Madrid Train Bombings Research Articles

The Life Cycle of a Terrorism Crisis: Impact on Tourist Travel

The impact of terrorist events on various business sectors has been widely publicized, and the tourism travel industry has been one of the most impacted industries. Prior work has shown that air travel is affected by a terrorist incident within the region in which it occurred. This research is the first to model the magnitude of the episode, the duration of the effect, and the shape of life the cycle. Two terrorism events that affected tourist air travel are analyzed: 9/11 and the Madrid train bombings. Our findings suggest that the impact on tourist air travel from these catastrophes follow scalable and fad life cycles, respectively. These results have significant implications for the tourism travel industry, which are identified and discussed.

Disaster management among pediatric surgeons: Preparedness, training and involvement

Contemporary events in the United States (eg, September 2001, school shootings), Europe (eg, Madrid train bombings), and the Middle East have raised awareness of mass casualty events and the need for a capable disaster response. Recent natural disasters have highlighted the poor preparation and infrastructure in place to respond to mass casualty events. In response, public health policy makers and emergency planners developed plans and prepared emergency response systems. Emergency response providers include first responders, a subset of emergency professionals, including firemen, law enforcement, paramedics, who respond to the incident scene and first receivers, a set of healthcare workers who receive the disaster victims at hospital facilities. The role of pediatric surgeons in mass casualty emergency response plans remains undefined. The authors hypothesize that pediatric surgeons' training and experience will predict their willingness and ability to be activated first receivers. The objective of our study was to determine the baseline experience, preparedness, willingness, and availability of pediatric surgeons to participate as activated first receivers. After institutional review board approval, the authors conducted an anonymous online survey of members of the American Pediatric Surgical Association in 2007. The authors explored four domains in this survey: (1) demographics, (2) disaster experience and perceived preparedness, (3) attitudes regarding responsibility and willingness to participate in a disaster response, and (4) availability to participate in a disaster response. The authors performed univariate and bivariate analyses to determine significance. Finally, the authors conducted a logistic regression to determine whether experience or preparedness factors affected the respondent's availability or willingness to respond to a disaster as a first receiver The authors sent 725 invitations and received 265 (36.6 percent) completed surveys. Overall, the authors found that 77 percent of the respondents felt "definitely" responsible for helping out during a disaster but only 24 percent of respondents felt "definitely"prepared to respond to a disaster. Most felt they needed additional training, with 74 percent stating that they definitely or probably needed to do more training. Among experiential factors, the authors found that attendance at a national conference was associated with the highest sense of preparedness. The authors determined that subjects with actual disaster experience were about four times more likely to feel prepared than those with no disaster experience (p < 0.001). The authors also demonstrated that individuals with a defined leadership position in a disaster response plan are twice as likely to feel prepared (p = 0.002) and nearly five times more willing to respond to a disaster than those without a leadership role. The authors found other factors that predicted willingness including the following: a contractual agreement to respond (OR 2.3); combat experience (OR 2.1); and prior disaster experience (OR 2.0). Finally, the authors found that no experiential variables or training types were associated with an increased availability to respond to a disaster. A minority of pediatric surgeons feel prepared, and most feel they require more training. Current training methods may be ineffectual in building a prepared and willing pool of first receivers. Disaster planners must plan for healthcare worker related issues, such as transportation and communication. Further work and emphasis is needed to bolster participation in disaster preparedness training.

