Terrorism
- LAST REVIEWED: 06 May 2015
- LAST MODIFIED: 30 January 2014
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195389678-0142
- LAST REVIEWED: 06 May 2015
- LAST MODIFIED: 30 January 2014
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195389678-0142
Introduction
Once rather a marginal niche subject for a few scientists willing to defy the long-established borders of the traditional grand academic disciplines, terrorism studies are currently experiencing a boom—a boom that transformed a niche subject that did not really sit well with any of the established disciplines of social science into a major (research) industry. The current boom in terrorism studies can be explained by just two dates: 9/11 and 7/7. The events of 9/11 triggered the boom in the United States, while the London bombings on 7 July 2005 did the same for the United Kingdom. To a much lesser degree, terrorism studies also saw a certain upswing in Spain after the Madrid train bombings on 11 March 2004. Still, the current boom seems to be mainly an Anglo-American phenomenon; there is no similar boom noticeable in Germany, France, India, or Japan, for example. In the United States and the United Kingdom, however, the study of terrorism and homeland security is big business now: for state institutions lobbying for a bigger share of the pie, for security consultants and private security firms trying to sell their expertise and their products, for the media competing with each other to sell their stories—and for academia, of course, where individual researchers or whole (new) think tanks compete for ever larger research grants. No wonder every six hours, a new English-language book dealing with terrorism in general or some aspect of it is published, and no wonder the field of terrorism studies branched out into many subfields, each dealing with their own specialized research agendas, such as suicide terrorism, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) terrorism, or aviation and maritime terrorism. Consequently, it gets ever more difficult even for specialists to keep track of the huge number of publications on terrorism. This bibliography provides an overview of this still-growing field of studies and the still-growing number of publications. We are aware, however, that our choice is a personal one—while some readers may deem certain subfields to be overrepresented to the detriment of what they see to be more important ones, other readers might have wished to find more specialized entries going beyond the “usual suspects.” For this first iteration of this bibliography, this cannot be helped—but we are open to suggestions and (constructive) criticism.
Major Works
What does or does not constitute a major work in any discipline clearly lies in the eyes of the beholder. Major works are defined here as works written by those leading scholars of terrorism studies who dominated discussion, or works that were deemed to be required reading, long before the watershed event of 9/11 that resulted in a sudden flood of publications written mainly by newcomers from other disciplines. Among the leading scholars in the field of terrorism studies undoubtedly are Martha Crenshaw, Walter Laqueur, Paul Wilkinson, Bruce Hoffman, and Louise Richardson, who all can look back on a wide body of publications, of which just five are represented here. Crenshaw 2011 provides the reader with a collection of key essays previously published in a wide range of academic journals, while Hoffman 2006 can be seen as a “one-stop shop” in terrorism studies—if there is a “must read” or a “one-stop shop” in terrorism studies, this is undoubtedly Bruce Hoffman’s book that has seen, for this very reason, several editions already. Historian Walter Laqueur also belongs to the “old guard” of scholars working in the field of terrorism studies, although, in his case, the focus is more on guerrilla warfare than on terrorism—a choice he justifies by stating that “my assumption at that time was that while terrorism was a topic of great fascination, its political importance was limited” (Laqueur 2003, p. 9). Laqueur 2003 focuses on the latter since it now “assumed a far more important role” (p. 9) than before; it aims to explain the “new” elements in contemporary terrorism. Richardson 2006 grapples with and tries to understand the phenomenon of terrorism and is, most definitely, an easy-to-understand book on the topic for the general public. Of special note is Richardson’s critical discussion of the global war on terrorism that, according to her, cannot be won—after all, terrorism is a tactic, and terror an emotion, and you cannot wage war on either of them. Wilkinson 2011 also takes a critical view on this war on terrorism; exploring the “where will we end” aspect of it, the author forcefully argues that “by abandoning the due process under the rule of law and by violating the human rights of suspects, we betray the very values and principles which are the foundation of the democracies we seek to defend” (p. 77).
Crenshaw, M. 2011. Explaining terrorism: Causes, processes and consequences. New York: Routledge.
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Martha Crenshaw is one of the earliest academics specializing in what used to be a fringe discipline before the watershed events of 9/11. Among the highlights of this essay collection is her challenge of the familiar notion that 9/11 ushered in an age of “new” terrorism and her evaluation of pre- and post-9/11 counterterrorism strategies in the context of the “grand strategy” of American national security. Hence, this volume should be seen as required reading for anyone with a more than a fleeting interest in terrorism studies.
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Hoffman, B. 2006. Inside terrorism. 2d rev. ed. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
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In an easy-to-read way, and with broad brush strokes, Hoffman covers all major issues for anyone interested in gaining a quick overview about this field of studies, be it the undergraduate student exposed to terrorism studies for the first time, the postgraduate student or early-stage researcher in need of a quick brush-up, or the nonacademic reader with a more general interest in this area.
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Laqueur, W. 2003. No end to war: Terrorism in the twenty-first century. London: Continuum.
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In this work, Laqueur not only explores the rise of Islamist terrorism but also the reemergence of the Far Right, the rather diffuse “anti-Americanism” shared by many otherwise hostile movements, and, finally, the possible terrorist battlefields of the future. Whether one agrees with his position or not, reading this book leaves one with a better understanding of the past, present, and future of terrorism.
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Richardson, L. 2006. What terrorists want: Understanding the terrorist threat. London: John Murray.
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The first part of Richardson’s eloquently written book addresses the usual questions: What is terrorism, what are its roots, where do terrorists come from, and what makes them kill themselves to achieve their objectives? The second part examines counterterrorists, looking at what changed (or not) after 9/11 and what can be done to combat the threat of transnational terrorism.
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Wilkinson, P. 2011. Terrorism versus democracy: The liberal state response. 3d ed. New York: Routledge.
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Refuting the often-mentioned remark of Maggie Thatcher that “in order to protect democracy, you sometimes have no choice but to use undemocratic means,” Wilkinson forcefully and eloquently argues throughout this book that a balance needs to be kept between our quest for security on the one hand and the preservation of international human rights, peace, and stability on the other.
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Textbooks and Readers
There is no better way to gain a first impression on a new subject, or a thorough introduction, than by reading some well-written, and of course also well-researched, general introductions that cover all—or most—relevant issues, more often than not with annotated bibliographies for further study. The first category, textbooks, usually aim at undergraduate or graduate students and thus contain pedagogical elements such as the main arguments repeated at the end of each chapter and a battery of questions the reader should be able to answer. More general terrorism readers do not necessarily contain such didactical features but, normally in the shape of edited volumes, bring together contributions of scholars at the cutting edge of their respective fields of research. Hence, the careful study of such works should not be restricted to newcomers to the field of terrorism studies but has its advantages also for established researchers in search for reliable information on subfields outside of their own particular research interests. English 2009 is an elegantly written and easily readable book that offers a perfect introduction into terrorism studies for all those with no prior knowledge of this subject area. The same can be said for Weinberg 2005, arguably the most concise of these works, and Whitaker 2007, which offers a comprehensive introduction into the subject matter of terrorism based on a series of case studies. The other three volumes, Horgan and Braddock 2012, Howard and Hoffman 2011, and Kamien 2012, are edited volumes that go far beyond mere introductions into the field of terrorism studies. See also White 2013.
English, R. 2009. Terrorism: How to respond? Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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What is terrorism? Why do people resort to terrorism? Are there any lessons from terrorisms of the past? How can we respond? Without any doubt, these are the “big” questions usually looming large in the mind of readers interested in the subject of terrorism. Richard English convincingly answers these questions, with the underlying assumption that we cannot properly respond to terrorism if we fail to understand its nature.
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Horgan, J., and K. Braddock, eds. 2012. Terrorism studies: A reader. New York: Routledge.
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For this textbook, editors John Horgan and Kurt Braddock carefully selected a wide range of articles written by the leading experts in their respective fields, organizing them in sections on historical context, definitions, understanding/explaining terrorism, terrorist movements, terrorist behavior, counterterrorism, and current and future trends in terrorism. Hence, this textbook mainly aims at an audience of readers with some prior knowledge of terrorism and counterterrorism.
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Howard, R. D., and B. Hoffman, eds. 2011. Terrorism and counterterrorism: Understanding the new security environment: Readings and interpretations. 4th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
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At more than 800 pages, Russell Howard and Bruce Hoffman’s textbook offers an extensive selection of articles by leading experts in their fields previously published in a wide range of not always easily accessible sources. It provides the reader with a fascinating insight into many topics, ranging from more general discussions of broader themes to cutting-edge research articles on specialized issues such as genomic terrorism.
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Kamien, D. G., ed. 2012. The McGraw-Hill homeland security handbook. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
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Kamien’s massive edited work of no less than 1,200 pages basically covers anything of interest in the context of US homeland security—from chapters on terrorism in general to chapters on risk management and critical infrastructure protection to chapters on civil liberties, among many other useful contributions. Hence it can be recommended to students, graduate and postgraduate alike, as well as to scholars and security practitioners.
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Weinberg, L. 2005. Global terrorism: A beginner’s guide. Oxford: Oneworld.
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With his concise and rather short introduction into terrorism, Leonard Weinberg demonstrates that it is possible to (a) at least briefly cover all relevant topics in about 135 text pages and (b) also add a certain sense of humor. Hence for anyone in need of a quick beginner’s guide not overburdened with too many details, this is the one to go for.
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Whitaker, D. J. 2007. Terrorism reader. 3d ed. London: Routledge.
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David Whitaker’s terrorism reader covers conceptual and definitional issues as well as the psychology and sociology of terrorism on the one hand and legal and ethical problems of countering it on the other. What makes his book particularly interesting is the fact that he illustrates his argument with several case studies on different manifestations of terrorism throughout modern history, including Irish Republican Army (IRA), Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), and the Shining Path.
