Terrorist Violence Research Articles

Keeping the Ex-Enemy Close but Not in My Backyard

How receptive are societies to the reintegration of deradicalized terrorists? Specifically in countries where the terrorists attacked the communities targeted for reintegration. I posit that closer proximity to terrorist violence is correlated with lower receptivity to reintegration in such scenarios. I examine the disposition of Nigerian citizens toward the Government’s deradicalization and reintegration program. I delineate three community categories: Core, Outer, and Peripheral based on their proximity to incidents of terrorist violence. Employing semi-structured interviews with 100 Nigerians across these communities, the empirical findings contradict my initial arguments. Surprisingly, the community closest to terrorist violence exhibited the highest receptivity to reintegration. Furthermore, community residents’ proximity to designated reintegration venues was negatively correlated with receptivity towards reintegration.

Effects and mechanisms of armed conflict on agricultural production: Spatial evidence from terrorist violence in Burkina Faso

AbstractExtensive studies have been conducted on the link between armed conflict and agricultural production. However, the underlying mechanisms remain underexplored. A better understanding of these mechanisms could unpack the subsequent effects of conflict‐induced food and welfare shortages, as well as identify promising policy interventions. We study the effects of terrorist violence on household agricultural production in Burkina Faso and explore the underlying mechanisms. To achieve this, we combine nationally representative five‐year panel data on plots and households with spatial conflict data. Our analysis reveals negative and significant effects of terrorist violence on agricultural productivity and total output. Despite reducing cereal crop output, increased intensity of terrorist violence is significantly associated with higher production of cash crops, which require fewer inputs in Burkina Faso. Further investigations uncover that the decline in household agricultural productivity results from a significant decrease in the number of farming plots, land size, and short‐term production investments, including chemical fertilisers and pesticides. These findings remain robust across various alternative empirical specifications and measures of violence, offering insights that can help policymakers faced with similarly scaled armed conflict. For instance, ensuring a secure environment and providing reliable access to essential production inputs, such as chemical fertilisers and pesticides, can help support conflict‐affected household agricultural production during and after the violence periods.

Fostering community resilience through the lived experience of terrorist incidents

PurposeUnderstanding community resilience and collective efficacy is essential in terrorist-ridden areas. This study aims to investigate the role of communities in fostering collective resilience in response to violent acts of terrorism. It utilizes social capital and collective efficacy theories to explore the complicated relationship between community resilience and self-efficacy in terrorist-ridden areas.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed an interpretive methodology and conducted thematic data analysis. It documented insights and lessons learned from the diverse perspectives of community stakeholders through semi-structured interviews with 21 participants residing in Quetta, Pakistan. Interviews took place in March and April 2023.FindingsThe study demonstrates that community resilience contributes significantly to violent acts of terrorism. After carefully going through data exploration, four intriguing themes appear. The first theme pertained to participants experiencing stress due to terrorism incidents, highlighting the frequency of such stressful events. The second theme examined the escalating backdrop of terrorism, which perpetually looms, prompting communities to fortify their resilience against this persistent threat. The third theme, community resilience during terrorist violence and active participation, revealing active participation in activities aimed at enhancing community quality of life. The fourth theme emphasized the challenges associated with community engagement in resilience-building efforts.Originality/valueThis study advances the understanding of community resilience in terrorist-ridden areas. In addition, it furthers discourse and provides ways for the implementation of strategies aimed at strengthening community resilience following terrorist incidents.

Glorification of Terrorist Violence at the European Court of Human Rights

Glorification of Terrorist Violence at the European Court of Human Rights

From Extreme Ideas to Violent and Nonviolent Outcomes: An In-Depth Analysis of Probation Files on Terrorist Suspects in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT How do individuals who commit violent terrorist crimes differ from those who commit nonviolent terrorist crimes? In this study, we compare characteristics and pathways of violent (VTS) and nonviolent (NVTS) individuals prior to being suspected or convicted of crimes with terrorist intent (e.g. planning an attack, financing terrorism) in the Netherlands through an analysis of probation files. Departing from a social control and life-course perspective, we examine possible signs and triggers leading up to the terrorist suspicion, various life domains (socio-demographic characteristics, social network, and personality related variables), mental health, criminal histories, and online activities. Findings demonstrate primarily resemblances between both groups. Nonetheless, compared to NVTS, VTS showed more indications of signs of acting in accordance with extreme ideological beliefs and feelings of injustice, had a more disadvantaged socioeconomic background, were more often involved with other radicals (e.g. in groups and/or online), had more substance abuse problems, and were more active online in relation to their terrorist suspicion. NVTS, on the other hand, had more regularly a turbulent youth, more commonly ever showed indications of aggressive behavior, had more often mental health problems, and, consequently, received more social care compared to VTS. Implications and avenues for future research are discussed.