Introduction: Multiculturalism Discourses in Canada

CONTEXT AND FOCUS The management of ethnocultural diversity is a major governance function in most countries in the world today, and Canada is no exception. In most of these countries various approaches to diversity management have been highly scrutinized and debated in the media and in the academic literature. One of the approaches that has received extensive attention has been multiculturalism. In Canada multiculturalism, both in terms of public philosophy and public policy, has been the subject of much debate during the past four decades. The extensiveness and intensity of the debates have increased in recent years in light of at least four major developments--the inclusion of the provision related to multiculturalism in the Constitution Act of 1982, Canada's Multiculturalism Act of 1988, Quebec's adoption of the interculturalism model for managing diversity, and the concerns for security in light of the events of September 11, 2001 and subsequent events such as the 2002 Bali bombings, the 2004 Madrid train bombings, the 2005 London bombings, the 2005 civil riots in France, and the 2006 arrests of seventeen alleged terrorists in Ontario, Canada. It can be argued that September 11, 2001 was a formative event that demarcated a new period in diversity management, now commonly referred to as thepost 9/11 era. In this new era, multiculturalism discourses now clearly have a component that can be referred to as and/or discourse. The term post-multiculturalism was first used in Britain a few years ago in the context of the need for alternative philosophies and models to multiculturalism that would foster social cohesion and promote assimilation and a common identity. (1) The central premise of the anti- and/or discourse is that multiculturalism is not working and that modified or radically different public philosophies or public policies and programs are needed that move beyond multiculturalism as it is presently known and constituted. (2) A central argument contained in the anti- and/or literature is that multiculturalism is not working because it is segregating, rather than integrating, diverse racial, ethnic, and religious groups. In other words, the policy and practice of multiculturalism contributes to social and political fragmentation that makes social and political cohesion difficult, if not impossible. It is this fragmentation discourse of the anti- and/or post-muhiculturalism literature that this special issue addresses. The two central questions are: What is the nature of anti- and/or discourse in academic and media texts regarding the effects that Canadian multiculturalism public philosophy and public policy have on fragmentation and cohesion? What implications does this discourse have for the current Canadian public philosophy and public policy on multiculturalism and, ultimately, for the Canadian polity? OBJECTIVES AND OVERVIEW OF THE ARTICLES The objective of each of the articles in this issue is to examine a central aspect of the discourse on multiculturalism and, where possible, on the aspect of the discourse that relates to anti and/or in which social and political fragmentation is a theme. Lloyd Wong provides an overview and analysis of the literature produced by leading sociologists in Canada and Europe (e.g., John Porter, Reginald Bibby, Michel Wieviorka, Bruno Latour, and Tahir Abbas) in which multiculturalism is depicted as fostering societal fragmentation. After providing an overview of the positions of these sociologists on the fragmentary effects of multiculturalism, Wong explains two important conceptual distinctions in the extant literature. The first distinction is between fragmented pluralism, which entails a separation and segregation of members of various groups, and interactive pluralism, which entails interaction and conversation between members of various groups. …

The 2004 Madrid train bombings: an analysis of pre‐hospital management

The terrorist train bombings in Madrid, Spain, on 11 March 2004 triggered a swift and massive medical response. This paper analyses the pre-hospital response to the attacks to gain insight into current trends in disaster management among Madrid's Emergency Medical Services (EMSs). To this end, the existing emergency planning framework is described, the basic structures of the different EMSs are presented, and the attacks are briefly depicted before consideration is given to pre-hospital management. Finally, an explanation of the main underlying misconceptions in emergency planning and management in Madrid is provided to aid understanding of the origins of some of the problems detected during the response. These are attributable mainly to inappropriate planning rather than to mistakes in field-level decision-making. By contrast, many of the successes are attributable to individual initiatives by frontline medics who compensated for the lack of clear command by senior managers by making adaptive and flexible decisions.

Does Terrorism Ever Work? The 2004 Madrid Train Bombings

July 01 2007 Does Terrorism Ever Work? The 2004 Madrid Train Bombings William Rose, William Rose William Rose is Professor and Chair of the Government Department at Connecticut College. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Rysia Murphy, Rysia Murphy Rysia Murphy is a recent graduate of the college. The authors thank Julie Berson, Raj Chari, Nicholas Culver, Bruce Hoffman, Javier Jordán, Chaim Kaufmann, Arang Keshavarzian, Petter Nesser, and David Patton for their comments on an earlier draft. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Max Abrahms Max Abrahms Max Abrahms is a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information William Rose William Rose is Professor and Chair of the Government Department at Connecticut College. Rysia Murphy Rysia Murphy is a recent graduate of the college. The authors thank Julie Berson, Raj Chari, Nicholas Culver, Bruce Hoffman, Javier Jordán, Chaim Kaufmann, Arang Keshavarzian, Petter Nesser, and David Patton for their comments on an earlier draft. Max Abrahms Max Abrahms is a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Online ISSN: 1531-4804 Print ISSN: 0162-2889 © 2007 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.2007 International Security (2007) 32 (1): 185–192. https://doi.org/10.1162/isec.2007.32.1.185 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation William Rose, Rysia Murphy, Max Abrahms; Does Terrorism Ever Work? The 2004 Madrid Train Bombings. International Security 2007; 32 (1): 185–192. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/isec.2007.32.1.185 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsInternational Security Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 2007 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.2007 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

