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In narratives around insurgencies, terrorism, and other forms of political violence, the media—and policymakers—frequently portray women as victims or unintelligent pawns of men. But these violent women get more media attention than their male counterparts because they are a shocking departure from gendered expectations of nurturing, peaceful women. However, even such narratives of deviance can reinforce societal stereotypes about women by emphasizing that they are emotional but not political, easily manipulated, often deranged, or simply unintelligent. Using in-depth interviews in Ireland and the United Kingdom with practitioners in counter terrorism (CT) and countering violent extremism (CVE), this paper argues that a failure to ask meaningful questions about women's roles in extremist violence has reinforced gender stereotypes, leading to disengagement and deradicalization practices that ignore or downplay women's importance in fostering violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rhetoric of the far-right typically depicts women in tripartite archetypes: as beloved mothers or sex symbols for far-rightist men or, less commonly, as fighters for the cause. But the propaganda and speeches that produced these archetypes of women are largely produced by far-rightist men. Do they reflect the lived experiences of women in the far-right? And how do far-rightist women – and men – react to such rhetorical messages about the female role? This paper broadens our understanding of modern white supremacist groups by examining the experiences of its female members. We employ lenses of emotionality and embodiment to understand how women accept and resist group-level gender expectations in white supremacism. This is responsive to the broader goal in research on women in terrorism and political violence to specify how women act within and beyond ascribed gender-typical roles. Our extensive interview data allow us to provide a rich depiction of the integrated natures of the public and private lives of white supremacist activist women, adding new information about a population of women engaged in political extremism and violent organization about which little is known. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin struck Israelis with shock and horror. The realization that their leader has been gunned down in the heart of Tel Aviv by a Jewish zealot was overwhelming. The vexing question, "How could such an atrocity occur in the seeming bastion of democracy in the Middle East?" left Israelis bewildered and disillusioned. This paper attempts to answer this question by indicating the conditions and circumstances that enabled the assassination. It presents a counterculture of messianism at the core of religious Zionism, which has matured into a formidable force waiting to erupt. Drawing on insights from studies of political violence in general and religiously motivated violence in particular, the paper concludes that a violence tendency tandem (VP) fosters and encourages religious violence in Israel, from the vigilante activities of the settlers' Gush Emunim to the assassination of Rabin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article begins by providing a brief history of the involvement of females in the conduct of modern terrorism and discusses the different ideological mindsets that account for their becoming more involved in terrorism associated with ethno-separatist rather than religious concerns, with an eye to the fact that the trend shows unmistakable signs of changing. Secondly, it considers the structure of logic, or systems of contention, that secular and religious groups employ in attempting to legitimize women and girls offering themselves up as martyrs, and discusses what mechanisms they share for doing so. The thesis of this paper is that secular and religious terrorism, though seeking to create significantly different worlds, one modern, the other traditional, fall back upon many of the same rhetorical strategies to justify females engaging in political violence, especially the rhetoric of martyrdom. The Sri Lankan nationalist-based Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is highlighted as the secular example and Hamas and Islamic Jihad as the religious ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article responds to criticisms raised by Matthijs Bogaards. While he makes a number of valid methodological points, it is maintained that the Qvortrup–Lijphart Model of Domestic Terrorism remains paradigmatic. Part of the criticism seems to be based on a misunderstanding of the requirement that causal theories should be as parsimonious as possible. Further, Bogaards does not provide an alternative that both accounts for the occurrences explained by the model as well as the issues that were explained by it (as is required by falsificationist methodological rules). In short, the theory that institutions can contribute to limiting the occurrence of domestic terrorism remains strong, at least in developed capitalist societies. There is no viable alternative; opportunities for democratic engagement are a potent force against political violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several conflict studies explore material factors connected to state performance (e.g., growth and Gross Domestic Product per capita). Recently, georeferenced conflict research has linked local economic factors such as subnational wealth and intrastate inequality to conflict. However, few studies concern the people's perceptions. More specifically, existing studies neglect the effect of performance legitimacy, understood as the people's evaluations of presidential performance. This study argues that systematic focus on subnational variation of presidential performance legitimacy contributes to a deeper understanding of conflict occurrence. This