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White, J. R. 2013. Terrorism and homeland security. 8th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
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In its eighth edition, Jonathan R. White’s comprehensive study offers a useful conceptual and theoretical framework as well as a short historical background to modern terrorism in its first three parts before turning to a description and discussion of US homeland security agencies and their inner workings. For students of terrorism and US homeland security studies, this book is a “one-stop shop.”
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Conceptual Works
How does one define terrorism, and how does one conceptualize it? These are the first two questions that need to be asked—and answered—when dealing with the politically sensitive issue, and thus contested nature, of terrorism. Even more than a decade post-9/11, and after countless efforts from scholars as well as national and international bodies including the United Nations to arrive at a consistent and legally binding description of terrorism, the old adage of “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” still seems to apply. Hence, gaining a clear understanding of the concept of terrorism, and of the existing definitions, is an essential first step on the way to understanding, explaining, and eventually countering terrorism. With regard to critical terrorism studies, gaining a clear understanding of the concept of terrorism even seems to be the sine qua non for challenging current understandings and interpretations of this particular variant of political violence and to suggest a term better suited to describe and define it. Interestingly, critics of terrorism studies often express the view that although this “fringe discipline” has been around for a couple of decades now, nothing much has been achieved with regard to theoretical and conceptual approaches and that the bulk of the literature consists of nothing more than “storytelling” and rehashing arguments of other scholars, just in different words. However, as publications on terrorists’ motivation and behavior, radicalization and deradicalization, and the root causes of terrorism demonstrate, this bleak view could not be further from the truth. In this context, Ranstorp 2007 introduces readers into the state of the art: what has been achieved so far, what has not, and where the gaps are—these are the questions asked and answered in this volume. Silke 2004 also introduces terrorism research and the continuing problems this discipline faces, however also including more specialized chapters, for example of WMD terrorism research. The other two works (Schmid 2011 and Rapoport 2006) can be seen as reference works: Schmid 2011 is based on a questionnaire sent to about 100 experts in their field from more than twenty countries, while Rapoport 2006 explores critical concept of terrorism studies in a magnum opus of no less than 2,376 pages (hardcover edition). The first work cited here, Gupta 2008, deals with the life cycle of a terrorist movement from birth to its eventual demise—either because of an ultimate victory, an organizational decay, or a decisive defeat by the state or by the movement’s competitors.
Gupta, D. K. 2008. Understanding terrorism and political violence: The life cycle of birth, growth, transformation, and demise. New York: Routledge.
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Dipak Gupta’s brilliant study on the life cycle of terrorism actually offers much more than that: it offers an insight into the individual’s mind, for example, as well as a very sound conceptual framework that is both theoretically innovative and critical. Although Gupta’s style is not that accessible, his book should be seen as essential reading, especially for postgraduate students with some previous knowledge of terrorism.
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Ranstorp, M., ed. 2007. Mapping terrorism research: State of the art, gaps and future directions. London: Routledge.
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Magnus Ranstorp’s edited volume assesses the advances that have been made both in the fields of terrorism and counterterrorism, points out the still-existing gaps, and charts a course for future research by highlighting the most pressing issues as they appear at the moment. Hence, this book is of eminent value, especially for established scholars looking for priority research areas for their own future work.
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Rapoport, D., ed. 2006. Terrorism: Critical concepts in political science. 4 vols. New York: Routledge.
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First, it should be noted that the hardcover edition costs a whopping $;1,600; however, for those lucky enough to have a well-equipped (and well-funded) university library within reach, this series of four volumes adds a wealth of information to Rapoport’s “four waves of modern terrorism” concept, including historical details, group statements, participants’ views, government documents, and so on.
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Schmid, A. P. 2011. The Routledge handbook of terrorism research. New York: Routledge.
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Alex Schmid’s magnum opus includes more than 250 definitions of terrorism as well as surveys of existing theories and methodological approaches, followed by an exhaustive world directory of relevant organizations and movements and a 123-page bibliography of terrorist literature. When it comes to state-of-the-art terrorism research, this impressive handbook is second to none.
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Silke, A., ed. 2004. Research on terrorism: Trends, achievements and failures. London: Frank Cass.
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Andrew Silke’s introduction to terrorism research and the continuing problems this discipline faces also contains more specialized chapters, for example on WMD terrorism research (G. Cameron) and on terrorism and knowledge growth (A. Gordon). Chapters on empirical research, current and future trends in terrorism studies, and the pressing need for more first-hand research (J. Horgan) complete this interesting tour d’horizon of terrorism studies.
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General Histories
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, one could often hear the opinion that “the world’s a different place now”—with the implication that (a) we witnessed the birth of “new terrorism,” which logically means (b) there is nothing we can learn from the history of terrorism. Hence, many publications on terrorism written after 9/11 tend to either ignore its earlier manifestations or at least to give short shrift to all things historical—also arguably making it easier for newcomers to the subject since they can get up to speed much faster if they start with the birth of new terrorism at some time during the 1990s. Crenshaw 2011 (cited under Major Works) also draws attention on this convenient shortcut, pointing out “[if] policy makers can rely on a set of simple assumptions about terrorism, they need not concern themselves with understanding a contradictory and confusing reality” (p. 64). With regard to the religious content of this new terrorism, she argues that “if analysts can safely assume that religion is the cause of terrorism, they need not look for other more complex explanations that necessitate linking religion to other political, social, and economic factors” (p. 64). Rather, as the case of the United Kingdom under the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair demonstrates, such linkages (e.g., the link between radicalization and foreign policy) were regularly denied. However, a thorough understanding of the history of terrorism provides scholars with valuable insights on ideologies, strategies, and tactics used by terrorists before and on attempts to counter these earlier manifestations of terrorism. For example, when dealing with the history of terrorism, one realizes that many assertions around the “new terrorism” argument are not that convincing, and also that President Bush’s Global War on Terrorism (GWoT) was not the first one to be waged (actually, it was US President Theodor Roosevelt’s abortive one starting in 1902). Burleigh 2009 introduces the history of terrorism in an elegant, easy-to-read style. Of special interest are his chapters on Black September, the Red Brigades and the Red Army Faction, as well the one on what he calls “small nation terror,” which focuses on modern separatist movements such as the ETA and Provisional IRA. On the other hand, Carr 2007 offers not only a history of terrorism but also a rather critical reading and questioning of our understanding of the concept itself and the shifts it underwent with regard to its interpretations throughout the decades. Just like Carr’s work, Laqueur 2002 is not only a (very) detailed narrative of events past but also an interpretation of those events and their relevance for today, offering a fresh look at the phenomenon of terrorism. Law 2009 also leaves the well-trodden path and includes forms of terrorism not normally included in such works, for example white supremacy movements and American racial terrorism, alternative terrorism, and state terrorism. Hence, the works of Carr, Laqueur, and Law nicely complement each other. The strength of Chaliand and Blin 2007 lies in its detailed treatment of the early modern terrorism until its “golden age.” State terrorism, and, especially, ethno-national liberation movements emerging in the wake of both world wars and the New Left of the 1970s and 1980s are given short shrift, however. In a sense, the subtitle of this otherwise interesting volume was taken a bit too literally: from antiquity and anarchist terrorism straight away to Al Qaeda without much further ado.
Burleigh, M. 2009. Blood and rage: A cultural history of terrorism. New York: Harper Collins.
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Michael Burleigh leads his readers through the modern history of terrorism, from the Fenians and the Russian Nihilists to the Anarchists, then to the anticolonial movements and to the New Left, and finally to the Islamist movements of our times. Due to his very accessible writing style, this book is not only a valuable addition to the bookshelf of students and scholars but also appeals to the general reader.
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Carr, M. 2007. The infernal machine: A history of terrorism. New York: New Press.
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Matthew Carr believes “that those of us who are being terrorized have the right and even the obligation to re-examine how terrorism came to acquire such fearsome ascendancy over our era” (p. 4). In addition to contributing to this reexamination, Carr adds many interesting historical details, challenging even the advanced reader to reexamine his or her assumptions.
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Chaliand, G. A., and A. Blin, eds. 2007. The history of terrorism: From antiquity to Al Qaeda. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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Gérard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin’s edited volume brings together several eminent scholars illuminating the history of terrorism, starting with the well-known Sicarii and the Assassins before quickly moving on to the invention of modern terrorism to finally end with the time of Al Qaeda.
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Laqueur, W. 2002. A history of terrorism. New York: Little, Brown.
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Walter Laqueur’s work is a sheer tour de force, touching upon the Sicarii and the Thugs; toying with the legend of Judith and Holofernes; making references to Cicero, Goethe, and Schiller; and commenting on Karl Heinzen’s dream of weapons that “could destroy whole cities” (p. 27). It is not for beginners, especially so since Laqueur seems to have a penchant for returning to arguments and positions long after he has shot them down, jumping backward and forward through the vast tempo-spatial landscape he covers. Second printing with new introduction.
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Law, R. 2009. Terrorism: A history. Themes in History. Cambridge. MA: Polity.
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Randall Law starts his journey through the history of terrorism with three chapters on terror and tyrannicide—in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Early Modern era in Europe. Is tyrannicide a form of terrorism or not? The following chapters of his study deal with modern forms of terrorism. As such, his history of terrorism offers a refreshing different perspective.
