leveraged to counter violent extremism in multiple contexts. Dr. Braddock’s work has been published in leading peer-reviewed terrorism and communication journals, including Terrorism and Political Violence, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, and Communication Monographs. Dr. Braddock has worked on projects funded by the Department of Homeland Security, the Office of Naval Research, the British Government, and others. Katherine E. Brown is a lecturer in the Department of Religion and Theology at the University of Birmingham, UK, specialising in gender, jihad and counterterrorism. She has published widely in academic journals and blogs, and is currently working on a monograph on worldwide anti-radicalization policies and gender. Her expertise has been sought by a number of academic, policy and media outlets in the UK, USA, Tunisia, Canada, Australia, Norway, and Austria, including, for example, the 9/11 Memorial, the European Parliament, and UN Women. xiv
Contributors
Deborah Browne is a chartered psychologist who has worked in both academia and for government. Previous work includes consultancy for UNICEF in Sarajevo during the Bosnian conflict and providing consultancy advice on children and terrorism for research carried out by Penn State University. Dr Browne’s key interests include the development of antisocial behaviours in children, children as victims of abuse, foster care, children involved in terrorist incidents (including as combatants), prisons and offender management, adolescence and young adulthood, and drug markets. Dr Browne has published papers and has presented on these topics at national and international conferences. Mikel Buesa is Professor (Chair) of Applied Economics at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), where he held the Chair for the economics of terrorism from 2006 to 2014. He has focused his research on the economics of innovation, and terrorism and the economy. He has been the president of two Spanish civic organizations devoted to the promotion of intellectual and political work on counter-terrorism. Buesa has co-edited (with Thomas Baumert) The Economic Repercussions of Terrorism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010) and is the author of ETA, S.A. (Madrid: Planeta, 2011). In 2003, he was honoured with the Spanish Order of Constitutional Merit. Steven M. Chermak is Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University, an investigator for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, and co-Director of the United States Extremist Crime Database (ECDB). He studies domestic terrorism, media coverage of crime and justice issues, and the effectiveness of specific policing strategies. Recent publications have appeared in Terrorism and Political Violence, Crime and Delinquency, and the Journal of Quantitative Criminology. Michael Clarke was Director General of the Royal United Services Institute from 2007 to 2015. Before that he was Deputy Vice Principal at King’s College London and founder of the Centre for Defence Studies as well as the International Policy Institute at KCL, where he remains a Visiting Professor. He is also Associate Director of the Strategic Studies Institute at the University of Exeter. He served as Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Select Committee on Defence from 1997 to 2017 and to the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy from 2015 to 2017. Lindsay Clutterbuck, BSc, MA, PhD, is an independent researcher and consultant. Until 2015, as a Senior Research Leader of the Defence and Security team at RAND Europe, he led a range of research projects in the EU and other countries relating to terrorism and counterterrorism, insurgency and counterinsurgency. Prior to this he served in the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), retiring as a Detective Chief Inspector in 2006. He spent over twenty-two years within the Specialist Operations Department at New Scotland Yard, serving throughout in specialised counterterrorism roles. He is a member of the European Union Experts Network on Terrorism (EENeT). Ronald Crelinsten is Associate Fellow at the Centre for Global Studies at University of Victoria. He was Professor of Criminology at the University of Ottawa for over 20 years and Visiting Professor at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara,Turkey from 1999 to 2002. His publications include Counterterrorism (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2009/2014; Arabic version: UAE, 2011), Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism in a Multi-Centric World (Stockholm: Swedish National Defence College, 2006), The Politics of Pain: Torturers and Their Masters (Boulder, CO: xv
Contributors
Westview Press, 1995), Western Responses to Terrorism (London: Frank Cass, 1993), Hostage-Taking (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1979), and Terrorism and Criminal Justice (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1978). Donatella Della Porta is Professor of Political Science, dean of the Institute for Humanities and the Social Sciences and Director of the PD program in Political Science and Sociology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, where she also leads the Center on Social Movement Studies (Cosmos). Among the main topics of her research are social movements, political violence, terrorism, corruption, the police and protest policing. She has directed a major ERC project, Mobilizing for Democracy, on civil society participation in democratization processes in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. In 2011, she was the recipient of the Mattei Dogan Prize for distinguished achievements in the field of political sociology. Isabelle Duyvesteyn is Professor of International Studies/Global History at the Institute of History at Leiden University. She completed her PhD at the Department of War Studies at King’s College in London. Previously she has