Are Terrorists Mentally Deranged?

Recent terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon have accentuated the threat of terrorism. However, it appears that the attackers are popularly thought of as mentally deranged individuals who are evil. This article suggests that such an understanding is a misperception of these people and may interfere with an adequate response to prevent future attacks. The article reviews the extant literature on psychological theories of terrorism and concludes that terrorists are not dysfunctional or pathological; rather, it suggests that terrorism is basically another form of politically motivated violence that is perpetrated by rational, lucid people who have valid motives. The only real difference between terrorism and conventional military action is one of strategy. Terrorists lack the necessary resources to wage war in furtherance of their political goals.     

Brutality of Jihadist terrorism. A contest theory perspective and empirical evidence in the period 2002–2010

We interpret the emergence of Jihadist terrorism in the light of contest theory. Al Qaeda may be portrayed as a contest organizer, providing a ‘prize’ to the best terrorist group. Each group maximizes its probability of winning by launching attacks more destructive than previous ones perpetrated by competing groups. This hypothesis is confirmed by the empirical analysis which shows that the number of victims of terrorist attacks increases compared to number of victims of previous attacks in the same country. An upward trend in terrorist brutality is the outcome of competition between groups. Results also show that Al Qaeda-style terrorism is associated with poverty and underprivileged socio-economic conditions.     

Impacts of USAID and development assistance toward counterterrorism efforts: Empirical evidence in context of Pakistan

This article studies whether the pursuit of foreign aid for counterterrorism purposes militarizes or mitigates terrorism. It focuses on the USAID and official development assistance (ODA) flows to Pakistan, which recently has experienced an increase due to the presence of deadliest terrorist organizations. By using the time series data from 1985 to 2016, the paper investigated the foreign aid and terrorism nexus for pre‐9/11 and post‐9/11 periods. The empirical estimations of autoregressive distributed lag bound testing approach reported that an increase in military expenditures fuels terrorism in post‐9/11 period and the ODA helps to control terrorism from the country. On the contrary, USAID reported insignificant response toward terrorist attacks in pre‐ and post‐9/11 periods, suggesting that the foreign aid from the United States has no significant impact on counterterrorism policies for Pakistan. The outcomes of the current study can be utilized in policymaking of counterterrorism and to explore the nexus between foreign aid, terrorism, and military expenditures. The paper concludes that the concerns about the use of foreign aid as counterterrorism tool are warranted, but that actual manifestations are nuanced.     

当前全球恐怖主义的现状与发展态势

作者从全球恐怖袭击的数量和烈度、恐怖组织的类型、组织和人员数量等方面,对当前全球恐怖主义的现状进行了简要的梳理和分析,指出了恐怖主义的一些新态势和特点,并对当前国际社会反恐斗争中存在的主要问题进行了简要归纳。最后指出,反恐的根本出路在于,各国和国际社会应脚踏实地逐渐消除恐怖主义产生、发展的根源和土壤,并切实加强国际反恐合作。     

The Dark Side of Moral Conviction

Moral conviction forms the foundation for strong, morally vested attitudes and beliefs (i.e., "moral mandates") that have high action potential because they are "oughts" and "shoulds." Although moral mandates may sometimes lead people to engage in prosocial behaviors, they can also lead people to disregard procedural safeguards. This article briefly reviews research that indicates that people become very unconcerned with how moral mandates are achieved, so long as they are achieved. In short, we find that commitments to procedural safeguards that generally protect civil society become psychologically eroded when people are pursuing a morally mandated end. Understanding the "dark side" of moral conviction may provide some insight into the motivational underpinnings of engaging in extreme acts like terrorism, as well as people's willingness to forego civil liberties in their pursuit of those who do.     

The Definition of Terrorism

This article addresses the definition of terrorism. It is intended to provide a foundation from which to understand the recent attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Although terrorism appears to be much less dangerous than other forms of violence, it seems to command more attention. In order to respond to terrorism, a clear definition is necessary. Terrorism is defined by Title 22 of the U.S. Code as politically motivated violence perpetrated in a clandestine manner against noncombatants. Experts on terrorism also include another aspect in the definition: the act is committed in order to create a fearful state of mind in an audience different from the victims. Whether or not an act is considered terrorism also depends on whether a legal, moral, or behavioral perspective is used to interpret the act. If a legal or moral perspective is used, the values of the interpreter are the focus rather than the act itself. A behavioral perspective appears to be best suited for interpreting and reacting to terrorism.     

Effects of Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Threat from Terrorism on Restriction of Civil Liberties

In an Internet survey (N = 275), we investigated how right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), personal values, and political ideology predicted attitudes toward restriction of civil liberties and toward surveillance measured one year later. Feelings of threat from terrorism were also taken into account. RWA, SDO, political ideology, security values, and self-direction values were significant predictors. In addition, RWA interacted with threat from terrorism, in that threat reinforced the positive effect of RWA on support for surveillance measures. Thus, the study contributes to the understanding of psychological reasons for support for political measures related to civil liberties.     

