This book improves our understanding of terrorists’ motivations and rationality and may, ultimately, also indicate how to respond to the phenomenon of terrorism. In his research studies, Eric van Um explores the political rationality of terrorist groups. The political rationality model builds on rational choice theory. It demands that terrorist groups take into account the costs and benefits of their available options and choose the option promising them the highest political utility. Testing the explanatory power of this model is relevant, as rational choice approaches have become very prominent in terrorism research. But, at the same time, their empirical power remains highly contested. Increased knowledge of the political rationality model not only promises added value for terrorism research itself, but also for social sciences more generally.
In compiling this annotated bibliography on the psychology of terrorism, the author has defined terrorism as "acts of violence intentionally perpetrated on civilian noncombatants with the goal of furthering some ideological, religious or political objective." The principal focus is on nonstate actors. The task was to identify and analyze the scientific and professional social science literature pertaining to the psychological and/or behavioral dimensions of terrorist behavior (not on victimization or effects). The objectives were to explore what questions pertaining to terrorist groups and behavior had been asked by social science researchers; to identify the main findings from that research; and attempt to distill and summarize them within a framework of operationally relevant questions. To identify the relevant social science literature, the author began by searching a series of major academic databases using a systematic, iterative keyword strategy, mapping, where possible, onto existing subject headings. The focus was on locating professional social science literature published in major books or in peer-reviewed journals. Searches were conducted of the following databases October 2003: Sociofile/Sociological Abstracts, Criminal Justice Abstracts (CJ Abstracts), Criminal Justice Periodical Index (CJPI), National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts (NCJRS), PsycInfo, Medline, and Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS). Three types of annotations were provided for works in this bibliography: Author's Abstract -- this is the abstract of the work as provided (and often published) by the author; Editor's Annotation -- this is an annotation written by the editor of this bibliography; and Key Quote Summary -- this is an annotation composed of "key quotes" from the original work, edited to provide a cogent overview of its main points.
There is currently much discussion regarding the causes of terrorist acts, as well as the connection between terrorism and religion. Terrorism is attributed either to religious 'fanaticism' or, alternately, to political and economic factors, with religion more or less dismissed as a secondary factor. The Cambridge Companion to Religion and Terrorism examines this complex relationship between religion and terrorism phenomenon through a collection of essays freshly written for this volume. Bringing varying approaches to the topic, from the theoretical to the empirical, the Companion includes an array of subjects, such as radicalization, suicide bombing, and rational choice, as well as specific case studies. The result is a richly textured collection that prompts readers to critically consider the cluster of phenomena that we have come to refer to as 'terrorism,' and terrorism's relationship with the similarly problematic set of phenomena that we call 'religion.'
The author examines the factors which influence terrorists' target selection. In particular he looks at the influence of the ideologies, strategies and tactics of terrorist groups, and describes how these are restricted by the terrorists' resources, by protective and anti-terrorist measures, by the society within which the terrorists operate, and by the nature of the terrorists and their supporters. He concludes that terrorists' target selection is often both explicable and logical.
In contrast to the widely held assumption that terrorists as crazed fanatics, Jerrold Post demonstrates they are psychologically "normal" and that "hatred has been bred in the bone". He reveals the powerful motivations that drive these ordinary people to such extraordinary evil by exploring the different types of terrorists, from national-separatists like the Irish Republican Army to social revolutionary terrorists like the Shining Path, as well as religious extremists like al-Qaeda and Aum Shinrikyo. In The Mind of the Terrorist, Post uses his expertise to explain how the terrorist mind works and how this information can help us to combat terrorism more effectively.
Includes a new Afterword Finalist for the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award One of the world’s foremost authorities on the subject of suicide terrorism, the esteemed political scientist Robert Pape has created the first comprehensive database of every suicide terrorist attack in the world from 1980 until today. In Dying to Win, Pape provides a groundbreaking demographic profile of modern suicide terrorist attackers–and his findings offer a powerful counterpoint to what we now accept as conventional wisdom on the topic. He also examines the early practitioners of this guerrilla tactic, including the ancient Jewish Zealots, who in A.D. 66 wished to liberate themselves from Roman occupation; the Ismaili Assassins, a Shi’ite Muslim sect in northern Iran in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; World War II’s Japanese kamikaze pilots, three thousand of whom crashed into U.S. naval vessels; and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a secular, Marxist-Leninist organization responsible for more suicide terrorist attacks than any other group in history. Dying to Win is a startling work of analysis grounded in fact, not politics, that recommends concrete ways for states to fight and prevent terrorist attacks now. Transcending speculation with systematic scholarship, this is one of the most important studies of the terrorist threat to the United States and its allies since 9/11. “Invaluable . . . gives Americans an urgently needed basis for devising a strategy to defeat Osama bin Laden and other Islamist militants.” –Michael Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris “Provocative . . . Pape wants to change the way you think about suicide bombings and explain why they are on the rise.” –Henry Schuster, CNN.com “Enlightening . . . sheds interesting light on a phenomenon often mistakenly believed to be restricted to the Middle East.” –The Washington Post Book World “Brilliant.” –Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc.