worked at the Royal Military Academy in the Netherlands and the Netherlands Institute for International Relations. Her research interests include the history of terrorism and counterterrorism, the nature of war and peace in the developing world, irregular warfare and strategy, strategic culture and intelligence. She is a member of the national Advisory Council for International Affairs assigned to advise the Netherlands government on issues of peace and security, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Netherlands Defence Academy and a member of several book and journal editorial boards, notably the Journal of Strategic Studies and Small Wars and Insurgencies. Rory Finegan is a serving officer in the Irish Defence Forces with 33 years of experience in a diversity of portfolios, including three separate tours of UN duty in the Middle East and a fourth in Kosovo. He has lectured extensively in International Relations and Terrorism Studies and was Head of Department at the United Nations Training School Ireland (UNTSI) for a number of years, where as Course Director he delivered the bespoke International Human Rights Course. His PhD examined the impact of Targeted Killings (TKs) in Northern Ireland during the course of the Troubles. Frank Foley is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. His research focuses on counterterrorism, human rights, intelligence and police agencies in Europe and the United States. He is the author of Countering Terrorism in Britain and France: Institutions, Norms and the Shadow of the Past (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Dr Foley holds a PhD in Political Science (2008) from the European University Institute in Florence and was the Zukerman post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Co-operation (CISAC) in 2008–09. His works have appeared in various outlets, including Security Studies, the Review of International Studies, and the European Journal of International Security. James J.F. Forest, PhD, is Professor and Director of Security Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and a Senior Fellow at the Joint Special Operations University. He has published 20 books and numerous research articles, and serves as co-editor of the international journal Perspectives on Terrorism. Joshua D. Freilich is a member of the Criminal Justice Department at John Jay College. He is the creator and Co-director of the United States Extremist Crime Database (ECDB), an open xvi
Contributors
source relational database of crimes committed by political extremists in the U.S. Freilich’s research has been funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the National Institute of Justice. His research focuses on the causes of and responses to terrorism, bias crimes, measurement issues, and criminology theory, especially environmental criminology and crime prevention. Francis Gaffney works as an analyst in the risk management sector with particular interests in terrorism, strategic policy and international cyber security. His academic background includes Master’s degrees in Terrorism Studies and International Law, and he is currently completing the final year of his PhD at Cranfield University, UK. His current research primarily focuses on the different aspects of international education paradigms that could potentially impact on, or act as a source of potential triggers for, radicalisation – specifically on understanding psychological motivations and identifying methodologies that could strengthen young people’s resilience to violent extremism. Paul Gill is a senior lecturer in Security and Crime Science. He has conducted research funded by the Office for Naval Research, the Department of Homeland Security, DSTL, the European Union, the National Institute of Justice, CREST and MINERVA. These projects focused upon various aspects of terrorist behaviour, including the IED development, creativity, terrorist network structures, and lone-actor terrorism. His doctoral research focused on the underlying individual and organizational motivations behind suicide bombing. This piece of research won the Jean Blondel Prize for the best PhD thesis in Political Science in Europe for 2010. He has published in leading psychology, criminology and political science journals. Lusaura Gutierrez holds a BA in government from the University of Texas, where she has worked in various areas of research including immigration, counterterrorism, and U.S. health care policy. She is a research associate at the Child and Family Research Partnership at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. Lyndsey Harris is an assistant professor in Criminology at the University of Nottingham, UK. She is Vice President and Chair of Conferences of the Society for Terrorism Research (STR) and co-editor of the journal Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression. Lyndsey’s research interests include terrorism, extremism, political and domestic violence with a qualitative, empirical focus. Her doctoral thesis, ‘A Strategic Analysis of Loyalist Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland’, included over 50 interviews with Loyalist paramilitary members and e x-members of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). She is currently working on projects examining victimology and the impact of countering terrorism on families and the criminal justice system in England and Wales. Ahmed Salah Hashim is Associate Professor in the Military Studies Programme at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). He received his BA in Politics and International Studies from the University of Warwick, UK and his MSc and PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has worked extensively in the fields of strategy and policy, dealing in particular with irregular war and counterterrorism for the past 20 years prior to taking up his current position at RSIS in 2011, where he teaches courses on insurgency and counterinsurgency, terrorism, and defence policies at RSIS and SAFTI Military Institute (SAFTI MI). xvii