A theory of Islamic political radicalism in Britain: sociology, theology and international political economy

This polemical essay based on on-going ethnographic research explores the phenomenon of Islamic political radicalism in Western Europe, in particular Britain, and the challenges that emerge in relation to the maintenance of a successful multicultural project. Analysing recent events in Western Europe, namely the Madrid train bombings and the murder of Theo van Gogh in 2004 and the London suicide bombings in 2005, this paper argues that Islamic political radicalism is on the increase because of factors that are both endogenous and exogenous to the various Muslim minority communities. Local, national and international pressures conspire to compound the aspirations, expectations, attitudes and perceptions of already disenfranchised groups. First, the layers of the ‘radicalisation onion’ are peeled away to explore the nature of the experience of Muslim minorities, analysing questions of evolving Islamic political identities in the context of the 2001 terrorist attacks and subsequent ‘war on terror.’ Second, the dynamics of Islamic political radicalisation are discussed, specifically alluding to the Qur’anic ideals that ‘Jihadis’ variously appropriate. Finally, the discussion explores the ways in which the nation-state has involved Muslim elite groups in acting as a bridge between government and the Muslim citizen. Many young Muslims view these actions cynically with elites vying for position and profile in an intensely active period of political manoeuvring. In conclusion, it is argued that should the status quo remain intact, the threat of Islamic political radicalisation will persist and solutions will be as much dependent on the nation-state becoming aware of its potential role while disaffected Muslim minorities continue to develop theological and sociological approaches to life in the non-Muslim West.

Posttraumatic Growth, Positive Changes, and Negative Changes in Madrid Residents following the March 11, 2004, Madrid Train Bombings

There is a small but growing body of evidence that documents the positive changes that may accrue following exposure to traumatic events. One hundred fifty-three Madrid residents completed measures of extraversion, neuroticism, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic growth, positive changes, negative changes, and demographics following the Madrid train bombings of March 11, 2004. Analyses revealed gender differences, such that women reported higher levels of positive changes and negative changes than did men. Posttraumatic growth and positive changes were significantly associated with extraversion, but not with depression or anxiety. Negative changes were significantly associated with neuroticism, depression, and anxiety. Discussion focuses on the further development of research into posttraumatic growth following indirect exposure to traumatic events.

Al Qaeda in Europe: the new battleground of international jihad

The July 2005 London bombings are yet another example of how has emerged as one of the key battlegrounds in the global War on Terror. The region has become a critical 'ground zero' for Islamist terrorists, not only as a target but as a base of operations. The implications for the United States are tremendous: under existing law, for example, terrorists carrying European passports could easily enter the country. It is not a coincidence, in fact, that every attack planned or executed against the United States, including 9/11, has had strong European ties. This is the first book in English that dissects Islamic terrorism in Europe. The book fills a critical gap in the understanding of the new threats posed by Islamist terrorism. Vidino analyses the causes of this dangerous situation while providing an extensive historical overview of Islamic terrorist activities in Europe. The book shows how terrorists - most of them native to the Continent - raise money, communicate, and hide in plain sight in the suburbs of London, Paris, and Amsterdam. It presents with painful clarity the difficulties that law enforcement agencies world-wide have had in shutting terror cells down. Finally, the book describes three of the most important networks operating in Europe. Vidino analyses events such as the Madrid train bombings, the thwarted plot to attack various European capitals with chemical weapons, and the movements of hundreds of European Muslims who are joining terrorist groups in Iraq to fight U.S. forces. Vidino includes fascinating information taken from a dozen countries' original documentation (intelligence reports, indictments, court transcripts), plus transcripts of conversations among al Qaeda operatives that have been intercepted by intelligence agencies. Al Qaeda in Europe is authoritative, informative and written in a lively narrative that will captivate general readers, and become a valuable new resource for scholars and government officials.