is because objective indicators of performance such as economic wealth differ from actual perceptions of performance. The hypothesis is investigated with survey data from the Afrobarometer rounds 2–5 covering thirty-four countries and 376 first-order administrative units. These data are merged with georeferenced data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) and the Peace Research Institute Oslo-Grid dataset (PRIO-GRID). The results show that high levels of performance legitimacy in a province decrease the expected number of conflict events the following year. Future conflict studies should therefore include perceptions on a substate level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, increasingly serious incidents of violence have been committed by young men predominantly in the United States and Canada who self-identify as incels (involuntary celibates). Although these attacks often specifically target women, the principal source of their animus, men as well as children have been among the casualties in the series of shootings and vehicular homicides that have occurred at universities, high schools, and on city streets. Although, the incel worldview is not obviously political, its core ethos entails the subjugation and repression of a group and its violence is designed to have far-reaching societal effects. Accordingly, incel violence arguably conforms to an emergent trend in terrorism with a more salient hate crime dimension that necessitates greater scrutiny and analysis—especially as it spreads to Europe and shows similarities to and has nascent connections with other terrorist movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking stock of critical peace research and agonistic politics, this article revisits the Basque conflict to examine the role of the state's counterterrorist narrative and that of the Basque civil society in the elimination of violence. It argues that violence could have ended sooner if Spanish governments had sought to engage with the non- and antiviolent independentist discourse of broad sectors of the Basque society, rather than criminalizing it as they rightly did with the radical/extremist nationalists. Had they done so, they could have capitalized on Basque civil society's strong antiviolent and anti–Euskadi Ta Askatasuna discourse to marginalize the terrorist organization and its networks of support. The article presents a framework that makes possible the marginalization of militancy and extremism in cases where the state accepts to negotiate the legitimacy of the demands of non- and/or antiviolent nationalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies a dialogical analysis to the change processes involved in moving from engagement with to disengagement from an armed militant group, as well as from radicalization to deradicalization. The findings underline the interplay between different push and pull factors at individual, organizational, and societal levels that played a role in the already mentioned processes in three periods of time—engagement with, life within, and disengagement from an armed organization. The dialogical framework conceptualizes the development trajectory as relationships between a variety of positions of the self (I-positions), which generate different personal meanings involved in processes of disengagement and deradicalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In re-evaluating the origins of Italian clandestine political violence groups in the early 1970s, this article sheds new light on overlapping processes of legitimation of violence that took place in that "transitional space" created by the 1968–69 social upheavals. Eschewing mono-causal explanations, this article points attention to how violence was legitimized at different levels: in the interaction between the movement and the "protest policing"; in the competing memories of the Resistenza that generated opposing extremes; and at an international/transnational level, where the Cold War and the mythology of the decolonization movements framed and inspired the choices of Italians terrorists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks specifically at the front end of the radicalization problem and argues that vulnerability to political violence is first and foremost a social problem. The article explores the historical counterradicalization approach in Britain and the government/community relationship, and argues that addressing the disaffection that comes with social vulnerability is the key to building resilience to radicalization. Last, the article profiles a holistic counterradicalization response undertaken by Quintessential Insight and the Barking Mosque whereby social vulnerability is reduced, individuals and communities are empowered, social and political agency is maximized, social contracts are restored, and resilience to radicalization is increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars and practitioners claim that labeling groups or individuals as "terrorists" does not simply describe them but also shapes public attitudes, due to the label's important normative and political charge. Yet is there such a "terrorist label effect"? In view of surprisingly scant evidence, the present article evaluates whether or not the terrorist label—as well as the "Islamist" one—really impacts both the audience's perception of the security environment and its security policy preferences, and if yes, how and why. To do so, the article implements a randomized-controlled vignette experiment where participants (N = 481) first read one out of three press articles, each depicting a street shooting in the exact same way but labeling the author of the violence with a different category ("terrorist"/"shooter"/"Islamist"). Participants were then asked to report on both their perceptions and their policy preferences. This design reveals