The Oxford Handbook of Terrorism systematically integrates the substantial body of scholarship on terrorism and counterterrorism before and after 9/11. In doing so, it introduces scholars and practitioners to state of the art approaches, methods, and issues in studying and teaching these vital phenomena. This Handbook goes further than most existing collections by giving structure and direction to the fast-growing but somewhat disjointed field of terrorism studies. The volume locates terrorism within the wider spectrum of political violence instead of engaging in the widespread tendency towards treating terrorism as an exceptional act. Moreover, the volume makes a case for studying terrorism within its socio-historical context. Finally, the volume addresses the critique that the study of terrorism suffers from lack of theory by reviewing and extending the theoretical insights contributed by several fields - including political science, political economy, history, sociology, anthropology, criminology, law, geography, and psychology. In doing so, the volume showcases the analytical advancements and reflects on the challenges that remain since the emergence of the field in the early 1970s.
The Political Economy of Terrorism presents a widely accessible political economy approach to the study of terrorism. It applies economic methodology – theoretical and empirical – combined with political analysis and realities to the study of domestic and transnational terrorism. In so doing, the book provides both a qualitative and quantitative investigation of terrorism in a balanced up-to-date presentation that informs students, policy makers, researchers and the general reader of the current state of knowledge. Included are historical aspects, a discussion of watershed events, the rise of modern-day terrorism, examination of current trends, the dilemma of liberal democracies, evaluation of counterterrorism, analysis of hostage incidents and much more. The new edition expands coverage of every chapter, adds a new chapter on terrorist network structures and organization, accounts for changes in the Department of Homeland Security and the USA Patriot Act and insurance against terrorism. Rational-actor models of terrorist and government behavior and game-theoretic analysis are presented for readers with no prior theoretical training. Where relevant, the authors display graphs using data from International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist Events (ITERATE), the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), and other public-access data sets.
This book examines a wide array of phenomena that arguably constitute the most noxious, extreme, terrifying, murderous, secretive, authoritarian, and/or anti-democratic aspects of national and international politics. Scholars should not ignore these "dark sides" of politics, however unpleasant they may be, since they influence the world in a multitude of harmful ways. The first volume in this two-volume collection focuses on the history of underground neo-fascist networks in the post-World War II era; neo-fascist paramilitary and terrorist groups operating in Europe and Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s; and the manipulation of those and other terrorist organizations by the security forces of various states, both authoritarian and democratic. A range of global case studies are included, all of which focus on the lesser known activities of certain secular extremist milieus. This collection should prove to be essential reading for students and researchers interested in understanding seemingly arcane but nonetheless important dimensions of recent historical and contemporary politics.
This new edition of John Horgan's critically acclaimed book is fully revised and expanded. The book presents a critical analysis of our existing knowledge and understanding of terrorist psychology. Despite the on-going search for a terrorist pathology, the most insightful and evidence-based research to date not only illustrates the lack of any identifiable psychopathology in terrorists, but demonstrates how frighteningly 'normal' and unremarkable in psychological terms are those who engage in terrorist activity. By producing a clearer map of the processes that impinge upon the individual terrorist, a different type of terrorist psychology emerges, one which has clearer implications for efforts at countering and disrupting violent extremism in today's world. In this 2nd edition, Horgan further develops his approach to the arc of terrorism by delving deeper into his IED model of Involvement, Engagement and Disengagement – the three phases of terrorism experienced by every single terrorist. Drawing on new and exciting research from the past decade, with new details from interviews with terrorists ranging from al-Qaeda to left-wing revolutionaries, biographies and autobiographies of former terrorists, and insights from historic and contemporary terrorist attacks since 2005, Horgan presents a fully revised and expanded edition of his signature text. This new edition of The Psychology of Terrorism will be essential reading for students of terrorism and political violence, and counterterrorism studies, and recommended for forensic psychology, criminology, international security and IR in general.