Performing Argentina in Spain after the Bombing: The Resignification of Theatrical Referents in Cecilia Rossetto in Madrid

This essay examines the semiotic referents in the performance of Argentine singer, dancer and comedian Cecilia Rossetto in her Cecilia Rossetto en Madrid in order to trace how meaning shifted in the immediate context of the aftermath of the Madrid train bombings of March 11, 2004. The author analyzes audience response and participation (or lack thereof) in this one woman "comedy-cabaret" show and the transformative experience of collective grief that unexpectedly emerged during the evening, joining both performer and audience. The theoretical underpinnings of the essay involve key concepts related to feminist criticism, performance studies and reception theory.

An 'Acquis Communautaire' for Civic Integration

Civic integration is Europe's most pressing challenge. A series of discrete events have propelled the challenge of civic integration to the top of the national agenda: the discovery that 9/11 planners took refuge in Western Europe, the Madrid train bombings, the London tube bombings, the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, race riots in the French banlieus, and the row over the Danish cartoons. Reactionaries have lost no time in identifying the culprit - Islam - and implementing hasty, if not mostly destructive, policy responses. Europe needs a long-term civic integration policy. While many have noted the problems of past integration policies and current reactionary restrictions, few have offered a comprehensive approach toward a concrete policy. I pursue exactly this. In so doing, I make two distinct claims: first, that Europe must follow an intercultural integration policy, a progressive compromise between previous approaches, and second, that this policy must develop at the supranational level. I conclude with concrete policy suggestions along these lines.

Powerful Emotions

This article aims to understand how emotions are integral elements in relations of power and government, with particular reference to the ‘War on Terror’ declared by many Western governments after the events of 11 September 2001. In particular, I analyse two incidents within this: the peace demonstration against the Iraq war in London, 2003, and the aftermath of the Madrid train bombings in Spain, 2004. Using newspaper reports of these two incidents, I analyse how emotions were used by governments to try to direct the conduct of the population along with the uncertain reaction to this. Using Foucault’s insights on power along with the theoretical work of Durkheim, Arendt and Nussbaum, I argue the evidence indicates that the emotions which run through relations of power are complex and ambivalent, motivating resistance and opposition to government as much as compliance.

Canada's Addiction to American Security: The Illusion of Choice in the War on Terrorism

1. America's Addiction to Security and Public Safety Despite the absence of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11, American officials are becoming increasingly addicted to achieving perfect security and absolute safety in the midst of an unwinnable war on terrorism. Success will remain elusive because, over time, more groups and individuals with expanding lists of grievances will acquire the power to inflict levels of damage considered by political leaders to be unacceptable. In essence war is becoming privatized (Nye 2004) (3) through the democratization of technology and knowledge (Friedman, 2001), (4) miniaturization of weaponry and lethality, increasing accessibility and transferability of weapons of mass destruction, and a rising number of competing terrorist groups with religious, political and financial motivations to terrorize. Even more disturbing are trends towards the privatization of political power. The Madrid train bombings in March 2004 revealed that a relatively straightforward attack by a small group of terrorists could have a significant impact on the outcome of a democratic election and play a major role in the immediate withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq. The Philippine government withdrew their troops in July 2004 in response to the kidnapping of a single truck driver in Baghdad. These successes reveal that terrorists have acquired a measure of political power that far exceeds the influence of hundreds of thousands of anti-war protesters in Spain and the Philippines who were demanding the same outcome (an early withdrawal from Iraq), but failed. Mass protests in Katmandu after the murder of twelve Nepalese workers in Baghdad provoked both an apology from the government in Nepal for failing to secure their release, and an explanation from officials that they received no offer from the kidnappers--the implication being that had such an offer been made the government would almost certainly have negotiated with the terrorists. The Kuwaiti government paid a $500,000 ransom for the release of seven Indian and Kenyan employees of a Kuwaiti company involved in post-war reconstruction in Iraq. (5) Several Egyptian, Jordanian, and Turkish companies agreed to cut short their constructions operations in Iraq in exchange for the release of kidnapped employees. (6) In August 2004, terrorists threatened to kill two French journalists as a protest against legislation in France banning the wearing of Muslim headscarves in public schools. The kidnappings provoked a flurry of French diplomatic activity resulting in the release of the hostages in December, 2004. (7) Apparently even the strongest critics of the U.S.-UK led war in Iraq are not immune from kidnapping and extortion. More recently, the Italian government was forced to address accusations that $1 million was paid for the release of two aid workers in October 2004, and significantly more to obtain the release of Italian reporter, Giuliana Sgrena, after a controversial rescue operation in March 2005. (8) Negotiating with terrorists is standard operating procedure for governments eager to avoid a public backlash against policies that are too closely associated with an unpopular war, and an even less popular American president. But these concessions (and others to follow) will guarantee that more kidnappings, bombings and killings will occur as coalitions of insurgents and terrorists cooperate to build on political victories and financial windfalls. (9) Consider the following illustration of the privatization of political power in Iraq today--the overwhelming consensus across the international community is that success in Iraq requires an end to the insurgency and a credible and sustained effort by a broad-based, coalition of states supporting an unwavering commitment to post-conflict reconstruction, counter-insurgency, liberalization, and democratization. Yet despite this multilateral consensus, supported by unanimously endorsed UN Security Council Resolutions 1483 and 1511, unilateral self-interests motivated by domestic political imperatives to protect their own citizens and troops remain the most powerful determinants of whether states join (or remain in) the U. …