very strong effects of both the "terrorist" and "Islamist" categories on each dimension. These effects are analyzed through the lenses of social and cognitive psychology, in a way that interrogates the use of the terrorist category in society, the conflation of Islamism with terrorism, and the press and policymakers' lexical choices when reporting on political violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Great Lakes region of Africa is the most conflict-prone region of the world and one current concern is political violence in Burundi. This research investigates whether Burundi is on the precipice of a genocide. Burundi's weak democratic norms, genocidal history, and the impact of contagion and diffusion of violence in the region provide a number of the conditions that could contribute to a genocide. This research investigates the past and present conflict variables of the Great Lakes region with a focus on Burundi and assesses the potential that the ongoing political violence in Burundi will lead to genocide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does individual-level exposure to political violence prompt conciliatory attitudes? Does the answer vary by phase of conflict? The study uses longitudinal primary datasets to test the hypothesis that conflictrelated experiences impact conciliation. Data were collected from Israeli Jews, Palestinians, and Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Across both contexts, and among both parties to each conflict, psychological distress and threat perceptions had a polarizing effect on conciliatory preferences. The study highlights that experiences of political violence are potentially a crucial source of psychological distress, and consequently, a continuing barrier to peace. This has implications in peacemaking, implying that alongside removing the real threat of violence, peacemakers must also work toward the social and political inclusion of those most affected by previous violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish victims groups have provided a visible contribution to European terrorist violence prevention efforts. Instrumental and knowledge transfer motivations partly explain this interest but a separate driver that requires more attention is their opposition to the international narrative that legitimizes Euskadi Ta Askatasuna's violence promulgated by the political movement of the Basque Patriotic Left. This has resulted in a “battle of narratives” played out at the international level in order to shape the future of Basque politics where victims are challenging a discourse that frames the past in a way that justifies terrorism and that leaves the door open to a future return to violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue examines the complex relationship between radicalization, victimhood. and political violence. The interrelatedness of victims and perpetrators has been long recognized in the fields of criminology and victimology but it is has been often ignored in the case of terrorism and political violence. The key aim of this issue therefore is to assist in enhancing our understanding of this interrelatedness with a particular focus on the relevance of narratives, roles, and identities of victimhood for both the victims and perpetrators. A second, more policy-relevant dimension is to examine the role of victims and perpetrators in the prevention of terrorism and political violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participation in political violence draws on identities and world views that have been shaped and influenced by emotion. This article uses data drawn from interviews conducted with 15 former members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army to highlight some of the ways that emotion is intertwined with decisions to use violence in pursuit of a substate political goal. Six themes emerge that help to demonstrate how participant's emotional lives have helped to build the identities, beliefs, and motivations that have led to violent acts. The study illuminates how the experience, elicitation, and management of emotions played an integral role in the participant's trajectory towards violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, employing a poststructuralist Critical Discourse Analysis, reveals cracks, discrepancies, and inconsistencies in Pakistan's discourse on terrorism and practice. I argue that Pakistan continuously constructs a “monstrous enemy” and magnifies it in a way that conceals alternative representations of reality that could show that the state, by presenting itself as a victim of terrorism, is using phenomena of political violence to serve its political objectives inside and outside the boundaries of the state. The article argues that after a militant attack on a school in northwest Pakistan, critical, liberal, and dissenting narratives mingled with the dominant state discourse in a fashion that strengthen illiberal practices in the country, thus undermining the ideals of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violent nationalism in Northern Ireland has drawn inspiration from a tradition of physical-force republicanism that dates back centuries. The consequence has been a strong tendency for Irish republicans to draw on that history as a source of ideas for their conduct of campaigns of violence. However, during Northern Ireland's most recent Troubles from the late 1960s to the 1990s, external influence on the republican movement was evident in some of the tactics adopted and, even more strongly, in the turn toward negotiations. At the same time, Irish republicans have directly assisted other groups from Spain to South Africa in the employment of particular means such as the culvert bomb. But it is more striking that republicans have tended to eschew some of the means that have been widely associated with terrorism elsewhere