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Modern Terrorism
General histories of (modern) terrorism make for an interesting and insightful read, but for specialists interested in particular manifestations of terrorism, such as the Fighting Communist Organizations (FCOs) or ethno-nationalist movements, more specialist publications are required to satisfy their scientific curiosity or their research needs. As readers have seen, trying to define terrorism is not exactly a straightforward task, and even under the lingering impression of 9/11 and the GWoT, it is contested due to its sensitivity and, thus, ambiguity. It then should not come as a surprise that attempts to categorize the various manifestations of terrorism according to their aims and objectives hardly fare better. Even trying to discern terrorists into “left” and “right” is not nearly as straightforward as it seems, as Laqueur (see Laqueur 2003, cited under Major Works) points out: “The use of terms like ‘left’ and ‘right’ has become more and more problematical with the passing of time. [. . .] Terrorist groups of the extreme ‘left’ have often become aggressively nationalistic, whereas those of the far right are second to none with their ardent anticapitalism and anti-Americanism. Trotskyites have given critical support to Ayatollah Khomeini and the Taliban with their radical ‘anti-imperialism,’ and neo-Nazis are suggesting a ‘third position,’ an anti-Westernism that should unite extremists from the left and the right. [. . .] Is Osama bin Laden a man of the left or the right?” (p. 8). Hence, to provide readers with a straightforward overview of publications on different terrorist groups, this annotated bibliography contents itself to simply break them down according to their typical geographical reach into the categories of national/regional (including the FCOs), which had a clear national, geographic focus although also cooperating across borders, and transnational/international (the latter containing basically all the Al Qaeda-related publications). Of course, that necessitates riding roughshod across potential changes over time as well as across the categories of “old” and “new” terrorism, and some groups identified as terrorist groups here are, strictly speaking, guerrilla movements using terror as a tactic among others. And admittedly, there is a bias for the current wave of transnational terrorism and Al Qaeda. Nevertheless, these basic categories are, at the very least, user-friendly: Even if readers would disagree whether a given group should be termed religious or ethno-nationalist, they can surely agree on the region in which that group is based and on its geographical reach.
Europe
This subsection on national and regional terrorism in Europe covers eight publications on second- to fourth-wave movements, with a focus on Salafism-Jihadism. Alexander and Pluchinsky 1992 is cited as the standard work for the so-called New Left of the 1970s and 1980s, also known as FCOs and part of Rapoport’s third wave of modern terrorism. The works of English 2004 and Currie and Taylor 2011 address the history of the IRA and Irish Republicanism, while Mansvelt-Beck 2005 covers Basque nationalism and the ETA. Both the IRA and the ETA can be seen as a continuation of Rapoport’s second wave of modern terrorism (i.e., the ethno-nationalist liberation movements). On the other hand, Currie and Taylor 2013 focuses on the reemergence of extreme right-wing terrorism—probably an underestimated threat, first overshadowed by the terrorism of the New Left, then by Al Qaeda. Since the latter has not yet disappeared, the remaining three works deal with the threat posed by Salafism-Jihadism in Europe: Vidino 2006 contends that the Madrid 2004 and the London 2005 bombings are “simply the most visible signs of a larger problem” and that “over the years, Europe has become a major base of operations for Al Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups, a fact that has major consequences for the security around the world—including the United States” (p. 16). This view is reinforced by the interviews in Pargeter 2008 that, in a sense, can be seen as a companion piece to Gerges 2009 (cited under Al Qaeda and Beyond) on the “Far Enemy”: Just like Gerges, Pargeter very convincingly demolishes the notion of a monolithic block driven by the same ideology, the same aims and objectives, and the same imperatives. Against the backdrop of counterterrorism and deradicalization strategies developed in Brussels and in the member states of the European Union, this is quite an important message: To effectively combat one’s enemy, one must first understand him.
Alexander, Y., and D. Pluchinsky. 1992. Europe’s red terrorists. The fighting communist organizations. London: Frank Cass.
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This interesting work contains background information on the third wave or New Left terrorist groups active in Western Europe. It is also quite valuable for answering the question of how effective the cooperation of FCOs has been.
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Currie, P. M., and M. Taylor, eds. 2011. Dissident Irish Republicanism. London: Continuum.
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As recent incidents in Northern Ireland demonstrate, for some, “it’s not over yet.” This begs the question of who they are, why do they choose to become what is now called Dissident Republicans, and how serious is the threat they pose. All these questions, and more, are answered in this very interesting collection of essays.
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Currie, P. M., and M. Taylor, eds. 2013. Extreme right-wing political violence and terrorism. London: Continuum.
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This timely collection of essays examines why Western states still tend to be “blind in the right eye” by discussing several current manifestations of extreme right-wing political violence and their modus operandi. Also discussed are the shifting patterns of enmity between extreme right-wing and Islamist extremists, while another chapter focuses on Breivik’s mindset in the context of extreme right-wing counter-jihad activities.
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English, R. 2004. Armed struggle: The history of the IRA. London: Pan Books.
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Richard English’s book on the IRA’s history is a masterly fusion of storytelling and in-depth analysis, wrapped in a very accessible, easy-to-read style. Hence it is a perfect read not only for students and scholars interested in cutting-edge research but also for the general public looking for a book that is not only educating but entertaining as well.
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Mansvelt-Beck, J. 2005. Territory and terror: Conflicting nationalisms in the Basque country. London: Routledge.
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Mansvelt-Beck’s book on the ongoing nationalist struggle in the Basque country takes a look at the internal and oftentimes quite passionate discourse on what this “nationalism” actually constitutes and what kind of role territoriality plays in this search for a nationalist self-identification. It offers new insights basically for anyone with an interest in nationalism—not only in the politically violent manifestations of it.
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Pargeter, A. 2008. The new frontiers of jihad: Radical Islam in Europe. London: I. B. Taurus.
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Based on many interviews, Alison Pargeter’s fascinating in-depth study of radical Islam in Europe demonstrates the differences with regard to local and global concerns hidden behind the motives of different factions and the national jealousies and rivalries lurking just beneath the seemingly smooth surface of radical Islam in Europe.
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Shay, S. 2008. Islamic terror and the Balkans. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
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Shaul Shay offers an insightful overview on Islamist terrorism in the Balkans—first, how it got there against the backdrop of the bitter wars following the break-up of Yugoslavia; second, how Islamist terror cells managed to strike roots in previously rather secular Muslim societies; and third, what these entrenched terrorist activities mean for Europe and the rest of the world.
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Vidino, L. 2006. Al-Qaeda in Europe: The new battleground for international jihad. Amherst, NY: Prometheus.
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In this highly recommended study, Vidino takes a close look at Islamism in Europe in general and the ways in which terrorist cells operate in particular. Some of the questions raised and convincingly answered by the author, among others, include: Who are the terrorists, how do they raise money, how do they recruit, and, particularly, how are they radicalized?
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Middle East and Northern Africa
This subsection on national and regional manifestations in the Middle East and northern Africa region focuses on the causes of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict and its main actors Hamas and Hezbollah. The causes are addressed in Nasr 2007, which paints a rather negative picture with regard to the effectiveness of terrorism as well as of counterterrorism operations. Gunning 2008 and Levitt 2006 focus on Hamas, both offering comprehensive introductions to the group that do not require any previous knowledge. Harik 2007 does the same for Hezbollah, drawing on two decades of personal experience with the group—an experience the author gained as a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut. The new threat posed by Islamist terrorism is addressed in Fishman 2008, which offers an in-depth look into the operation of Al Qaeda in Iraq between spring 2006 and summer 2007, and in Shay 2007, which provides an in-depth analysis of what the author calls the “Red Sea terror triangle” (i.e., the countries Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen).
Fishman, B., ed. 2008. Bombers, bank accounts and bleedout. Al-Qa’ida road in and out of Iraq. Harmony Project. West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center.
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Fishman’s edited book on Al Qaeda in Iraq deals with the role of foreign fighters; recruitment, finance, and suicide operations; and the future of Al Qaeda in Iraq. This detail-rich publication was made possible by the author’s team’s access to the classified Harmony Database that includes hundreds of reports of of Al Qaeda in Iraq operators.
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Gunning, J. 2008. Hamas in politics: Democracy, religion, and violence. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
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Jeroen Gunning offers a comprehensive introduction into Hamas, covering its origin and evolution plus its political philosophy before examining it as a political actor from an internal, domestic, and international perspective. Of special note is his introductory chapter on how to study an organization or movement such as Hamas and the challenges and pitfalls of such a study.
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Harik, J. P. 2007. Hezbollah: The changing face of terrorism. London: I. B. Tauris.
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Judith Palmer Harik’s work on the Hezbollah is the most authoritative as well as the most detailed treatment of the group that discusses every possible aspect of relevance for students of terrorism, political science, international relations, or modern history. One could even call her fascinating, insightful, and very readable work a “handbook of Hezbollah.”
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Levitt, M. 2006. HAMAS: Politics, charity, and terrorism in the service of jihad. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
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Matthew Levitt’s authoritative work discusses all possible aspects of this group, including its works as a charity, its political dimension (bunking the myth that there are actually two separate wings, a militant and a political one), the tactical uses of its religious education, and its foreign funding. In a conclusion, he also raises the question under which conditions Hamas could also target the West.
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Nasr, K. B. 2007. Arab and Israeli terrorism: The causes and effects of political violence, 1936–1993. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
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Focusing on specific operations and incidents, Kameel B. Nasr offers a comprehensive overview on the use of terrorism as a tactic on both sides of the bitter conflict—and its ineffectiveness with regard to reaching the aimed-for outcome despite the ever-rising number of civil casualties. He then makes the same argument for counterterrorism operations: Despite rising numbers of civil casualties, they remain ineffective.
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Shay, S. 2007. The Red Sea terror triangle: Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Islamic terror. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
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In the context of Somalia, until recently the focus seemed to be on the pirates and the Gulf of Aden. Shay’s as usual well-written and well-researched book moves away from the sea to the land, inspecting the radical Islamist organizations active in these three countries and the activities of Islamist terror cells based there.