Contributors
Steve Hewitt is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Birmingham, UK. He has published extensively on topics related to security and intelligence, including The British War on Terror: Terrorism and Counterterrorism on the Home Front since 9/11. Currently, he is working on a history of terrorism and counter-terrorism in Canada that will be published by McGill-Queen’s University Press. He tweets at @stevehewittuk. Donald Holbrook is a lecturer at the Department of Politics, Philosophy, and Religion at Lancaster University, UK. Prior to that he was Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St Andrews, UK. He was also Visiting Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, The Hague. His research has focused mostly on beliefs, ideas, and media in the context of terrorism and political violence. He has published on a wide variety of topics relating to these themes, including books, journal articles, and reports. Henda Y. Hsu is an assistant professor of Criminology at the University of Houston-Clear Lake,Texas. His research focuses on situational crime and terrorism prevention, with a particular focus on unintended consequences of counterterrorism. His other interests lie in criminology theory, policing, and time-series analysis. Joshua Kilberg is an adjunct research professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, Ottawa. His research focuses on terrorist group organizational structures and terrorist leaders. He holds a PhD in International Affairs from Carleton University and an MA in War Studies from King’s College London. Gary LaFree is Director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) and Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland. His research is on the causes and consequences of violent crime and terrorism. His most recent books are Putting Terrorism in Context (with Laura Dugan and Erin Miller) and Countering Terrorism (with Martha Crenshaw). Stéphane Leman-Langlois is Professor of Criminology at Laval University, Québec. He holds the Canada Research Chair on Surveillance and the Social Construction of Risk. He is Director of the Terrorism and Counterterrorism Research Group and of the Centre on International Security at Laval University. He is also Co-director of the Observatoire sur la radicalisation et l’extrémisme violent (OSR). Lasse Lindekilde is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark. He holds a PhD from the European University Institute. His research is focused on violent radicalization and the implementation and effects of counter-radicalization policies. He is Co-PI on the FP7-sponsered project PRIME, focusing on lone actor extremism. As a visiting fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he has conducted experimental research on the effects of small group deliberation on the radicalization of attitudes and action preparedness. He is currently undertaking research looking at the efficiency of pre-event communication campaigns aimed at interdiction and mitigation of violent extremism. David Malet is Director of the Security Policy Studies Program and Visiting Associate Professor of International Affairs at the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs,Washington, DC. Prior to his work in academia he served as a defense and foreign policy advisor to the US Senate Majority Leader. He is the author of Foreign Fighters: Transnational xviii
Contributors
Identity in Civil Conflicts, Biotechnology and International Security, and Transnational Actors in War and Peace: Militants, Activists, and Corporations in World Politics. He regularly consults on foreign fighter policy challenges for international, governmental, military, and civil society organizations. Leena Malkki has specialized on the study of political violence and terrorism in Western countries. She currently works as a university lecturer at the Network for European Studies, University of Helsinki and is a visiting researcher at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University, Campus The Hague. Her research interests include the dynamics of terrorist campaigns and transnational dimensions of terrorism waves. She is a steering committee member of the European Consortium for Political Research standing group on political violence and a member of the European Expert Network on Terrorist Issues and the Revolutionary New Left researcher network. Stefan Malthaner is Research Fellow at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research (HIS). Previously, he was Assistant Professor at Aarhus University, Marie Curie Fellow and Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Researcher at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence (IKG) in Bielefeld, and a member of the research group ‘Micropolitics of Armed Groups’ at Humboldt University Berlin. His research interests include political violence, civil wars, and militant movements, with a particular focus on the relationship between militant movements and their social environment as well as on processes of conflict escalation and transformation. Raphael D. Marcus received his PhD from the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. He is the author of the forthcoming book Israel’s Long War with Hezbollah: Military Innovation and Adaptation Under Fire (Georgetown University Press, 2018). He is a member of the Insurgency Research Group in the Department of War Studies, where his research interests include Middle East security issues, terrorism, military affairs, and organizational learning. He is currently working as an intelligence and counterterrorism analyst at a law-enforcement agency. Sarah Marsden is Lecturer in Radicalisation and Protest in a Digital Age at Lancaster University, Lancashire, UK, prior to which she was a lecturer in Terrorism Studies at the University of St Andrews. Sarah has a PhD in International Relations from the University of St Andrews, a Masters in Forensic Psychology, and a BA (Hons) in Philosophy and Literature from the University of Liverpool. Her research takes an interdisciplinary approach to questions of terrorism, radicalisation, and contentious politics. She has published widely on global jihadism, religious nationalism, and radical social movements, including the book Reintegrating Extremists: ‘Deradicalisation’ and Desistance (Palgrave, 2017). Arijit Mazumdar PhD is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of St.Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. His research interests include comparative politics and international relations of South Asia, Indian foreign policy, and India’s internal wars (insurgencies and terrorism). His book, entitled Indian Foreign Policy in Transition: Relations with South Asia, was published by Routledge in 2015. His work has been published in several journals, including Asian Affairs: An American Review, Asian Survey, Contemporary Politics, India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs, Indian Journal of Political Science, Journal of Asian and African Studies, and Strategic Analysis. George Michael is a professor of Criminal Justice at Westfield State University in Massachusetts. Previously, he was an associate professor of Nuclear Counter-Proliferation and Deterrence Theory at the Air War College in Montgomery, Alabama. He is the author of seven books, xix
Contributors
including The Enemy of My Enemy: The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2006), Willis Carto and the American Far Right (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2008), Theology of Hate: A History of the World Church of the Creator (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2009), Lone Wolf Terror and the Rise of Leaderless Resistance (Nashville, TN:Vanderbilt University Press, 2012), and Extremism in America (editor) (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2014). Assaf Moghadam is Associate Professor at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, Israel, and Director of Academic Affairs at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), also at IDC. He is a non-resident fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point and a Research Affiliate of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland. He is the author or editor of five books on terrorism, most recently Nexus of Global Jihad: Understanding Cooperation among Terrorist Actors (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017). Rachel Monaghan is a senior lecturer in Criminology at Ulster University. Her research interests focus on the area of political violence, informal justice, single-issue terrorism, counter-terrorism and crime and insecurity. She has published articles in the International Criminal Justice Review, Space and Polity, Terrorism and Political Violence and Journal of Conflict Studies. She is the co-editor of the journal Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism & Political Aggression and is on the editorial board for Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. She is also currently the president of the Society for Terrorism Research. Cerwyn Moore is a senior lecturer in POLSIS, University of Birmingham, UK. He has published extensively on ‘foreign fighters’ (2008), suicide attacks (2012) and the insurgency in the North Caucasus (2010). His 2015 article used a new dataset and body of theory on ‘kin’ to examine foreign fighters in the conflicts in Southern Russia and Syria. Dr Moore is a Programme Director in the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats, a consortium commissioned and launched by the ESRC in October 2015. CREST brings together world leading researchers at Birmingham, Cranfield, Lancaster, Portsmouth, Bath and the West of England. John F. Morrison is the director of the Terrorism and Extremism Research Centre (TERC) and Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Royal Holloway, University of London. Prior to this he worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of the 2014 book Origins and Rise of Dissident Irish Republicanism, published by Bloomsbury Press. Dr. Morrison holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of St. Andrews, an MA in Forensic Psychology from University College Cork, and a BA in Psychology from University College Dublin. Marc Parker is an operational counter terrorism professional and an experienced Countering Terrorist Finance practitioner. He has briefed and lectured widely on the subject to fellow professionals, the military and various government agencies in the UK, Europe and the United States. In 2014, he received a PhD from the University of St Andrews. His research challenged conventional operational approaches to CTF in the UK and their relevance in combatting new diffuse and increasingly discreet security threats. He remains a strong advocate of the utility of financial intelligence to inform and provide insight to shape counterterrorism responses generally. Elizabeth Pearson is a PhD candidate at War Studies, King’s College London, where she works on gender and cumulative extremism. She is also a visiting researcher at the VOX-Pol Network xx
Contributors