The Cost of Caring? Social Workers in Hospitals Confront Ongoing Terrorism

The study reported here assesses the severity of post-traumaticsymptoms and emotional distress among hospital social workerswho provided emergency treatment to victims after terroristattacks in Israel. We examined the contributions of personaland professional exposure to terrorism, professional training,supervision, sense of professional confidence, and optimismto the severity of distress among 144 social workers at eighteenhospitals in various parts of the country. Emotional distresswas assessed by two measures: secondary traumatization (post-traumaticsymptoms after treating victims of terrorist attacks), and additionalpsychiatric symptomatology. Only 7 per cent of the workers reportedsecondary traumatization, and their levels of distress on accompanyingpsychiatric symptoms were significantly lower than the normsfor the general Israeli population. We also found that professionalexposure to terrorism, sense of professional confidence andoptimism contributed significantly to the explained variancein distress. The discussion deals with the findings in lightof the rise in terrorism in recent years and the professionalliterature on the topic.     

Security sector practitioner perceptions of the terror threat environment before the Christchurch attacks

ABSTRACT

On 15 March 2019, Brenton Tarrant destroyed New Zealand’s perception of its low threat terrorist risk. Security sector practitioners interviewed for this study before 15 March spoke about the challenges of performing counter terrorism roles in that low threat environment. Their perceptions revealed a fear that terrorist attacks occurring overseas, would sooner or later occur in New Zealand. Their roles were complicated by an overarching sense of social, bureaucratic and political complacency toward the threat of terrorism. They perceived legislative inertia, which fettered the powers and resources agencies had to effectively act against the risks they believed were present. Despite these barriers, security sector agencies continued to look for possible emerging threats across a spectrum of risk, but relied on improvised use of existing legislation to manage it. This was more effective against those motivated by militant jihadism, and as Tarrant demonstrated, less so against other threats. Community engagement was needed and successfully achieved, although difficulties were observed which need to be addressed, and the media was perceived as having an undue influence over New Zealand’s security priorities, highlighting the need for a national counter terrorism strategy.     

论民事诉讼举证时限制度

举证时限问题是民事诉讼中的前沿问题。长期以来 ,我国民事诉讼中实行证据随时提出主义 ,这使当事人在法庭上搞突然袭击或者故意不出示证据而拖延诉讼的情况屡见不鲜。举证时限制度的建立 ,为负有举证责任的当事人在逾期举证的情况下设定了证据失效的法律后果 ,这有利于程序公正的实现和诉讼效率的提高。在举证时限问题中 ,当事人新发现的证据的界定问题成为研究的热点。同时 ,证据交换制度成为建立举证时限制度的配套改革制度。     

Religion and World Change: Violence and Terrorism versus Peace

Our article portrays religion as a double-edged sword that can both encourage and discourage world change, and can facilitate both violent and peaceful activism. The article demonstrates how the meaning system approach to religion can shed light on the complicated relationship between religion and world change by illuminating the meaning of world change and the means to achieve it, inherent differences across religious groups, the complexity and malleability of religious meaning systems, and processes that can facilitate either the status quo or violent and peaceful activism. The article discusses context and personality variables that may determine whether religion supports world change and either violent or peaceful activism. It recommends intensive collaboration between researchers, policy–makers, and religious leaders in the contexts of national and international conflicts and religious terrorism.     

Macroeconomic consequences of terrorism in Pakistan

The objective of the study examines the macroeconomic consequences of terrorism in Pakistan. The study evaluates the short- and long-run relationship between terrorism and economic factors over a period of 1975–2011. Both objectives have been achieved with the sophisticated econometrics techniques including cointegration theory, Granger causality test and variance decomposition, etc. The result reveals that macroeconomic factors, i.e., population growth, price level, poverty and political instability cause the terrorism incidence in Pakistan. However, income inequality, unemployment and trade openness have no long-run relationship with the terrorism incidence in Pakistan. The study may conclude that, for some how, Pakistan's macroeconomic indicators have significant long-run equilibrium with terrorism incidence. The result of Granger causality indicates that except unemployment, all other macroeconomic indicators have unidirectional causality with terrorism incidence. Unemployment has a bi-directional causality with the terrorism incidence in Pakistan. The results of variance decomposition indicate that there exists statistically significant cointegration among macroeconomic factors and terrorism incidence in Pakistan. Among macroeconomic factors, changes in price level exert the largest influence on terrorism in Pakistan. Contrary, the influence of poverty seems relatively the least contribution level for changes in terrorism incidence in Pakistan.     

Terrorism and the effectiveness of security spending in Greece: Policy implications of some empirical findings

Greece has over the years faced serious security challenges from domestic as well as transnational terrorist activity. This paper examines empirically the effectiveness of counter-terrorism policy and particularly it focuses on current and investment expenditure on domestic security and public order. Using annual budget data for the 1974–2004 period, it investigates whether current and investment spending by the Ministry of Public Order has been an effective policy measure to counter terrorism. The results seem to suggest that such investment has at best a weak negative impact on internal terrorist actions. The main policy implication of this finding is that investing in counter-terrorist infrastructure and equipment can potentially prove to be an effective policy measure in the fight against terrorism. This, however, may be conditional upon a number of other factors including other anti-terrorist measures such as legislation or how efficiently such expenditure is used.     