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Asia
The selected works on Asia, arguably a very vast region, focus mainly on South and Southeast Asia as currently the “second fronts” of terrorism when it comes to global Salafism-Jihadism. However, Tan 2007 and Upadhyay 2008 make it clear that it is not all about Al Qaeda, as some scholars would have it, by describing and analyzing the changing and complex patterns of terrorism in Southeast Asia and in northern India, respectively. McCargo 2009 drives home this point further in an interesting case study on the Deep South of Thailand, the roots of which can be traced back to the 15th century. For the case of South Asia, and also demolishing the notion of a monolithic militant Islamism, Jalal 2008 analyzes how the concept of jihad that forms the underpinning of modern global Jihadism-Salafism evolved over the centuries to gel in its current understanding and usage by groups such as Lashkar e-Tayyiba or the Taliban. Hence, it is fair to say that terrorism and, by extension, counterterrorism and even counterinsurgency was an issue in this region long before 9/11—gaining prominence and more urgency in its aftermath and giving birth to its swift securitization as expressed by the “second front” labeling. Tan 2011 and Vicziany 2007 thus address the question of how to deal with this transnational terrorism that afflicts the whole Asia-Pacific. Viewing the Malayan Archipelago through a “security complex” lens, Tan 2011 critically examines the United States’ security strategy for this vast archipelagic subregion, convincingly arguing that the current focus on counterterrorism does not do justice to the complex interrelationship and security challenges of the constituent parts of it (i.e., Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore).
Jalal, A. 2008. Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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In her study, Ayesha Jalal explores the concept of jihad and its changing meaning throughout history in a South Asian context by asking (and answering) the following questions: How did its ethical underpinnings evolve during the centuries? How was it utilized in first in a precolonial then a colonial and finally a post-colonial setting? And, of course, how does the concept of jihad relate to terrorism in South Asia? Quite an interesting read.
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McCargo, D. 2009. Tearing apart the land: Islam and legitimacy in southern Thailand. Singapore: National Univ. of Singapore Press.
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One of the few scholarly contributions on the underexplored insurgency in Thailand’s Deep South is Duncan McCargo’s very detailed and fascinating book-length study. Based on personal interviews conducted in the region, he analyzes the actions of politicians, security services, and the militants while also exploring the role of Islam within this insurgency. Hence, his very nuanced and well-balanced findings on this conflict can well be called “authoritative.”
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Tan, A., ed. 2007. A handbook of terrorism and insurgency in Southeast Asia. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.
DOI: 10.4337/9781847207180Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
This interesting handbook provides a comprehensive overview on political violence past and present in both continental and archipelagic Southeast Asia in about 460 pages, covering Islamism, suicide terrorism, armed insurgencies and separatism as well as state terrorism (usually a rather neglected field), and, finally, counterterrorism. In a nutshell, this handbook helps to bring anyone interested in regional security studies up to speed for an affordable price (the paperback edition, that is).
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Tan, A. 2011. Security strategies in the Asia-Pacific: The United States’ “second front” in Southeast Asia. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
DOI: 10.1057/9780230339156Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
After convincingly describing and analyzing current forms of terrorism and insurgencies in Southeast Asia, Andrew Tan develops a comprehensive US security strategy that covers maritime security issues, great power rivalries, and the regional (naval) arms build-up as well. In a nutshell, this is an excellent work of eminent interest for anyone with an interest not only in terrorism studies but also in (regional) security studies in general.
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Upadhyay, A. 2008. India’s fragile borderlands: The dynamic of terror in north east India. London: I. B. Taurus.
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Archana Upadhyay’s short but groundbreaking study focuses on the dynamics of terrorism in India’s troubled northeast and its impact on the population. The author also briefly touches on issues such as the links between terrorism and organized crime and the problems of illegal migration. In sum, this book offers an interesting “bigger picture” explanation that puts the multitude of conflicts into the proper context.
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Vicziany, M., ed. 2007. Controlling arms and terror in the Asia-Pacific. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.
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In Marika Vicziany’s edited book, eighteen regional and country experts discuss how to counter terrorism in an Asia-Pacific perspective. It is divided into two parts—one on regional counterterrorism strategies and one containing case studies. Hence the book offers both a “bigger picture” as well as many “smaller pictures,” which means it is of interest for students of terrorism as well as for those interested in regional studies.
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North America
Many observers from the United States, especially those working in the field of counterterrorism, would probably ascribe to the iconic line “the world’s a different place now,” uttered in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. As Ronald Crelinsten points out (see Crelinsten 2009, cited under Conceptual Works of Counterterrorism), for many counterterrorism specialists, the world can be divided into a September 10 and a September 12 one—with the former being of not much relevance for current counterterrorism efforts. However, terrorism did not exactly start with Al Qaeda: Think about the Weather Underground, for example, or the rather quixotic Symbionese Liberation Army. Hence, this subsection also includes some works on terrorism prior to 9/11. Varon 2004, for example, offers an interesting comparison of the Weather Underground as the United States’ manifestation of the FCOs with Germany’s Red Army Faction. Rudd 2010 as an insider’s account provides additional information, although from a very personal perspective. With regard to the Symbionese Liberation Army, many available publications seem to unduly focus on Patty Hearst’s role within the group. An unbiased account of the group is given in Cumming 2011, which also puts the group into the proper context of the New Left in general. With regard to the world’s being a different place now, there is no better way to start than with the 9/11 Commission Report (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States 2004). Interestingly, while basically everyone has heard of it already in the news at some point, only very few actually went through its numerous pages—which is a pity, because even more than a decade after 9/11, the report makes for a chilling read. The other two works selected deal with the jihad on America’s soil. Emerson 2002 approaches this subject from a journalistic point of view, offering a wealth of information. Temple-Raston 2007 points at some inconvenient truths in that regard: that Americans tend to do a “double-take when Muslims board airplanes,” that they “narrow their lids when [Muslims] get on buses or subways with large backpacks,” and that the climate in the United States changed after 9/11 (p. xiv).
Cumming, G. G. 2011. The end of an era: The rise of the Symbionese Liberation Army and the fall of the New Left. Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest, UMI Dissertation Publishing.
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Although dissertations do not always make for an enjoyable read, Gregory Garth Cumming’s work convincingly analyzes the Symbionese Liberation Army against the backdrop of the rise and fall of the New Left. Hence, for anybody interested in FCOs in the United States, this is a must-read.
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Emerson, S. 2002. American jihad: The terrorists living among us. New York: Free Press.
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Steven Emerson is an investigative journalist and not an academic—probably the main reason why his well-researched book is so eminently readable. The fact that it reads well, however, should not distract from the wealth of information packed into this thoroughly researched contribution to this aspect of transnational jihadism. For all those interested in American jihad or “Jihad, American style” (p. 3), this book is well worth a look.
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National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. 2004. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton.
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The 9/11 Commission Report contains a wealth of information about perpetrators, planning, and execution of the 9/11 attacks; their aftermath with regard to human and financial costs; and intelligence and security failures that contributed to the success of 9/11. The findings provide the basis for a number of policy recommendations—not all of which have been translated into action for a variety of reasons.
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Rudd, M. 2010. Underground: My life with SDS and the Weathermen. New York: Harper.
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Although not necessarily an academic publication, Mark Rudd’s autobiographical account of his life underground as an activist first of the Students for a Democratic Society, then for the Revolutionary Youth Movement and finally for the Weather Underground Organization (aka the Weathermen) makes for quite an interesting read, providing readers with a wealth of personal insights, anecdotes, and lessons learned.
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Temple-Raston, D. 2007. The jihad next door: The Lackawanna Six and rough justice in an age of terror. New York: Public Affairs.
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On the basis of a case study on the Lackawanna Six, Dina Temple-Raston dissects the rise of prejudices against Muslims living in America post-9/11, which result, at times, in “rough justice” and lays bare the US penchant for “pre-emptive justice.” In sum, this book may not always be an easy read from a US perspective—but this, probably, is what makes it so important.
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Varon, J. 2004. Bringing the war home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and revolutionary violence in the sixties and seventies. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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Jeremy Varon takes an in-depth look at the aims and objectives, motivations, and ideology of the Weather Underground, comparing it with Germany’s Red Army Faction. The focal question of his interesting study is why young members of the prosperous middle class turn to violence and terrorism in order to try to fundamentally change the political system. Hence, this work also is of interest for those studying radicalization and deradicalization.
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Al Qaeda and Beyond
To say there are a lot of publications on Al Qaeda and transnational or global terrorism is quite an understatement, as anyone who has strolled past the political or security studies section of major bookshops at least once in the past decade will readily agree. Hence, we could actually compose a whole detailed bibliography on Al Qaeda alone. Instead, we have carefully picked a small selection of works that we deem to be important since they illuminate different aspects of global Salafism-Jihadism. To start with, Gerges 2009 examines why the jihad actually went global, effectively demolishing the view cherished by many observers that it is all about Al Qaeda and all about a jihad against the West waged by a monolithic block of activists driven by Al Qaeda’s ideology. This should be followed by Hellmich and Behnke 2012, which inspects this monolithic block known as Al Qaeda, which still seems to be all sorts of things for all sorts of people—a franchise, a virus, a network, a worldwide terrorist organization, a clearinghouse for jihadists, or part of a wider war against the West. Habeck 2006 then offers some insights into the jihadist ideology, shedding some light on the iconic “why do they hate us so much?” question. Many answers to this question were offered, from a wide range of commentators, including President Bush himself. Al Qaeda itself also offered some answers—answers, interpretations, and rationalizations that most of the time went ignored. Understanding their motives, and the Salafist-Jihadist variant of Islam that provides the ideological underpinnings for them, is not about “going soft” as some might think; rather, it is the sine qua non for countering these terrorists. Lawrence 2005 adds to our better understanding of Al Qaeda’s ideology by analyzing the statements of Osama bin Laden himself, also pointing at the numerous inconsistencies they contain. As such, this book makes for an interesting companion piece to Habeck 2006. Finally, Sageman 2004 analyzes the network structure of Al Qaeda.
Gerges, F. A. 2009. The far enemy: Why jihad went global. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511817793Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Based on painstaking, very detailed research and numerous interviews with Islamist activists as well as Islamist scholars, Fawaz A. Gerges fleshes out the internal divisions and factions of the global jihad and the struggle for the “right” ideology, as well as the “right” enemy, that might well result in a gradual “disfranchising” of Al Qaeda (p. 311) as the current bête noire of the West.