since the 1960s such as the hijacking of aircraft for the taking of hostages. Transnational influences on Irish nationalists have been greater at the level of political ideas and as a source of legitimization than as a model for their own campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note examines political institutional changes in the aftermath of terrorist assassinations. Contemporary assassinations are more often a component of wider campaigns of political violence rather than a singular attack on a head of state. The Global Terrorism Database counts 16,831 terrorist assassinations from 1970–2014, indicating significant frequency of these events and includes a wide range of targets from law enforcement officials to foreign diplomats. Utilizing survival analysis, the span of time from a terrorist assassination event to a change in political institutions within states is measured between target types. Outcome differences between target types are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a first academic evaluation of the Special Demonstration Squad and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, two British undercover police units working for the Metropolitan Police Service at different times between 1968 and 2011. It provides a historical overview of their infiltration of political groups involved in protest for the purpose of gathering criminal and political intelligence aimed at preventing violence, public disorder, and subversion. It discusses the controversies surrounding these units, and the related institutional responses, and offers an attempt at understanding their operations within the remit of intelligence-led policing and against a political culture that prioritizes action over inaction in reducing risks and threats to the State and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Testing social movement theory positing that radical organizations are ideologically driven at their core, but are supported by civilians who are driven by social factors, this research interrogates the disparity between radical group ideology and supporter belief set in the context of present-day Nigeria. Content analysis of randomly selected Boko Haram publications establishes the high, and increasing, levels of religiosity exhibited by the violent social movement itself. In contrast, a large-N survey of Nigerians conducted in 2012 and 2013 shows that high levels of religiosity do not significantly predict willingness to justify violence, commitment to non-state violent actors, or positive attitude toward Boko Haram among Nigerians as a whole, but rather the opposite. Given these findings, Boko Haram may be better understood within the tradition of radical extremist movements across the ideological spectrum, even while it frames its struggle as that of a distinctly religious movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilizing interviews with former Irish Republican Army (IRA) members, Loyalists, and community workers, the article looks at how militants in Northern Ireland have helped to prevent terrorism and political violence (TPV) by adopting roles in the community. By using mobile phones, a network of former combatants emerged around interface areas in the late 1990s to contain trigger causes of terrorism, providing a unique role that the state could not. The structure of the network encouraged militant groups to follow the IRA's example to disengage—thus creating a domino effect—and the co-operation between senior militants has limited the opportunities for other groups to mobilize a campaign of terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article unpacks the variant meanings, perceptions, and experiences of violent enactment and stigmatic shaming among loyalists with regard to rejection, harm, and masking. What we locate is a landscape of variable emotions, experiences, neutralization techniques, dependences, and embedded forms of fatalism as well as resilience. Attending to those alternate positions and well-beings is important in considering the capacity of re-integration and the presently uneven nature of it. In adopting an account-driven format we present and analyze how involvement in violent conflict can, on the one hand, provoke persistence and senses of transitional thinking and on the other engender rejection and related fatalistic attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes an analytical perspective on jihadist radicalization that focuses on the immediate social environment from which clandestine violent groups emerge, to which they remain socially and symbolically connected, and from which they receive some degree of support. Based on a detailed analysis of the “Sauerland-Group” it traces relational dynamics shaping individual pathways as well as processes of group formation within local Salafist milieus, the wider Salafist movement, and radical jihadist networks. It argues that one characteristic feature of “homegrown” jihadist groups is their simultaneous connection to and embeddedness in various different social contexts as well as the fluid, ad-hoc character of the clandestine group and its ambivalent relation with its supportive social environment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Targeted killing has become an increasingly prevalent tactic employed by states in their efforts to counter terrorism. Despite its widespread use, the criteria for targeted killing permissibility have remained vague. This article identifies and evaluates the circumstances under which targeted killings can be considered permissible and looks at on-the-ground implementation by Israel and the United States. While both Israel and the United States may have largely adhered to the laws of armed conflict, in practice, discrepancies in implementation exist. This is primarily due to the ambiguity of the “distinction” and “proportionality” principles, two key legal and moral criteria that need further clarification. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues that, while there have always been good reasons for striving for a universally agreed definition of terrorism, there are further reasons for doing so in the post 9/11 environment, notwithstanding the formidable challenges that confront such an endeavour. Arguing that the essence of terrorism lies in its intent to generate a psychological impact beyond the immediate victims, it will propose three preliminary assumptions: that there is no such thing as an act of violence that is in and of itself inherently terrorist, that terrorism is best conceptualized as a particular method of political violence rather than defined as inherent to any particular ideology or perpetrator, and that non-civilians and combatants can also be victims of terrorism. It will then outline the implications that these assumptions have for the definitional debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops and elaborates on three core points. First, as with research into other social science themes, it is argued that it is necessary to apply the logic of correlation and causality to the study of political violence. Second, it highlights the critical disjuncture between attitudes and behaviors. Many or most individuals who support the use of political violence remain on the sidelines, including those who sympathize with insurgents in Afghanistan (reportedly 29 percent in 2011), and those supportive of “suicide attacks” in the Palestinian Territories (reportedly reaching 66 percent in 2005). Conversely, those responsible for such behaviors are not necessarily supportive of the ostensible political aims. Third, it is argued that the motives that drive these attitudes and behaviors are often (or, some would argue, always) distinct. While the former are motivated by collective grievances, there is substantial case study evidence that the latter are commonly driven by economic (e.g., payments for the emplacement of improvised explosive devices), security-based (i.e., coercion) and sociopsychological (e.g., adventure, status, and vengeance) incentives. Thus, it is necessary for the research community to treat attitudes and behaviors as two separate, albeit interrelated, lines of inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article seeks to foster a better understanding of the diffusion of conflict in the North Caucasus. We argue that diffusion of conflict is a dynamic and adaptive process in which outcomes are shaped by the intersection of three social mechanisms—attribution of similarity, brokerage, and outbidding—and the political, social, and religious contexts. We suggest that a distinction should be made between horizontal and vertical processes of diffusion. We also approach the empirical diffusion of conflict from a different perspective, showing that non-Chechen actors have played a key role in both the diffusion process and its outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 3,500 people have died in Nigeria since 2009 when Boko Haram, a radical Islamist group from northeastern Nigeria, launched its violent campaign to wrest power from the Nigerian government and foist an Islamic state under the supreme law of Sharia. Attempts at negotiating with the group, including the recent amnesty offer extended to its members by the Nigerian government, have stalled due to distrust on both sides and the factionalized leadership of the group's different cells. This article provides a systematic account of Boko Haram's emergence, demands, and modus operandi. It also evaluates how the Nigerian government has responded to the group's threat and how they should respond. The socioeconomic approach of this article helps to explain the Boko Haram problem beyond a usual religious agenda and to evaluate the development of the group in the context of Nigeria's checkered political history and local economic grievances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rhodesia, a breakaway British colony, was engulfed in an insurgency through much of its short history. African guerillas, rebelling against the white minority government, have killed many more African civilians during the war—the same group that formed their base of support—than either government soldiers or European civilians. The violence was not only intended to punish enemies of the guerilla—traitors or collaborators with the government. Nor was it the result of lack of popular support. Violence forced guerilla sympathizers to actively support the insurgency or participate in it, despite the considerable risks this participation carried. Political support should not be mistaken with mobilization. Without violence, the lack of benefits and the danger of government reprisal may have kept many from actively assisting the insurgency, despite politically identifying with the guerillas and hoping for their victory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since entering Lebanese politics in the 1990s, Hezbollah has defined itself as a political party that plays by the rules. Simultaneously, it has continued to use social assistance to win over Lebanon's Shi’ites while using violence to eliminate rivals. Through this strategy of “walking on the edge,” Hezbollah has metamorphosed from an illegitimate terrorist organization into a legitimate political party heading Lebanon's government. An International Tribunal's recent indictment of four senior Hezbollah officials for involvement in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri provides an opportunity to understand how Hezbollah maintains this canny—and successful—balancing act. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Terrorist financing is the dedicated pursuit of adequate capitalization within a market of violence, wherein terrorist organizations seek to extract resources and funding from the social, political, and economic environment in which they operate. At the same time, the effectiveness of a terrorist group in this pursuit is highly dependent on their organizational type and design, its leadership capabilities, and its capacity for organizational learning—factors that shape the ability of terrorist groups to identify and exploit a limited set of investment and rent-seeking opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beset by multiple security challenges, not least the emergence of a powerful Al Qaeda franchise, Yemen appears the antithesis of the “Weberian” state model. But while these challenges are acute, they should be seen as part of a wider “political field,” dominated by powerful tribes and conditioned by patrimonial networks that have long framed the modes of political exchange between the center and periphery. This remains crucial to understanding the wider eddies of tribal politics in Yemen, and in turn, the limits of a purely military response by Washington as it seeks to confront Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Al Qaeda has developed a coherent strategy for insurgent violence that has much in common with the focoism advocated by Che Guevara in the 1960s. In their strategic writing, explored here, key Islamist strategists stress the role of violence in creating revolution, and describe the export of committed fighters to focoist enclaves at the margins of enemy control. In contrast to some prominent themes in recent scholarship, the article argues that physical space is demonstrably important to the revolutionaries, that their development of leaderless jihad is designed to supplement not replace territorial control, and that their violence is avowedly strategic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study is to provide through an in-depth investigation of the Fatah Al-Islam organization, emergence, programs, and external links, and the inner operation of this underground Salafi-jihadi group. By divulging secret confession statements to the public, it has uncovered many of the mysteries that surrounded the evolution and goals of the group. On the other hand, and more important, it has examined the application of certain conventional approaches to the study of terrorist behavior. The findings, based on the biographies of FI terrorists, seem to negate much of the advanced explanation about political violence. Economic destitution, poverty, lack of education, young age, and marital disruption for instances do not determine adherence to the group. Members of the jihadi group of FI stem from a diversified occupational background, not lacking in education, mature, married, and influenced by various motivations, specifically religious dogma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historical record of the majority of inter- and intra-state conflicts indicates frequent third-party interventions in these conflicts. In the decades following World War II, the United States has been one of the most frequent interveners in third world internal wars. This study focuses on the repercussions of U.S. military interventions on the intensity of civil conflict and political violence in the targeted nations. A comprehensive empirical analysis suggests that in addition to low per capita income, large populations, high religious fractionalization, and weak governance, the direct and indirect involvement of the U.S. military may also lead to increased civil strife and political violence in the targeted nations. U.S. military involvement increases the probability of political instability and unrest and hence could be one of the many conditions that favor insurgency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether the Global War on Terror (GWOT) has changed the terrorist threat is a matter of controversy. This study, using transnational terrorism events data from 1993 through 2004, employs a time-series approach to investigate the extent to which the onset of the GWOT (beginning with the invasion of Afghanistan) and related events (the invasion of Iraq, the capture of Saddam Hussein, and the release of photos from Abu Ghraib) are associated with changes in transnational terrorist activity, its frequency, dispersion, lethality, type of attack, and type of victim of transnational terrorist incidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the wave of violent jihadist activities in recent years, the world's attention has shifted away from a traditional prioritizing of state forms of formal violence toward one focusing on an apparently “new” phenomenon of transnational violence. Yet transnational violence itself is not a new phenomenon; it in fact precedes international, state-centric violence. For reasons related to gaps or defects within the state system or to surges in the capacities of individuals and societies, transnational violence has periodically made attempts to regain its primary position. Prior to the violent jihadists, the last of these efforts was that of the late-nineteenth-century Anarchists. This article looks at the dynamics of the Anarchists's failure as part of a transnational violence continuum, using a framework based on their autonomy, representation, and influence. The results provide an historical example against which future studies about the current episode of transnational violence may be compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how Europe fits into the broader international campaign against terrorism. It argues that Europe is both a source and a target of terrorist activity, and faces threats including Al Qaeda-inspired terrorism, extremist political parties, insurgent sympathizer networks, subversive movements, and the overlap between crime and terrorism. The article argues that the primary threat is terrorist-linked subversion, which seeks to manipulate and exploit