Terrorism: A Peace Psychological Analysis

Peace psychologists emphasize the importance of recognizing both direct and structural bases of peace and conflict. In the peace psychological analysis of terrorism presented here, I attempt to further our understanding of the bases of terrorism in the context of how inequities in political, economic, and social structures may feed into or exacerbate terrorism. I analyze the effectiveness of responses to terrorism in terms of the tripartite peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peacebuilding model of nonviolent response to violence.     

从基要主义到恐怖主义全球化时代的宗教政治

1970年代以来全球宗教复兴和宗教政治的发展,是全球化背景下社会运动的一种形式和表现。宗教基要主义和恐怖主义作为一种宗教运动,反映了对主导性的全球化意识形态的反抗,以及对全球化方案的替代性选择。这可以被界定为一种文化政治或认同政治。政治伊斯兰作为当今最突出的宗教基要主义和恐怖主义,一方面反映了全球社会运动和宗教运动的一般特征;另一方面则也是美国霸权和意识形态人为制造的结果。针对亨廷顿的文明冲突论,本文作者认为,当今的宗教与政治冲突更多地是反映了一种不同基要主义之间的冲突,而非不同文明之间的冲突。     

Reflections on 9/11: Vulnerability and strength in the “new world order”

One year after the tragedy and horror of the events of September 11, 2001, many still struggle to understand their meaning and long‐term impact. This article provides a brief overview of critical stress debriefings and describes the author's work offering disaster mental health services to survivors of the World Trade Center attacks in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 disaster. The essay considers gaps in mental health services and the toll that such relief work can take on mental health responders. Implications for healing are considered in the context of the government's crackdown on civil liberties and its plans for war with Iraq.     

Directions in border security research

This research note offers an appraisal of the contemporary state of U.S.-Mexico border security studies. An overview of recent literature on this subject is connected through two landmark political developments impacting the U.S.-Mexico frontier: the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001. These two political events have had a major effect both on the ground and in the academy as scholars attempt to come to terms with the contradictions, complexities, and general problems of border security under neoliberal free trade and the threat of terrorism. The analysis concludes that while some important research in U.S.-Mexico border security exists, recent developments—coupled with pre-existing gaps in the literature—suggest that much crucial work remains to be done to understand and evaluate the complex dynamics of the new border security environment.     

Understanding the September 11 Terrorist Attack on America: The Role of Intergroup Theories of Normative Influence

The present article analyzes the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in terms of current theories of normative influence in intergroup conflict. The (conflicting) implications of various social psychological models of decision making for Western and American attempts to reduce the likelihood of further attacks are delineated. We examine the implications of social identity models and models of outgroup normative influence, as well as dynamic models of intergroup behavior that focus on the polarizing effects of outgroup hostility. The influence of Western responses is distinguished for various target audiences, including not only the terrorists, but also pro-Western Muslims in North America and Europe, unaligned Muslims, and Muslims with anti-American feelings who do not endorse terrorism.     

Symbols of Terror: ‘9/11’ as the Word of the Thing and the Thing of the Word

This paper adopts a social representations approach to examine the ‘9/11’ symbol which is argued to be a centrally organising, communication oriented, symbolic resource within contemporary representations of terrorism. Within the context of the events of September 11 2001 as a point of shared history which has come to be understood as a significant world event (Liu et al., 2009 ), the ‘9/11’ symbol is argued to fulfil a triple function in contemporary representations of terrorism. Firstly, the ‘9/11’ symbol provides a central anchor for the events of September 11 2001. Secondly the ‘9/11’ symbol acts as a powerful rhetorical resource for objectifying the abstract concept of terrorism. Lastly, alongside the capacity to objectify the abstract, the ‘9/11’ symbol also enables a counter process of transcendentalisation (Billig, 1988 ) whereby it transforms the object into the abstract. As a result the ‘9/11’ symbol is highly suited to widespread mobilisation of easily apprehended notions defining what terrorism is, which do not readily provoke contest and are widely constructed as mundane forms of ‘truth’ amongst a community of users.     

The Global Governance of Terrorism: An Assessment of Different Regimes*

Breakthroughs in the global governance of terrorism depend mainly on the development on the part of the international community of thorough and effective mechanisms. At present, global governance targets terrorism via four regimes: hegemonic governance; governance by international organizations; hybrid governance; and coordinated governance by major powers. These strategies have made a contribution to counter-terrorism, but they do have shortcomings. We start with the judgment that governance entities should adhere to the logic of consequences, the logic of appropriateness, the logic of emotion and the logic of habitus, and on this basis make a preliminary assessment of the global governance of terrorism. Present terrorism governance regimes tend to be based on the thinking of the logic of consequences with only partial implementation of the logic of appropriateness and no use, so far, of counterterrorism measures based on the logic of emotion and the logic of habitus. To address both the symptoms and root causes of terrorism, international society should encourage governance strategies that implement counter-terrorism measures based on the four types of logic above and should promote coordination and cooperation based on this platform. In this course, China could promote a more significant role in global terrorism governance for such counter-terrorism platforms as the United Nations, including the Security Council, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.