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Habeck, M. 2006. Knowing the enemy: Jihadist ideology and the war on terror. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
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Mary Habeck takes a look at the jihadist ideology and its manifold interpretations, justifications, and rationalizations, pointing out that the first question actually shouldn’t be the “why” question but rather a “who” question: Who is it that hates America enough to kill? As such, her book is an important one, helping to better understand our global enemy.
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Hellmich, C., and A. Behnke, eds. 2012. Knowing Al-Qaeda: The epistemology of terrorism. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
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To arrive at a better understanding of Al Qaeda, Christina Hellmich and Andreas Behnke collected contributions on Al Qaeda’s ideology, the conceptualization of its nature against the backdrop of the United States’ search for a “grand strategy,” and the problem of developing a “metrics of terror,” among other topics. Hence, this concise edited volume offers a refreshing new and critical approach on a still not completely understood enemy.
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Lawrence, B., ed. 2005. Messages to the world: The statements of Osama bin Laden. Translated by James Howarth. London: Verso.
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Bruce Lawrence’s book offers an annotated and comprehensive collection of the various public statements that have been published under Osama bin Laden’s name since 1994 in order to shed some light on the thinking of Al Qaeda’s longtime leader, his interpretation of Salafism-Jihadism, and the inconsistencies in his messages.
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Sageman, M. 2004. Understanding terror networks. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.
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Based on biographical data of almost 200 jihadists, Marc Sageman explores the social interactions and issues that propagate this movement: Where did the jihad come from, how did it evolve, who joins it, and what do their social networks look like? These are the main questions asked (and answered) in this insightful work. Hence this book is a must-read for students of terrorism studies.
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Etiology
After taking a look at the history of terrorism as well as at different variants of terrorism in the last two centuries, one could come to the conclusion that every generation has its own manifestation of terrorism. This view is reinforced by David Rapoport’s “Four Waves” model, offering quite a useful albeit not entirely convincing historical categorization of modern terrorism. Nevertheless, a question that is frequently asked is whether there are general factors that contribute to the rise of terrorism, or, more precisely, what are the underlying causes of this peculiar manifestation of political violence? Broadly speaking, two different approaches have been developed to answer these questions, one at the societal level trying to identify the “root causes” and one at the individual level trying to identify personal traits of terrorists in an attempt to profile them (mainly older works) or to arrive at a better understanding of what “becoming and being a terrorist” actually means. The proponents of the root causes approach argue that “only by understanding the forces leading to the emergence of terrorism [. . .] can we hope to devise a successful long-term counterterrorist strategy” (Crenshaw 2011, cited under Major Works), and that “military responses [to terrorism] will be insufficient unless the root causes also are addressed” (Frederic Smoler). Quite obviously then, if we really want to eradicate or “root out” terrorism—if that is possible at all—then we have to identify and address the underlying factors or “unique set of attributes” according to John Horgan (in Bjørgo 2006, p. 47). Proponents of the individual-level, psychologist approach beg to differ: Most of them would argue that the search for the root causes of terrorism is largely irrelevant due to the fact that the results are either inconclusive or pointing at immutable historical facts that cannot possibly be changed in retrospect. Hence with regard to countering or even preventing terrorism, efforts to understand why and how individuals become terrorists, whether there is an identifiable terrorist personality, and whether there are identifiable intervention points that could prevent an individual from becoming a terrorist—or at least encourage him or her to leave terrorism behind—are probably and potentially far more fruitful. Research in this direction also covers the issues of radicalization and deradicalization both of individuals and groups and the life cycles of movements—topics of research that are quite popular at the moment. In a sense, this is also a debate between structure and agency: Do forces beyond their control primarily drive terrorists, or can they “be considered to be free agents and rational actors who decide whether and when to adopt violence” (Crelinsten 2009, cited under Conceptual Works of Counterterrorism, p. 41)? But we leave that for the reader to decide. In any case, finding common traits underpinning terrorist activity, be they identifiable root causes such as poverty, lack of education, or “terrorist personalities, is not only an academic exercise: It would greatly help us in devising strategies to counter terrorism or even to prevent it.
Root Causes
To start with the root causes of terrorism, it rings true that “[addressing] the causes of a problem is often more effective than trying to fight its symptoms and effects” (Bjørgo 2006, frontispiece). Nevertheless, most of the proponents of this approach would agree that this is easier said than done. One of the contributors to Bjørgo 2006, Shri D. R. Kaarthikeyan, illustrates this unease with the root causes approach in great clarity. He readily admits that “[if] terrorism has to be combated effectively, a study of the root causes is a requisite precondition. A candid understanding and acknowledgement of deep-rooted sentiments that have provided an effective platform for the launch and growth of an armed struggle that has translated itself into terrorism would be the first step toward combating terrorism.” However, he adds an important caveat: “Addressing the root causes comes only secondary as in all probability it might be a Herculean and sometimes even impossible task to reverse the course of history that has given birth to these root causes” (Bjørgo 2006, p. 131). This, in essence, is the tenor of the contributions to Bjørgo 2006. Franks 2006 adds to the unease by revisiting the root causes of terrorism in a critical and positivist way, challenging what the author calls the “orthodox discourse” of terrorism studies plus its normative-ontological assumptions. The third and last work cited, Victoroff 2006, can be seen as a “hybrid” volume that straddles the categories, covering both social (root causes) and psychological (individual and group-level) explanations.
Bjørgo, T., ed. 2006. Root causes of terrorism: Myths, reality and ways forward. 2d ed. New York: Routledge.
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Contributions to this edited volume identify and conceptualize potential root causes while also pointing at the limitations of the root causes approach with regard to effectively combating terrorism here and now. After having carefully studied this thought-provoking volume, readers should be aware that it is far too simplistic to wheel out the “usual suspects” in the shape of poverty and lack of democracy to explain the emergence of terrorism.
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Franks, J. 2006. Rethinking the roots of terrorism. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
DOI: 10.1057/9780230502420Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Although we—“orthodox scholars” that we probably are (as seen by the critical terrorism studies school, at least)—do not necessarily share all of Frank’s arguments, we do concede that he sheds some (critical) light on some underexplored dimensions of the study of root causes by linking the causes of terrorism to the causes of conflict. As such, this book is a valuable contribution to the root causes debate.
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Victoroff, J., ed. 2006. Tangled roots: Social and psychological factors in the genesis of terrorism. Amsterdam: IOS.
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Jeff Victoroff’s edited volume starts by cataloguing our knowledge about the causes of terrorism and continues with sections on psychology and supporters of terrorism before turning to examining suicide terrorism. The reports of three working groups on the reduction of the efficacy of terrorism, the prevention of terrorist recruitment, and conflict prevention and resolution conclude this one-stop shop approach to the etiology of terrorism.
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Psychology
The psychology of terrorism has come a long way from initial attempts to profile terrorists in the hopes of finding common personal traits to the already mentioned question of why and how individuals become terrorists or why and how they become engaged with terrorism and what “being a terrorist” actually implies. With regard to countering terrorism, this research is of eminent interest because it also addresses the crucial question of why and how terrorists become disengaged (i.e., what makes them “walk away from terrorism”) and what this disengagement process could look like. Basically all experts in this field are agreed that the trajectories into terrorism and out of it again can be distinctly different from each other—which also implies that discovering milestones to be passed on the way in and out that are eminently important in the context of countering terrorism are admittedly difficult to detect and usually only become evident in post-hoc examinations of the life stories of then-already notorious terrorists. Horgan 2005, for example, demonstrates that disengaging does not necessarily mean just retracing one’s steps into terrorism, this time in reverse, but that the disengagement process can be quite different from the steps taken when the individual in question became a terrorist. In a sense, Horgan 2009 is a follow-up on this, now however focusing on deepening our understanding of why and how terrorists (or activists) stop being terrorists and walk away from it. This is also the main topic of Bjørgo and Horgan 2008, which offers the perspective of several eminent scholars on this issue. Ashour 2009 also focuses on disengagement and deradicalization, however on a collective level. Unlike most other scholars, he distinguishes between the three levels of “behavioral deradicalisation,” “ideological deradicalisation,” and “organizational deradicalisation” and the three types of comprehensive, substantial, and pragmatic deradicalization in an effort to push the theoretical debate forward. Gunaratna, et al. 2011 and Rabasa, et al. 2010 supplement these works by examining current deradicalization programs in Muslim as well as certain non-Muslim states, discussing their successes and their failures. Ranstorp 2010 and Silke 2011 deal with the psychology of counterterrorism: Ranstorp 2010 contends that, with regard to preventing terrorism—one of the major aims, for example, of the United Kingdom’s CONTEST counterterrorism strategy—a sound knowledge and understanding of factors leading to the radicalization of susceptible individuals is imperative in order to stop them at the earliest stage of their personal slippery slope into terrorism, while Silke 2011 can be seen as the essential companion piece to the works on the psychology of terrorism mentioned above.
Ashour, O. 2009. The de-radicalization of jihadists: Transforming armed Islamist movements. New York: Routledge.
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Omar Ashour argues, “Islamist de-radicalization [. . .] is neither addressed nor theorized about sufficiently in the literature” (p. 30). On the basis of case studies from the Middle East and northern Africa, he then sets out to develop a rather interesting theoretical approach to collective disengagement and deradicalization. For this reason alone, his book is most definitely worth a read.
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Bjørgo, T., and J. Horgan. 2008. Leaving terrorism behind: Individual and collective disengagement. New York: Routledge.
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The biggest selling point of Tore Bjørgo and John Horgan’s excellent edited volume on individual and collective disengagement is the fact that it goes beyond the current “usual suspects” in the shape of Islamist extremism and deradicalization programs run by Muslim countries by including insightful contributions focusing on the exit from extreme right-wing groups and on deradicalization programs tailored for these movements and their activists.
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Gunaratna, R., J. Jerard, and L. Rubin, eds. 2011. Terrorist rehabilitation and counter-radicalisation. New York: Routledge.