the sociological and ethnographic features of immigrant communities. Islamic theology is a strictly secondary factor, and a focus on Islam as such is likely to be an analytical dead-end. The article examines countersubversion as a conceptual framework for counterterrorism in Europe. The article concludes that an approach based on trusted networks and close collaboration with communities is most likely to succeed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the causes of terrorism at a global level. It also reexamines the chronology of terrorism since the nineteenth century. It argues that local causes cannot explain global waves, and that while ideology is a necessary ingredient in causing terrorism, it does not explain it. The article proposes that the most important cause of global waves of terror is the inspiring example for radicals everywhere of what are, or appear to be, successful uses of terrorist strategies. This hypothesis is tested in the context of a reevaluation of David Rapoport's chronology of global waves of terrorism. The article argues for different periodization, and for labeling the waves as Italian, German, Chinese, and Afghan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores two ways of conceptualizing ties between charity, contentious politics, political violence, and terrorism. The first half of the article discusses how social and political exclusion serve as motivations for within-group philanthropy, political activism, and political violence. Using this conceptualization, charity and terrorism can be seen as two activities among a range of possible actions that address grievance and exclusion. The second half of the article discusses how terrorist organizations and political insurgents use charity as a tool to move community members along a “continuum of community support” toward greater acceptance of and participation in violent activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy to reduce the threat of a terrorist attack against industrial chemical facilities—critical infrastructure with potential to cause mass casualties—is being driven by incomplete and, in some cases, incorrect assumptions. This article chronicles incidents by non-state actors directed at the chemical industry and explores the strategic considerations prompting groups to target the industry. By incorporating motivations for targeting infrastructure a more robust, comprehensive risk assessment is realized. Analysis challenging the “insider” threat paradigm and recommendations to ameliorate the potential effects are also presented. These are found to differ substantially from the leading policy measures currently advocated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terrorism scholars are divided over whether terrorism is an effective tactic. Disagreement derives from the fact that the objectives of terrorist groups are often highly contested. Nowhere is this clearer than in contemporary statements on Al Qaeda. This article explores the most common interpretations for why Al Qaeda attacked the United States on 11 September 2001, and then analyzes their empirical support. After determining the most compelling interpretation of Al Qaeda's objectives, the article evaluates Al Qaeda's success in achieving them since perpetrating this watershed attack. The following analysis provides a timely case study in the classic debate over whether terrorism is strategically rational behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worldwide, women have historically participated in terrorist groups but their low numbers and seemingly passive roles have undermined their credibility as terrorist actors for many observers. This analysis contends that female involvement with terror ist activity is widening ideologically, logistically, and regionally for several reasons: increasing contextual pressures (e.g., domestic/international enforcement, conflict, social dislocation) creates a mutually reinforcing process driving terrorist organizations to recruit women at the same time women's motivations to join these groups increases; contextual pressures impact societal controls over women that may facilitate, if not necessitate, more overt political participation up to, and including, political violence; and operational imperatives often make female members highly effective actors for their organizations, inducing leaders toward "actor innovation" to gain strategic advantage against their adversary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines political terrorist activity in the fifteen newly independent states of the former Soviet Union and the problems that security and terrorism analysts will encounter when assessing this activity. It introduces the reader to a form of terrorism known as "blood-feud terrorism." The geographic focus of the article is the southern Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia; the regions of Abkhazia and Marneuli in Georgia; Azerbaijan; and Tajikistan. Collectively, these areas have the potential of replacing the Middle East as the primary generator of international headaches, international crises, and international terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the articles in the September 2005 issue of the "Studies in Conflict & Terrorism" journal. This issue provides a window on the many forces that structure and shape why women and girls participate in terrorism and other forms of political violence, as well as on how states have come to view, treat, and strategize against them. They offer coverage of key themes which, taken together, begin to suggest the complexity of issues involved in the conduct and representation of such violence. The articles brought together here, consistent with findings in the literature, offer little evidence of gender rights being advanced in the surrounding society in which females carry out political violence.