Beyond the Culture of Terrorism

A culture entails a system of values in terms of which the participants in it find identity, meaning, and purpose.1 In this sense, there is a reciprocal productive exchange by which we are always engaged in the creation of the culture that constitutes us in turn. Much more precisely than age, the concept of culture describes the way in which we express our agency, and thus conditions what we remember and forget, what we believe in and how we judge, organizing our actions and projections. A culture, in other words, both opens up and limits one's sense of possibility. It is hard, by contrast, to know what we really mean by terrorism. Clearly, it does not pick out a fact in the physical sense in which water names the chemical combination of two molecules of hydrogen with one of oxygen. But it is unclear whether it picks out a fact in the more comprehensive sense either, namely, as the worldly correlate of a true proposition. If I look at the proposition is a planet, the fact I am indicating is that the celestial body we have referred to as Mars since ancient times has the features of a planet. Does the proposition 11, 2001 and March 11, 2004 are terrorist truly describe a worldly correlate? My suspicion is that most people would not dispute that this is the case. I find this suspicion deeply disturbing given the crucial role that has played on the global political scene in the new millennium. In this essay, I shall call into question the legitimacy of taking as a self-evident expression and examine the vast array of political implications that derive from it. The difficulty with defining starts with naming the individual occurrences of it. 11, 2001 and March 11, 2004, are terrorist features only elliptical denominations. Indeed, many violent events that are classified as terrorist go by date, even though that is a problem too, often due to different linguistic conventions and sometimes to other more emotive reasons. For example the Madrid train bombings of March 11,2004 are also known as 11/3, 3/11, M-11, and 11-M, while the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which occurred on September 11, 2001, often go by the abbreviated denomination 9/11, perhaps reflecting the wish to mark the absolute uniqueness and monumentality of this event. Some other violent occurrences labeled as terrorist go by the name of their targets: this is the case of the attack against the USS Cole, which occurred on October 17, 2000, while it was refueling in the harbor of Aden, Yemen. Some others yet don't have a proper name at all, which is the case with the suicide bombings of Israeli buses, carried out by Palestinian militants. It is puzzling that such naming instability has not issued some doubt,2 or at least more critical caution, with respect to the meaning or concept that all those multiple names are supposed to pick out. For the expressions in use to designate of are not a finite set containing different names for the same thing. Keeping with celestial bodies, the problem with naming terrorist acts is not reducible to Frege's celebrated distinction between sense (Sinne) and reference (Bedeutung), whose paradigmatic example is that there are two senses, or names, Morning Star and Evening Star, both referring to one reference, the Venus. The instability pertaining to the naming of instances of stretches in all directions, a fact which reflects the even deeper difficulty of establishing whether terrorism refers to anything at all. Let's look again at the two propositions is a planet and 11, 2001 and March 11, 2004 are terrorist acts. I mentioned the former as an example of a true proposition in the sense that it describes a worldly correlate: Mars carrying the features of a planet. One could certainly suggest that the system of classification of celestial bodies based on the distinction between stars and planets is just one astronomical scheme of description. …