DOI: 10.1201/b11028Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
This edited volume examines the disengagement/deradicalization programs of seven countries (the Muslim countries Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen plus the secular city-state of Singapore), followed by a short conclusion that sheds some light on the difficulty of generalizing context-specific approaches and highlights the imperative of further empirical studies for the purpose of the battle for hearts and minds.
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Horgan, J. 2005. The psychology of terrorism. New York: Routledge.
DOI: 10.4324/9780203496961Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
For this book, John Horgan interviewed a range of inmates with a (Provisional IRA) terrorist past, exploring how they became engaged in terrorism and what “being a terrorist” actually means. His findings are conceptualized in an analytical chapter that draws light on the “process character” of becoming and being a terrorist and on the manifold roles that individuals occupy during their careers as terrorists.
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Horgan, J. 2009. Walking away from terrorism: Accounts of disengagement from radical and extremist movements. New York: Routledge.
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As Horgan explains in this book, again on the basis of interviews (this time also encompassing Islamist terrorists), “walking away” from terrorism appears to be a two-step process: first, walking away from violence (disengaging), and second, walking away from radical beliefs (deradicalization). On the basis of his findings, Horgan develops a multitrack counterterrorism strategy that also draws on the recommendations of the Club de Madrid.
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Rabasa, A., S. L. Pettyjohn, J. J. Ghez, and C. Boucek, eds. 2010. Deradicalizing Islamist extremists. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
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With regard to general recommendations for deradicalization programs, this fascinating report contains some elements deemed to be suitable for any such program. Basically, Rabasa, et al. identified three essential issues that are of relevance, irrelevant of the specific context: (a) facilitate the process of disengagement, (b) make disengagement more attractive, and (c) assist extremists after deradicalization.
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Ranstorp, M., ed. 2010. Understanding violent radicalisation: Terrorist and jihadist movements in Europe. New York: Routledge.
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As Magnus Ranstorp points out in his introduction to this edited volume, “preventing violent radicalization [has] to be an overarching priority to complement the tactical intelligence, law enforcement and military firefighting efforts occurring across different theatres around the world” (p. 1). The contributions to this volume do this with great success, offering theoretical approaches as well as interesting case studies, thus putting the process of radicalization into the proper spatio-temporal context.
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Silke, A., ed. 2011. The psychology of counter-terrorism. New York: Routledge.
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The various contributions to this volume add a distinct counterterrorism dimension to the psychology of terrorism, asking (and answering) the question of how psychology could improve our understanding not only of terrorism but also of counterterrorism. Of particular interest are the sections on terrorists and extremists in prisons; interrogation tactics; and target hardening, surveillance, and the prevention of terrorism.
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Specific Types of Terrorism, Terrorist Modus Operandi, and Tactics
How does terrorism actually manifest itself? What kinds of tactics and weapons have been and will be used by terrorists in the past, present, and future? The publications cited in this section focus on this, the most visible aspect of terrorism.
Suicide Terrorism
At the moment, and with regard to terrorist weapons and tactics, the subfield of suicide terrorism seems to be growing in leaps and bounds, quickly moving from first-generation explanations (suicide terrorists are either brainwashed or deranged or both) to fourth-generation ones (it’s far more complex and complicated). Hence, selected here are the leading works of each of those four generations in order to help the reader acquire a good overview of the subfield. With regard to Pape 2005, it is probably fair to say that although nowadays there is a whole literature out there challenging this trailblazing work, the author firmly established research on this phenomenon as an academic subfield of terrorism studies in its own right. He did not need to wait long for opposing views: Bloom 2005, also belonging to the second generation, is to a large degree a challenge to findings in Pape 2005, contending that Pape’s otherwise useful explanation “glosses over the domestic political dynamics and organizational motivations for outbidding” (p. 84). In our opinion, however, the leading second-generation explanation of suicide terrorism is Pedahzur 2005, focusing on the utility and strategic logic of such operations. The third-generation work Anat 2007 sheds some light on the “inner world” of the suicide bombers as well as on their dispatchers and others belonging to this special circle, while Singh 2011 on Hamas’s suicide bombings belongs to what is known as the fourth generation of suicide terrorism studies and thus represents the cutting edge of research in that subfield of terrorism studies. The remaining works explore some issues of suicide terrorism in more detail. Moghadam 2008, for example, focuses on Al Qaeda and the global Salafist-Jihadist movement for an analysis of the utility and logic of suicide missions, arguing that in the wake of 9/11, their suicide missions far outnumber “attacks conducted by the previously dominant groups” (p. 251), while Hafez 2007 offers an interesting case study on Iraq that puts the suicide mission in context with domestic politics and the insurgency in that country. Reuter 2004 offers a very specialized modern history of suicide terrorism/bombing as an excellent companion piece to the other, more conceptual and theoretical works covered here.
Anat, B. 2007. The path to paradise: The inner world of suicide bombers and their dispatchers. Westport, CT: Praeger.
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Berko Anat’s work belongs to the third generation of studies of suicide terrorism, which focuses not on irrationality and brainwashing (first generation) or the organizational logic of suicide terrorism (second generation) but on its symbolic and social meaning for the individuals involved (lesser so for the organizations). Hence this volume is the logical progression from the second-generation works of Bloom 2005 or Pape 2005.
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Bloom, M. 2005. Dying to kill: The allure of suicide terrorism. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
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Although accepting that Robert Pape’s “model correctly identifies the motivations of nationalist-inspired suicide terrorists,” Mia Bloom argues that “it does not fully explain why religious groups [. . .] might use it” (p. 84). As such, Bloom’s book, which also belongs to the second generation of suicide terrorism studies, should be read after Pape 2005—if we were to organize a course on suicide terrorism, that is.
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Hafez, M. M. 2007. Suicide bombers in Iraq: The strategy and ideology of martyrdom. Washington, DC: United Institute of Peace Press.
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After providing some context on the different factions involved in this insurgency and rather briefly sketching out various suicide operations, the author examines the special Iraqi blend of martyrdom ideology and its religious foundation. Also, he takes a look at the various transnational networks active in Iraq and the volunteers they recruit.
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Moghadam, A. 2008. The globalization of martyrdom: Al Qaeda, Salafi Jihad, and the diffusion of suicide attacks. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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In order to explain the rapid spread of this tactic across the world of Islam (Darul Islam), Moghadam explores (and emphasizes) the role of Salafism-Jihadism. His arguments are quite thought-provoking: Some scholars working on this subfield may take issue with it, and call it an “overemphasis.” That may be, but Moghadam’s analysis is well worth a read.
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Pape, R. 2005. Dying to win: The strategic logic of suicide terrorism. New York: Random House.
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Robert Pape’s work marks a break with the nonacademic first-generation publications on suicide terrorism that usually depicts the perpetrators as irrational, deranged, crazy, or even brainwashed individuals. He inaugurates a sober and detached second-generation approach that focuses on suicide terrorism’s inherent strategic, social, and even individual logic. For this reason, this book still is a must-read.
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Pedahzur, A. 2005. Suicide terrorism. Malden, MA: Polity.
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Ami Pedahzur’s monograph can be seen as an authoritative and incisive second-generation introduction into suicide terrorism. Focusing on the utility and strategic logic of such missions to the organizations making use of them, Pedahzur offers the cases of Hezbollah, Hamas, LTTE and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party for illustration. Good for graduate as well as postgraduate students interested in this subfield of terrorism studies.
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Reuter, C. 2004. My life is a weapon: The modern history of suicide bombing. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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Christoph Reuter offers a modern history of this phenomenon in the context of modern terrorism and modern asymmetric warfare. Broadening the topic from “suicide terrorism” to “suicide bombing” allows him to also cover the Japanese kamikaze and the Iranian suicide units of the Iran–Iraq war of 1980–1988 on top of chapters on Israel and Palestine, Al Qaeda, and separatist movements such as the LTTE and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
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Singh, R. 2011. Hamas and suicide terrorism: Multi-causal and multi-level approaches. London: Routledge.
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Rashmi Singh analyzes Hamas’s suicide campaigns on the underlying assumption that suicide attacks are both acts of strategic expediency and practical reason as well as acts that are simultaneously symbolic, ritualistic, and communicative. She convincingly argues that despite clear distinctions with regard to organizational and individual motivations behind the attacks, the choice of suicide violence is a rational one for both parties involved.
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WMD Terrorism
Another significant current issue in the field is WMD terrorism. Whether WMD terrorism should be seen as a real threat in the sense of constituting a “clear and present danger” or just another “fad of the day” in the world of terrorism studies lies in the eyes of the proverbial beholder, and many academics are doubtful of the veracity of this particular threat. However, the position of most Western governments in this regard is more than clear: They prefer, for perfectly understandable reasons, to err on the safe side. Former US Vice President Dick Cheney’s One Percent Doctrine is one example for this, but even more so the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review that turns Cheney’s opinion into actual policy: “The most immediate and extreme threat today is nuclear terrorism. Al Qaeda and their extremist allies are seeking nuclear weapons. We must assume they would use such weapons if they managed to obtain them” (US Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review Report, April 2010, p. iv). Taking this so far only imagined WMD terrorism or chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) terrorism as serious as the US government undoubtedly does translates in the real world into allocating vast amounts of public funds for measures to protect against it. Hence, developing a sound understanding of this threat is paramount—especially for those tasked with assessing this and other threats in order to reach decisions based on sober facts, not on somber worst-case scenarios. For these reasons, we selected a small sample of levelheaded publications on this specific terrorism while avoiding the more speculative ones. While Gurr and Cole 2002 provides readers with an overview of this “new face of terrorism,” the other three works cited focus on individual WMDs: Jenkins 2008 critically discusses the nuclear dimension, challenging the popular notion of “probable, inevitable, and imminent nuclear doom” (p. 28) and, by extension, the conviction held dear by many interested parties that terrorists, especially those of Al Qaeda and some affiliates, will “go nuclear.” Tucker 2000 examines biological and chemical weapons and their potential suitability for terrorists, while Kellman 2007 hones in on biological agents. Against the backdrop of pandemics such as the bird flu and swine flu, and in the light of the recently disseminated results of Dutch scientists who created a far more contagious and far deadlier strain of the ordinary flu, discussing measures on how to prevent terrorists (and crime) to misuse life sciences for their ends makes eminent sense indeed—and so does a sober assessment of the “real” threat of bio-violence.