Forgetting Atrocity in East Africa

East Africa presents striking examples of the different ways in which states may seek to promote forgetting through control or suppression of memories of mass violence. In Rwanda, the 1994 genocide is intensively memorialized, yet violence committed by the ruling party is not part of the official history. In Burundi, a power-sharing deal to end a civil war led to the erasure of memory through deliberate neglect. In Kenya, sites of terrorist violence have been fortified and reopened in the name of resilience—a form of triumphalist amnesia. Yet in each country, citizens practice informal varieties of commemoration.

Challenging Silencing in Stigmatized Neighborhoods Through Collaborative Knowledge Production

Researchers are always potential traitors when they represent what they see or hear. This is of particular concern in the case of people in subaltern positions, who lack the power to challenge possible misrepresentations. This article deals with an old dilemma in critical social science: How to use language when research objects are silenced through dynamics of domination? Is it possible for research to create space for marginalized people to speak for themselves? This was one of the questions of the Université Populaire, a group initiative by actors in a marginalized social housing neighborhood in Grenoble. The community‐based people’s education initiative was created in a double context of violence and silence. As a result of incidents of violence, media coverage participates in depicting the neighborhood as a place of danger and otherness, which impedes voices from the neighborhood from being heard. The initiative of the Université Populaire made space for speech in this marginalized and racialized area of Grenoble dealing with the consequences of terrorist violence in France. It is an initiative the author has been involved in since its inception in 2015. This article explains how the author sought ways to reduce power asymmetry in research relationships, why she steered away from using interviews for data collection and organized public debates instead, and how this made space for speech.

Meat, Flesh, Skin: The Carnality Of The Secret Agent

Abstract: This essay considers Conrad’s novel The Secret Agent in relation to what I will suggest are several relevant intertexts or sources for it—including Upton Sinclair’s famous muckraking 1906 exposé of the conditions in the Chicago stockyards, The Jungle , as well as Classical mythological tales depicting “cannibal feasts.” I point to these sources in order to argue that Conrad uses the novel to consider the question of the overlap between the direct violence of terrorism and the less direct violence of meat production. The novel, I suggest, can be read as an extended meditation on the embodied nature of human flesh.

Conspiracy, misinformation, radicalisation: understanding the online pathway to indoctrination and opportunities for intervention

In response to the rise of various fringe movements in recent years, from anti-vaxxers to QAnon, there has been increased public and scholarly attention to misinformation and conspiracy theories and the online communities that produce them. However, efforts at understanding the radicalisation process largely focus on those who go on to commit violent crimes. This article draws on three waves of research exploring the experiences of individuals currently or formerly involved in fringe communities, including the different stages of investment they progressed through, and ultimately, what made people leave. We propose a pathway model for understanding contemporary online radicalisation, including potential interventions that could be safely made at each stage. Insight into the experience of being immersed in these communities is essential for engaging with these people empathetically, and therefore preventing both the emergence of violent terrorists and protecting vulnerable people from being drawn into these communities.

Terrorist violence and the fuzzy frontier: national and supranational identities in Britain

Abstract We explore the effect of terrorism on individuals’ perceptions about national identity in the context of Great Britain, where national and supranational identities overlap. We find that exposure to terrorist attacks strengthens identification with Britain but has no effect on identification with its constituent nations. The estimated effects last for about 45 days, but subside over time as the threat fades away. We also find that exposure to terrorism leads to more positive attitudes toward the European Union, providing further support for the emergence of a supranational-unity effect. Overall, our results differ from numerous previous studies on how violence reinforces “hardline beliefs,” exacerbating nativism and “narrow” forms of solidarity (JEL D70; F50; Z10).