of Excellence for the study of Violent Online Political Extremism and responses to it, and is an associate fellow at the defence think tank the Royal United Services Institute. Prior to academic research she worked as a radio producer, mainly for the BBC. Ami Pedahzur is Professor of Government and the Arnold S. Chaplik Professor in Israel and Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also the founding director of the Institute for Israel Studies at UT Austin. His recent books include The Triumph of Israel’s Radical Right (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle against Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009); Jewish Terrorism in Israel (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, with Arie Perliger); and Suicide Terrorism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005). Arie Perliger is a professor of Security Studies at the School of Criminology and Justice Studies, University of Massachusetts, Lowell. In the past 15 years, Dr. Perliger has studied extensively issues related to Terrorism and Political Violence, Politics of Security, Politics of the Far Right in Israel, Europe and the US, Middle Eastern Politics and the applicability of Social Network Analysis to the study of social phenomena. Dr. Perliger is the editor-in-chief of the journal Democracy and Security and a member of the editorial board of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. For more information, please visit: http://aperliger.wix.com/arie-perliger Zacharias Pieri is a lecturer in International Relations and Security Studies at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee. Dr. Pieri’s research focuses on the relationships between religion, politics, and violence, as well as militant networks in Africa and beyond. He specializes on religious extremism, and in particular on the ideological and strategic development of Boko Haram and the evolution of Islamic State’s franchises. He has consulted on international projects investigating counter-radical discourses amongst Muslim communities around the world, and regularly publishes on issues of Islam and international security. Dr. Pieri has advised UK and US governments on conflict in Africa, and also regularly appears as a subject matter expert in the media. Elena Pokalova is an associate professor of International Security Studies at the College of International Security Affairs of the National Defense University, Washington, DC. She is an expert in security studies with a focus on terrorism, counterterrorism, and ethnic conflict. Dr. Pokalova has a vast record of publications, including her book Chechnya’s Terrorist Network: The Evolution of Terrorism in Russia’s North Caucasus. Her articles have appeared in such journals as Terrorism and Political Violence, Critical Studies on Terrorism, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies. Zoey Reeve is an early-career researcher at the Department of Political and Social Science, University of Edinburgh. She has degrees in Psychology, Terrorism and International Relations, and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Edinburgh. Zoey’s research focuses on applying psychological theory and methodology to the study of terrorism and radicalisation. Anthony Richards has published widely on terrorism-related themes, including British public and Muslim attitudes towards both terrorism and counterterrorism, homeland security, terrorism in Northern Ireland, and terrorism and sport (he was the lead editor for the volume Terrorism and the Olympics: Major Event Security and Lessons for the Future (London: Routledge, 2011). His most recent book, Conceptualizing Terrorism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), was nominated for the Political Studies Association’s best political science book of the year award. He has presented to a wide range of academic and policymaking audiences and has conxxi
Contributors
tributed to briefings on terrorism, radicalization and extremism at the UK Home Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Julian Richards is the co-director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies (BUCSIS) at the University of Buckingham, UK, which he jointly founded in 2008 after a long career working for the British government in security and intelligence. He is the author of four books on various aspects of intelligence, security policy and counterterrorism, in addition to a number of scholarly articles and book chapters. He is also a regular commentator on national and international radio and TV on various aspects of contemporary intelligence and security policy. Marcus Rogers, PhD, CISSP, CCCI, DFCP, is the Dept. Head in Computer & Information Technology, at Purdue University. He is a Professor, Fellow of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS), Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) and Chair of the Digital & Multimedia Science Section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Dr. Rogers is also the former co-editor of the IEEE Privacy & Security Cyber Crime Department and Chair of the NIST/OSAC-DE Education Task Group. Dr. Rogers is a former police detective from Canada. Jennifer Schmidt-Petersen has an MSc in Forensic Psychology from London Metropolitan University and an MSc in Investigative Psychology from the University of Huddersfield, UK. She has lectured in Criminology, Psychology and related areas for several educational establishments and universities in the UK. Her research interests focus particularly on terrorism, organised crime and investigative psychology. Bart Schuurman is an assistant professor at Leiden University’s Institute of Security and Global Affairs. He obtained his PhD at Leiden University, the Netherlands by studying how and why involvement in the Dutch ‘Hofstadgroup’ materialised. Alongside his doctoral work, he has conducted research on a variety of topics related to contemporary terrorism. These include projects on the pre-attack behaviour of group-based and lone actor extremists, an evaluation of a Dutch re-integration effort focusing on jihadist offenders, and a strategic analysis of the French intervention in Mali. Bart is a research fellow at the International Centre for Counterterrorism (ICCT) and Associate Editor for the journal Perspectives on Terrorism. Joshua Sinai is a principal analyst at Kiernan Group Holdings (KGH), a homeland security consulting firm, in Alexandria, VA. Dr. Sinai has more than 30 years’ experience in terrorism, counterterrorism and homeland security studies in government, academia and the private sector. His publications include a handbook on active