Gurr, N., and B. Cole. 2002. The new face of terrorism. Threats from weapons of mass destruction. London: I. B. Tauris.
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Nadine Gurr and Benjamin Cole examine WMD terrorism from a critical perspective, highlighting not only opportunities such weapons offer for terrorists but also constraints and inhibitory controls that make their use not as likely as one assumes. As such, their study contrasts well with the more speculative publications that seem to take it as a given that it is not a question if but when.
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Jenkins, B. 2008. Will terrorists go nuclear? Amherst, NY: Prometheus.
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For many experts, it is not a question of if but of when terrorists will go nuclear, while others tend to dismiss the threat maybe a tad too hastily. Brian Jenkins’ contribution to this debate discusses the issue in a critical way. Indeed, “fear warps our judgment,” as he concludes (p. 377). Reading this book addresses this fear and improves the reader’s judgment as well.
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Kellman, B. 2007. Bioviolence: Preventing biological terror and crime. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511510625Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
The first part of Barry Kellman’s book offers a thorough introduction into biological agents that could be used with deadly effect and a discussion on who might actually be interested in them. Its second part assesses international efforts in place or planned to prevent the proliferation of biological weapons and the state of public health preparedness. Hence this is an important contribution to this subfield of terrorism.
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Tucker, J. B., ed. 2000. Toxic terror: Assessing terrorist use of chemical and biological weapons. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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Jonathan Tucker’s edited volume fills a gap: Instead of speculating on how terrorists could use biological and chemical weapons, this book takes a look at how terrorists used them before and to what effect. The chapters drive home the message that, invariably, the results were rather poor. The historical case studies include the Weather Underground, R.I.S.E, the German Red Army Faction, the Rajneeshees, Aum Shinrikyo, and some extreme right-wing outfits.
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Aviation and Maritime Terrorism
When it comes to attacking transport systems, aviation terrorism and maritime terrorism seem to stand out—the former because civil airliners arguably are the most iconic targets terrorists can strike, due to a number of factors that are well explained in Harrison 2009, which offers an interesting introduction to international aviation and terrorism, covering the situation pre- and post-9/11. On the other hand, the also quite interesting volume Wilkinson and Jenkins 2007 belongs to the so-called 10 September world—long since forgotten, especially by hardliners and all those intending to be hard on terrorism and thus denouncing “soft” approaches not focusing on kinetic actions but on negotiations and diplomacy, but maybe just for this reason still of value. With regard to maritime terrorism, this new and rather hypothesized threat seemed to loom large on the horizon: After Al Qaeda successfully attacked the United States on land and in the air, maybe they will attack at sea next? This fear led to quite a few more or less probable mass-casualty scenarios, that one of the present authors (PL) likes to call the “nightmare charts of maritime terrorism.” These imagined and potentially disastrous “high impact, low probability” threats are acknowledged but largely discarded in Herbert-Burns, et al. 2009, which focuses on the far more pedestrian but also far more likely “high probability, low impact” attacks that did occur and might occur in the future as well.
Harrison, J. 2009. International aviation and terrorism. London: Routledge.
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John Harrison’s concise book covers all relevant issues, ranging from a chapter on the international civil aviation regime to current (terrorist) threats to international aviation, efforts to counter them, and a short assessment on “Al Qaeda’s war” in the light of potential failures in aviation security. For all those interested in gaining a quick overview of the topic without being treated to much jargonese, this is the book of choice.
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Herbert-Burns, R., S. Bateman, and P. Lehr, eds. 2009. Lloyd’s MIU handbook of maritime security. Boca Raton, FL: CRC.
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The edited volume offers a collection of articles that are organized into five sections: the new maritime environment after 9/11, the maritime industry’s perspective on threats and responses, the legal framework for maritime security, and, regional and national counter-measures to the threat. Hence the volume covers basically all relevant aspects of maritime terrorism as a one-stop shop on this subfield.
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Wilkinson, P., and B. Jenkins, eds. 2007. Aviation terrorism and security. 2d ed. London: Routledge.
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This concise edited volume covers topics such as the politics of aviation terrorism, aircraft sabotage, the missile threat to civil aviation, and aviation security in the United States and in general, before and after Lockerbie. It is a republished and, strangely enough, not updated version of the 1999 original, so lessons learned in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks are not included.
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Terrorism and the Media
As Brian Jenkins famously quipped, terrorism is theatre. And since theatre is nothing without an audience, it thus follows that terrorism is also, in a sense, a communication strategy: There is a message that needs to be conveyed to an audience, be it the terrorists’ supporters and potential recruits whose morale need to be strengthened, the national or international public that needs to be made aware of “the cause,” or the “enemy” whose morale needs to be weakened. Since the bulk of these audiences are not locals (i.e., not immediate witnesses of a terrorist act), terrorists depend on mass media, however defined, to get their message across. Mass media, on the other hand, depends on “breaking news” to sell their products in the shape of newspapers, magazines, or advertisement slots on radio or TV. According to the old adage “if it bleeds it leads” or “bad news sells,” some scholars would argue that, consequently, there is a symbiotic relationship between terrorists and the media. Others are more cautious, arguing that mass media as a gatekeeper with regard to terrorists’ access to a wider public has, on occasion, shown voluntary self-restraint, denying the terrorists the “oxygen of publicity,” as Margaret Thatcher once put it. This way or another, the media could arguably play a crucial role with regard to terrorism and counterterrorism. Having said that, with the advent of 24/7, 365-day news coverage on the Internet via YouTube or Twitter, keeping inconvenient news under wraps even for a certain amount of time is akin to a mission impossible: There always seem to be some gatekeepers willing to break the news, with others following suit in a hurry. Even more ominously, the boundaries between newsmakers and news breakers have become so blurred that it is hard to distinguish between them. Arguably, the new challenges posed by those postmodern media outlets are of immediate importance for the development of counternarratives and the question on how to respond to terrorists or preachers of hate. All these questions are expertly dealt with in Nacos 2007. Discussing the Internet, YouTube, Skype, Facebook, and other social media in the context of terrorism usually leads to yet another fad of the day in the shape of cyber terrorism. Many a doomsday scenario has been peddled during the past couple of years, with the fear of an “Electronic Pearl Harbor” as a kind of a starting shot. Speculations, if not overdone, are well and good: One could generously include the more thought-out scenarios under the label of “horizon-scanning.” However, more fruitful at the moment, and seen against the backdrop of the rather nonsensical Innocence of Muslims film, is looking at how terrorists—and, by extension, preachers of hate—actually use the Internet and for what purpose. This is what Weimann 2006 explores and explains in an insightful study.
Nacos, B. L. 2007. Mass-mediated terrorism. The central role of the media in terrorism and counterterrorism. 2d ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
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Brigitte Nacos’ book, already in its second edition, explores the relationship between media and terrorism, covering modern mass media including global 24/7 television as well as the role of the Internet in empowering terrorists. Chapters on how to respond to the terrorists’ use of modern mass media are also provided, thus turning this impressive work into a one-stop shop on terrorism and the media.
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Weimann, G. 2006. Terror on the Internet: The new arena, the new challenges. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press.
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Gabriel Weimann starts by describing what the “new” Internet-based media can do for terrorist groups. Whether cyber-terrorism is a real threat or an imagined one is discussed next, and ways to respond to the terrorists’ use of the Internet are sketched out as well. A thoughtful chapter on the impact of “counter-cyber-terrorism” measures on civil liberties concludes the book.
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Horizon-Scanning
While the study of suicide terrorism and WMD terrorism undeniably are the two most popular subfields of terrorism studies, there are other issues that merit some in-depth exploration as well. Among the more persisting, and far removed from any “fads of the day” with regard to terrorism studies, is the art of horizon-scanning: the question of what kind of terrorists will strike us with what kind of weapon for what kind of reason, for example, is just one of those that keep intelligence services or major police forces tasked with countering terrorism rather busy. In order to preempt a terrorist threat, and to predict a potential future threat, a sound understanding of terrorists’ target selection, their capability for innovation and institutional learning, and the relevance of advanced modern weapons systems for them is essential. The following books cover these issues. The oldest one, Drake 1998, warns us against a “one size fits all” approach with regard to terrorists’ target selection: “This is because, despite surface similarities, each terrorist group is unique in its personnel, its ideology, and the environment within which it operates. Therefore, one must avoid creating models or theories which are so specific that, whilst they may fit some groups like a glove, are inappropriate to others (p. 175).” In this context, it is often taken for granted that terrorist groups would try their best to lay their hands on advanced weapons systems, such as newest-generation antitank systems and MANPADS, in order to strike at a wider range of targets with a higher grade of lethality. Bonomo, et al. 2007 offers an interesting in-depth study on this question, with some rather intriguing results. Cragin, et al. 2007 takes this issue further by exploring how and under what circumstances terrorist groups adopt and exchange new technologies, with a focus on their capacity for institutional learning. Dolnik 2007 makes for an interesting companion piece for Bonomo, et al. 2007 and Cragin, et al. 2007, also offering an overview on terrorists’ tactics employed so far. Finally, Jackson and Frelinger 2009 move beyond the topic of terrorist innovation to critically discuss the art of horizon-scanning. Very obviously, not every potential threat scenario developed and peddled by interested parties is a relevant and valid one.
Bonomo, J., G. Bergamo, D. R. Frelinger, J. Gordon, and B. A. Jackson. 2007. Stealing the sword: Limiting terrorist use of advanced conventional weapons. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
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In this interesting publication, James Bonomo and his co-authors examine which types of advanced weapons could be interesting for terrorists, with the intent to help limit the availability of such next-generation weapons to interested groups. As such, this short (126 pages) study is of interest both for students of terrorism as well as students of counterterrorism—as well as security practitioners.