Armed conflicts and household food insecurity: Effects and mechanisms

AbstractDespite extensive studies on the effects of armed conflict on household dietary diversity, food security, and nutritional outcomes, the underlying pathways remain underexplored. A better understanding of these mechanisms could unpack the subsequent effects of conflict‐induced food insecurity and oft‐reported nutritional shortcoming, as well as identify which policy interventions hold promise. We study the effects of terrorist violence in Burkina Faso on household dietary diversity, as proxied by food consumption scores (FCS), and investigate the underlying mechanisms. For this purpose, we combine nationally representative 5‐years panel data on households with spatial conflict data. We find negative and significant effects of conflict intensity on household food consumption scores. The decline in household FCS is a result of significant decreased dietary diversity in both food production and purchases. Although households in rural areas partially offset these reductions by food assistance, those reliant solely on farming as livelihoods remain the most affected. Further investigations show evidence that per‐capita farm income and food expenditure are pathways linking the intensity of armed conflict to reduced FCS in food purchases, whereas reduced dietary diversity in food production results from decline in crop production. Additional specification tests support our main findings, offering insights that can help policymakers faced with similar scaled‐armed conflicts. For instance, conflict‐sensitive interventions aimed at supporting crop production and farm income for affected households could effectively improve their dietary diversity and overall food security in a post‐conflict environment.

Multi-agent modeling of crowd dynamics under bombing attack cases

Terrorist attacks are a catastrophic man-made emergent phenomenon. The current situation of international violent terrorism is severe. Public places with high-density crowds are more likely to be attacked by violent terrorists. To effectively reduce the number of casualties caused by violent terrorist incidents, it is crucial to take preventive management at the beginning of the incident. This paper analyzed the characteristics of the self-organization of crowds and terrorists in public places during a suicide bombing attack and conducted simulation experiments with an agent-based model. The simulation results show that unobstructed escape routes and controlling external sites will improve the evacuation efficiency of the crowd when a violent terrorist incident occurs; the pedestrian flow in public places affects the overall evacuation time; and timely and effective control of violent terrorists can reduce the number of casualties among the crowd. The optimized strategies obtained through experiments will help public security organs prevent violent terrorist incidents in public places and improve the efficiency of early disposal.

Stochastic terrorism: critical reflections on an emerging concept

ABSTRACT This paper critically discusses the recent concept, stochastic terrorism – broadly, the idea that influential individuals may demonise target groups or individuals, inspiring unknown actors to take up terroristic violence against them. I collect together different strains of thought on the emerging concept, reflecting critically on what a suitable definition of the phenomenon would look like (or whether it would be needed), what the social urge to coin the concept may reveal about authoritarian power and violence, and what makes this form of political violence possible. I argue that present commentary fails to emphasise sufficiently the role of mistruth and deceit in such rhetoric, as well as its historical and mainstream precedents. Moreover, I understand the phenomenon to be specifically authoritarian in nature, which not only demonises but dehumanises its targets. In light of this, I suggest that given both the mainstreaming of racist conspiracy theory and the historical and continuing presence of centrally constructed “folk devils”, the authoritarian problem which can manifest into stochastic violence is very much endemic to modern liberal democracies. With this framing of stochastic violence in mind, we ignore it simply as a buzzword at our peril: even if the theoretical issues I have highlighted continue to persist, even if we struggle to pin down the concept with desired clarity – it bears a phenomenological significance and reflects an ongoing political structure of violence.

Glorification of Terrorist Violence at the European Court of Human Rights

Glorification of Terrorist Violence at the European Court of Human Rights

The western image of Arabs in Ahdaf Soueif’s the map of love and Fadia Faqir’s My Name is Salma

The current study deciphers how Ahdaf Soueif and Fadia Faqir, who are known as diasporic Arab writers, adopt the western stereotypical perspectives towards the Arabs. Instead of advocating Arabs and demystifying their identity against the western stereotypical misconceptions, Soueif (2000) and Faqir (2007) represent Arabs as backward, passive, and violent terrorists, as evident in their novels. Thus, the study explains how those Arab diasporic writers adopt the western stance against Arabs by enhancing and highlighting the image of Arabs as different from the rest of the globe at the cost of Arabs and in favor of the West. The study deploys Said's Orientalism to read the narratives under discussion, highlighting that such narratives misrepresent how Arabs think, behave, and feel to gain some plausibility and popularity in the West (Occident). Soueif and Faqir, we argue, sacrifice the ethics of loyalty and belonging to Arabs in favor of assimilating with the West and gaining its admiration, which resulted in creating a very inaccurate portrait of Arabs. The study reveals the potential reasons of such unethical behaviors, emphasizing that falsifying the reality of the Arab World by some Arab diasporic writers should never be the optimal way to assimilate with the West or cope with its expectations.