shooter prevention (ASIS International, May 2016) and an annotated bibliography on terrorism and counterterrorism (Routledge, 2018). He also serves as Book Reviews Editor of the online journal Perspectives on Terrorism, for which he writes the ‘Counterterrorism Bookshelf ’ review column. Dr. Sinai earned his PhD in Political Science/Comparative Politics at Columbia University, New York. Itai Sneh is an associate professor and tenured at the Department of History in John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York. He completed his doctorate in American History at Columbia University, New York. He holds a law degree, and a Masters in Eastern European Jewish Studies, from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and a BA in Jewish History (with minors in International Relations, Biblical Studies, and Yiddish Language and Culture) from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. His research and teaching interests xxii
Contributors
encompass global history of international human rights and justice. His first book was The Future Almost Arrived: How Jimmy Carter Failed to Change U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Peter Lang, 2008). He also has published numerous review articles in prestigious fora that include H-HUMAN RIGHTS, H-LAW, H-DIPLO, H-POL and Reviews in American History. Amy Thornton is a teaching fellow in the Department of Security and Crime Science at University College London. Her research interests include radicalisation, terrorism and counterterrorism, forensic science, crime reduction strategies, evaluation methods, and qualitative methods. Amy has worked on PRIME, an EU FP7 project which aims to ‘Prevent’, ‘Interdict’ and ‘Mitigate’ lone actor extremism, and on the Vox-Pol project, which aims to understand extremism online. She has worked with UK and EU governments, international institutions and organisations in the charity sector in order to provide strategic research partnerships in diverse crime and security areas. Clive Walker is Professor Emeritus of Criminal Justice Studies, University of Leeds, UK. He has published extensively on terrorism laws, policies, and practices. His books on terrorism laws are leading authorities: Terrorism and the Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), The Anti-Terrorism Legislation (3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), Routledge Handbook of Law and Terrorism (New York: Routledge, 2015), and The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). He was appointed by the Home Office in 2010 as Senior Adviser to the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and has acted as an adviser and witness before many parliamentary committees. Leonard Weinberg is Foundation Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is a senior fellow at the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism in Oklahoma City and at the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa, Israel. Over the course of his career he has been a Fulbright senior research fellow for Italy, a visiting scholar at UCLA, a guest professor at the University of Florence, and the recipient of an H.F. Guggenheim Foundation grant for the study of political violence. He has also served as a consultant to the United Nations Office for the Prevention of Terrorism. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Democracy and Security and has written and edited 20 books, including Political Parties and Terrorist Groups (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1992), Global Terrorism: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld, 2005), and The End of Terrorism? (London: Routledge, 2012). In 1999, he received the Thornton Peace Prize for his work in promoting Christian–Jewish reconciliation. Margaret Wilson is a forensic psychologist specializing in the study of terrorist behaviour. She is currently based at the Institute for Security Science and Technology at Imperial College London. She is also a research investigator with the US National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), and teaches a course on terrorist hostage taking at the University of Maryland. James Windle is Lecturer in Criminology at University College Cork, Ireland. His main research interests are illicit drug markets, illicit enterprise and organised crime. Several of his papers have, however, analysed the interaction between political violence and illicit enterprises, and the impact of counterterrorism/insurgency on drug policy. He is author of Suppressing Illicit Opium Production: Successful Intervention in Asia and the Middle East (London: I.B.Taurus, 2016) and lead editor of Historical Perspectives on Organised Crime and Terrorism (London: Routledge, 2017). In 2015 he participated in the Brookings Institute ‘Improving Global Drug Policy’ project. xxiii
Contributors
Aaron Winter is Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of East London and a member of the Terrorism and Extremism Research Centre (TERC), Centre for Human Rights in Conflict (CHRC) and Centre for Migration, Refugees and Belonging (CMRB). His research is on organised racism, right-wing extremism and terrorism. He is co-editor of Discourses and Practices of Terrorism: Interrogating Terror (London: Routledge, 2010), Reflexivity in Criminological Research Experiences with the Powerful and the Powerless (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and Researching the Far Right: Theory, Method, Practice (London: Routledge, 2018), as well as co-editor of the Manchester University Press series Racism, Resistance and Social Change. Sagit Yehoshua is a criminologist, specialising in profiling and the psychology of terrorism. She has completed her PhD thesis at King’s College London University in 2013, entitled The Socialpsychology Profile of Terrorist Leaders in Israeli Prisons. Her work encompasses years of researching and teaching the mindset and conduct of individuals and groups involved