KESEPAKATAN UNIVERSAL ANTI-KEKERASAN DALAM KITAB SUCI AGAMA-AGAMA

Issues of violence are often juxtaposed with religion; every religion seems to be inseparable from the dogma of violence. Ironically, the message of peace and non-violence in the holy books of religions tends to be ignored. This article does not aim to find differences but rather similarities as a reflection of comparative studies between religions to open new perspectives. This research is qualitative research with a comparative descriptive analysis method. Two fundamental questions in this research are how the scriptures of the world's largest religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism) speak about non-violence and worldviews related to inter-religious violence. The term violence in the scriptures of the heavenly religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) is still present today, either in the form of God's encouragement and command or as a consequence of an event, while in the earthly religions (Hinduism and Buddhism) the term violence is not found. Despite this, radical and fundamentalist groups who claim their actions as legal defense according to religion still occur frequently; if this is true, acts of religious terror violence should not occur in earthly religions because there is no affirmation in their holy books. Therefore, this research agrees with Mark Juergensmeyer's opinion that the study of religious terror must be raised together with the context in the form of historical situations, social locations, and worldviews related to violence because the violence contained in the holy book has its own time and event limitations.

On the Road to Silent Guns: Examining the Regional Regulation of States’ Use of Force during Counterterrorism Policing in Africa

Abstract Terrorism is currently one of the principal threats to peace and security in Africa. In law enforcement responses to terrorism, affected states often employ excessive or indiscriminate force through their security forces. In addition to violating international legal standards, research suggests that this unlawful use of force is itself a driver of violence, potentially perpetuating terrorist violence in a continent vulnerable to violent extremism. This article assesses the legal and policy response of the African regional system to the use of excessive force during counterterrorism policing, focusing principally on the roles of the counterterrorism architecture and human rights system. The article finds that whilst some positive steps have been made towards greater respect of international norms, the current response has material gaps and inadequacies. A two-pronged framework for a comprehensive regional response to the problem is proposed, combining clarification of the applicable rules with greater action from regional institutions.

Looking beyond waves and datasets: “cultures of terrorism” and the future of history in terrorism studies

ABSTRACT Frequent observations about the lack of historical work in terrorism studies pose questions about history’s place – and its relevance even – in the field. Why have historians largely failed to engage with terrorism studies? And why have terrorism studies scholars generally failed to engage with history? This article suggests that the dominance of social scientific research methods, the quest for “rules” and models, and the prizing of quantitative data in terrorism studies, combined with historians’ own reluctance to foreground the contemporary relevance of their work, have led to the underrepresentation of history. It calls on historians to demonstrate the value of qualitative research methods to notions of contemporary terrorist violence using a “cultures of terrorism” approach in the context of Critical Terrorism Studies.

Women Who Don’t Want To Be Saved: A Gendered Analysis Of “Acceptable” vs. “Unacceptable” Female Violence

The voluntary departure of hundreds of young women, born and socialised in Europe, to Daeshcontrolled territories has raised many legitimate questions. Why do women choose to adhere to ideologies that appear to disempower them? Can they really embrace such patriarchal violence? Women have traditionally been seen as the victims of violence, particularly Islamic terrorist violence, often thought of as a male prerogative. Even years after Daesh’s defeat on the ground, the ambiguity of female violence remains a compelling issue, particularly when faced with social and legal challenges posed by female returnées. To offer a gendered analysis of women in/with violent ideologies and address their agency this paper will analyse representations of “acceptable”and “unacceptable” forms of female violence by focusing on the intersection between femininity, vulnerability, empowerment, sexuality and violence.

Location, Location, Location: Disentangling Drivers of Terrorist Credit-Taking

ABSTRACT Most academic definitions of terrorism emphasize the communicative function of terrorism. The aim of terrorist violence is widely held to be to gain publication for a political or religious cause. Despite this emphasis on communication, terrorists rarely seek attention by claiming responsibility for attacks. According to the Global Terrorism Database, claims of responsibility are only issued for approximately every sixth attack. This raises the question: Why do terrorists abstain from the easy “win” of claiming their attacks? Previous research has theorized that factors like state sponsorship, principal-agent problems, casualty levels, and inter-group competition are important factors in explaining variation in terrorist credit-taking propensities. In this paper, we diverge from the tried and trusted deductive approach and instead utilize an inductive approach. We apply machine learning techniques using Random Forests to predict claims of responsibility. Our initial results indicate that geographical factors, like country of attack, are the strongest predictors of claims—something largely overlooked by existing research. In our analysis, the predictive power of geographical factors thus exceeds that of explanations from the literature based on characteristics of the target of the attack, e.g. number of fatalities and wounded.