in terrorism and political violence. Sagit is Research Fellow at Institute of Counter-Terrorism (I.C.T.), InterDisciplinary Centre, Herzliya, Israel, and also joined ICSR-International Centre for the Study of De-radicalisation, at King’s College London as an Atkin Research Fellow in 2009. Jacob Zenn was Component Leader for Strategic Communication under European Union Technical Assistance to Nigeria’s Evolving Security Challenges (EUTANS) from 2014 to May 2016, supported a Counterterrorism in the Sahel (CT Sahel) project in Niger as part of the Instrument for Stability (IfS) of the EU and supported the Nigeria Stability and Reconciliation Programme (NSRP) in drafting a Policy Framework and National Action Plan on countering violent extremism (CVE) in Nigeria. In 2015–2016 he also provided analyses of Boko Haram’s organizational structure to support negotiations for the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls. One of his recent projects was with Voice of America, analysing 18 hours of internal Boko Haram videos for a forthcoming documentary.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to thank publicly the fantastic group of contributors who penned the chapters in this volume. Early in my career I used to think that editors did contributors a favour by asking them to write a chapter. Once I started to edit books myself, however, I quickly realised that it is the contributors who are doing the favours. Every edited collection is hostage to the quality and work of the contributors and I was exceptionally fortunate in this project to be able to benefit from such a superb collection of writers, composed in roughly equal measure of key leading researchers and rising stars of the future. My sincere thanks again to you all for your generosity. I would also like to thank Hannah Ferguson and Andrew Humphrys at Routledge for their support, practical assistance and great patience with this long-running project. Finally, I would like to briefly acknowledge my many former colleagues at the University of East London, who through many years helped create such a positive environment clustered around the workings of the criminology group in particular. Some are contributors to this collection but, in brief, among many great colleagues special appreciation to Maureen Azubike, Anil Balan, Pat Berwick, Daniel Blackman, Joel Busher, Barry Collins, Randolf Cooper, Fiona Fairweather, Lara Frumkin, Pete Fussey, Francis Gaffney, Jérémie Gilbert, Anthony Gunter, Edel Hughes, Matthew Humphreys, Shamima Islam, Sharon Levy, Douglas Monroe, Maurice Moore, John Morrison, Sunitha Narendran, Deirdre O’Kelly, Stella Odiah, Clare Olley, Suzanne McDonald, Jane Pickford, Ian Porton, Anthony Richards, Mandy Ross, Mark Roycroft, Shampa Roy-Mukherjee, Jennifer Schmidt-Petersen, Sharon Senner, Chandra Sriram, Elizabeth Stokes, Paul Stott, John Strawson, Dinaz Trudeau, Alan Wilson, James Windle, Aaron Winter and Sagit Yehoshua. Humble apologies to others who deserved better from my cursed memory!
1 THE STUDY OF TERRORISM AND COUNTERTERRORISM Andrew Silke
Introduction Terrorism and counterterrorism have always been challenging subjects to study. Emotive, controversial and sometimes even dangerous, throughout the 20th century the study of both has lurked on the fringes of scientific research. There were few scholars willing to commit their careers to the area, funding was extremely limited and inside and outside academia there were plenty who questioned whether terrorism and counterterrorism were even appropriate subjects for scientific study, and questioned too the motives of any researcher willing to explore such controversial issues. It was only after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 that terrorism moved from the fringes of scientific interest to a subject of major attention. Controversy remained, but the funders of research were now taking it seriously as a subject of interest. Prior to 9/11, research on terrorism had usually been conducted on shoestring budgets. Ultimately, a lack of funding and a shortage of researchers stifled the ambition of research plans. Expensive and time-consuming methodologies and analysis could only rarely be contemplated. Instead, making do with what was available, researchers favoured methods and approaches which could be accomplished with the meagre resources at hand. The result was that, although quite a lot was still written, much of it was of limited quality, often adding little or no new data to the field. Adding to the mire, much of the research was often conducted by authors with only a limited understanding of the existing literature on terrorism, with a result that a lot of dead-end research was unnecessarily repeated and some of the rest was incredibly poorly linked with the rest of the field. Much of this changed in the aftermath of 9/11.There was a massive surge in research interest on terrorism and counterterrorism and as Figure 1.1 highlights, a dramatic and instant change. The figure shows all the scholarly works recorded by Google Scholar which had at least one of the following terms in the title: terrorism, terrorist, political violence, radicalisation, radicalisation or insurgency. This, though, should not be seen as a complete tally of the relevant research. A book or an article which focused on a particular terrorist group or conflict but which did not use any of the search terms in its title would be missed. Nevertheless, the graph demonstrates that almost overnight, terrorism went from an exotic curiosity to a subject of apparently strategic international importance. Research budgets were massively increased and substantial funding was made available for a wide range of studies. Major new research centres and institutes 1
Andrew Silke 5000
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0 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
Figure 1.1 Scholarly publications on terrorism and counterterrorism, 1980–2016.
were established at many universities, while the handful of existing centres were able to grow significantly in size and scope. Terrorism and counterterrorism entered university course curriculums across the globe and became widely taught. Today it is rare to find any medium-sized university in the West which does not offer at least one module on terrorism in its syllabus. Before 9/11, it was a rarity. Figure 1.1 also illustrates that the surge in interest has largely been sustained in the years following 2001. New research continues to be published at a formidable rate. Almost 35,000 scholarly works have been published since 9/11 with ‘terrorist’ or ‘terrorism’ in the title. That number jumps to 635,000 if you also include those works which mention terrorist or terrorism somewhere in the text. It averages at over 100 scholarly works published each and every day since 9/11: books, journal articles and theses. Keeping track of such a blizzard of research and analysis is a massive challenge in itself. And yet, despite this incredible flood of output, a recurring fear among researchers is that the study of terrorism and counterterrorism is actually failing.
Challenges in understanding terrorism and counterterrorism A variety of factors drive this fear of failure, but the reason most often cited is that the research methods used to study terrorism and counterterrorism are too weak. A vocal recent critic is Marc Sageman (2014), who argued that research on terrorism has stagnated. In a stark overall analysis, he concluded that: Overall, the post-9/11 money surge into terrorism studies and the rush of newcomers into the field had a deleterious effect on research. The field was dominated by laymen, who controlled funding, prioritizing it according to their own questions, and self-proclaimed media experts who conduct their own ‘research.’ These ‘experts’ still fill the airwaves and freely give their opinions to journalists, thereby framing terrorist events for the public. However, they are not truly scholars, are not versed in the scientific method, and often pursue a political agenda. … The voice of true scholars is drowned… it is hard to escape the judgment that academic terrorism research has stagnated for the past dozen years because of a lack of both primary sources and vigorous efforts to police the quality of research, thus preventing the establishment of standards 2
The study of terrorism and counterterrorism
of academic excellence and flooding the field with charlatans, spouting some of the vilest prejudices under the cloak of national security. (Sageman, p. 8) This was not the first time that experienced researchers had hit out at the poor quality of large amounts of terrorism research. In an early famous review of research, Schmid and Jongman (1988) found that most researchers were not producing substantively new data or knowledge. Instead, they were primarily reworking old material which already existed. In the 1980s, only 46 per cent of the researchers said that they had ever managed to generate data of their own on the subject of terrorism. For the majority of researchers, all of their writings and analyses were based entirely on data produced by others. Figure 1.2 comes from a review at the end of the 1990s which showed that researchers remained very heavily dependent on easily accessible sources of data. Only about 20 per cent of articles provided substantially new knowledge which was previously unavailable to the field.The field thus was very top-heavy with what are referred to as pre-experimental research designs. Unfortunately, these are ‘the weakest designs since the sources of internal and external validity are not controlled for. The risk of error in drawing causal inferences from pre-experimental designs is extremely high and they are primarily useful as a basis... for exploratory research’ (Frankfort-Nachmias and Nachmias, 1996, p. 147). There was some improvement after 9/11, but a 2009 review still found that only 35 per cent of articles in the core terrorism studies were providing new data (Silke, 2009). Most of the rest were again essentially rehashing knowledge that was already there. This leads us back to Sageman’s stagnation argument, which recognised that while a great deal was being written on terrorism and counterterrorism, the heavy reliance on weaker methodologies and limited data analysis meant that the field was failing to make meaningful progress.
Documentary A/R + Interviews (