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Cragin, K., P. Chalk, S. A. Daly, and B. A. Jackson. 2007. Sharing the dragon’s teeth: Terrorist groups and the exchange of new technologies. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
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In this short and concise publication, Kim Cragin and his co-authors explore how terrorist groups’ exchange and adopt new technologies and how they learn to use them. The theoretical framework they develop is illustrated in three case studies on Mindanao, the West Bank and Gaza, and Colombia. With regard to terrorist groups’ organizational learning capabilities, this is quite an important contribution to the debate.
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Dolnik, A. 2007. Understanding terrorist innovation: Technology, tactics, and global trends. New York: Routledge.
DOI: 10.4324/9780203088944Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Starting with a comprehensive overview of terrorists’ tactics, Adam Dolnik draws on several case studies to explain what drives a terrorist group to adapt new techniques, weapons, and tactics. Coming from a military background, one of the present authors (PL) found it quite interesting to learn that terrorists as well might feel a deep attachment to certain weapons systems, which could stand in the way of innovation.
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Drake, C. J. M. 1998. Terrorists’ target selection. New York: St Martin’s.
DOI: 10.1057/9780230374676Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
In his authoritative work, Drake examines how terrorist groups select their targets. On the basis of his findings, and despite his warnings against a “one size fits all” approach, Drake constructs a simple model—a model that has been successfully used by us for our own teachings for several years now, which is why we deem this book required reading.
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Jackson, B. A., and D. R. Frelinger. 2009. Emerging threats and security planning: How should we decide what hypothetical threats to worry about? Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
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Brian Jackson and David Frelinger offer an insightful discussion on how to assess a future and emerging threat. Hence, their work is of interest for all readers interested in the future of terrorism, as well as the future of counterterrorism with regard to security planning: Which threats are likely to occur and which are not?
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Responding to Terrorism
Experience shows that international cooperation against terrorism is not an easily achievable goal—numerous attempts to create international alliances against terrorism since the time of the anarchist terrorists notwithstanding. To begin with, how can one generate a degree of meaningful cooperation beyond the merely declaratory level against a phenomenon that states themselves have practiced and continue to practice? And who decides in an internationally binding way what constitutes terrorism and state terrorism? There are two common themes in the literature on terrorism; one is that terrorism has become so international that an international response that requires cooperation between states is imperative. Yet it is also argued that terrorism is a product of its own time and place, which makes common approaches to counter it inherently difficult. Different “terrorisms,” therefore, require different responses.
Conceptual Works of Counterterrorism
We start this section with two more conceptual works on counterterrorism—one from an academic perspective and the other one with practitioners and decision makers in mind. With regard to the academic perspective, the events of 9/11 rather unsurprisingly resulted in a renewed focus on counterterrorism and, thus, a flurry of publications on that matter, many of them specializing in one or the other aspect of it, such as winning hearts and minds. Crelinsten 2009, however, offers a comprehensive overview and analysis of the three major approaches to countering terrorism—the criminal justice model, the war model, and a hybrid drawing on their respective advantages (while trying to avoid the disadvantages). For any student of terrorism and counterterrorism interested in gaining a thorough understanding of this topic, this book is a must-read—and quite an enjoyable one at that. With regard to the practitioners and decision makers’ needs, Ganor 2005 offers a very readable guide that is also of interest for academic readers.
Crelinsten, R. 2009. Counterterrorism. Malden, MA: Polity.
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After discussing the context of current counterterrorism, and commenting on what is now known as the September 10 and September 12 schools of thought, Crelinsten explores coercive, proactive, persuasive, defensive, and long-term counterterrorism in a very persuasive and accessible style. Many examples and anecdotes illustrate his arguments, assisting the reader to relate them to their own respective countries and homeland security issues.
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Ganor, B. 2005. The counter-terrorism puzzle: A guide for decision makers. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
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Boaz Ganor’s book is of eminent interest for all those looking for a kind of an “executive summary,” no-nonsense take on counterterrorism. Hence it should be seen as a manual of counterterrorism measures rather than an in-depth academic study, with the author’s explicitly stated purpose being to help decision makers arrive at rational and sound decisions in both preventing and countering terrorism.
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Counterterrorism Pre-9/11
Although the focus here is on the post-9/11 counterterrorism initiatives, we have included a couple of older works dealing with the threat posed by the FCOs. For some of the readers—those who are firm believers of a hard-power, kinetic approach and see themselves as part of the 9/12 school of counterterrorism thoughts—it might be interesting to see that the post-9/11 world is not exactly a different place and that many of our current initiatives are a bit akin to reinventing the wheel. To start with, for readers who are interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the history of counterterrorism, Charters 1991, Reinares 2000, and Schmid and Crelinsten 1993 are good choices: They show that most of the current problems such as cross-border intelligence sharing are not exactly new, thus putting them into their proper context. Von Hippel 2005, on the other hand, has been chosen because it offers a “bridging perspective” that includes both pre- and post-9/11 responses, thus helping the readers to better understand the continuity aspect of counterterrorism: Obviously, the world is not necessarily a different place now.
Charters, D. A., ed. 1991. Democratic responses to international terrorism. Ardsley-on-Hudson, NY: Transnational.
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For some readers, this entry may be a bit dated and irrelevant for the current fight against transnational terrorism. However, this edited book offers in-depth information on anti- and counterterrorism of a variety of Western states in response to third-wave, New Left terrorism. It also contains articles dealing with intelligence collection and dissemination and with the relationship between terrorism and the media.
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Reinares, F., ed. 2000. European democracies against terrorism: Governmental policies and intergovernmental cooperation. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
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For all of those interested in learning more about the history of counterterrorism and how European countries fought against the New Left, this edited volume provides more information on European responses to the FCO threat and also points at important further sources.
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Schmid, A., and R. Crelinsten, eds. 1993. Western responses to terrorism. London: Frank Cass.
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Apart from showing that neither terrorism nor counterterrorism started on September 11, the articles in this book help us to better understand why transnational attempts to combat this threat usually are strong in words but weak in action. Of particular note in this regard is Alex Schmid and Ronald Crelinsten’s conclusion in which they present a rather critical twenty-five-year “balance sheet” of European counterterrorism efforts.
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Von Hippel, K., ed. 2005. Europe confronts terrorism. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave.
DOI: 10.1057/9780230524590Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Although this edited volume largely focuses on the post-9/11 scenario, the case studies on France, Germany, Greece, Italy, and some Nordic countries also contains information on the responses to third-wave terrorism. Thus this book is a valuable source of information for all readers who would like to find out more about continuity and changes in the world of counterterrorism.
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Counterterrorism Post-9/11
After having learned that, with regard to counterterrorism, the world is not necessarily as different a place as it was expected to be in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, it is now time to see what measures were adopted to fight this new threat of global terrorism in the form of Al Qaeda. Alexander 2006 masterfully demonstrates how much the watershed event of 9/11 has changed the world of counterterrorism, both with regard to developing new strategies within national and international grand strategies of peace and stability and with regard to the more urgent than ever need for international collaboration in order to combat this transnational threat—regardless of national security cultures and cherished “no need to know” postures. However, as important as common approaches to countering terrorism may be, at least among close allies, the very idea of a transatlantic homeland security is quite a challenge—conceptually as well as practically, due to different legal and law-and-order traditions. Dalgaard-Nielsen and Hamilton 2006 takes a close look on how this could be achieved and on what subfields of counterterrorism. Deflem 2010 also offers a transatlantic perspective on homeland security, however from a criminologist point of view. In this regard, it is probably fair to say that the discipline of criminology largely ignored the sensitive topic of terrorism for a variety of reasons. In a post-9/11 setting, however, criminologists also warmed up to the topic that could no longer be ignored in any case. Mathieu Deflem is, in our opinion, a leading voice when it comes to studying terrorism from a criminological perspective. Nicely complementing Deflem’s criminological approach, Jacobson 2006 examines the legislative, diplomatic, and practical obstacles that stood (and still stand) in the way of the coveted transatlantic homeland security approach. In a rather critical perspective, Stiglitz and Bilmes 2008 analyzes the costs involved in fighting the GWoT, also raising the question of what else (and better) could have been done with all the money spent. “Going hard” on terrorism obviously comes with a hefty price tag. Finally, Wilkinson 2007 provides readers with a detailed look at the home front in the United Kingdom post-7/7, reminding readers that 9/11 is not the only benchmark or watershed moment for counterterrorism.
Alexander, Y., ed. 2006. Counterterrorism strategies: Successes and failures of six nations. Dulles, VA: Potomac.
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Yonah Alexander’s edited volume on counterterrorism analyzes the efforts in combating (global) terrorism by four major Western states (the United States, France, Germany, and Italy) and two non-Western ones (Egypt and Sri Lanka). Although the sample is not entirely convincing (what about the United Kingdom, for example, or Indonesia?), the contributions cover pre- and post-9/11 approaches of their respective countries, which makes for interesting findings.
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Dalgaard-Nielsen, A., and D. S. Hamilton, eds. 2006. Transatlantic homeland security: Protecting society in an age of catastrophic terrorism. London: Routledge.
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This edited book takes a close look on how a common transatlantic approach to counterterrorism could be achieved and in which subfields. The challenge of protecting civil liberties while trying to create a transatlantic homeland security regime is addressed as well. In sum, an interesting, thought-provoking work, that is well worth a thorough read.
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Deflem, M. 2010. The policing of terrorism: Organizational and global perspectives. Criminology and Justice Studies. New York: Routledge.
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In his most recent monograph, Mathieu Deflem takes a critical look at the United States’ homeland security establishment before turning to a global perspective: How and when was counterterrorism globalized, and what role do institutions such as Interpol and Europol play in this regard? A final part inspects counterterrorism in Israel as well as policing in Afghanistan and Iraq to further illuminate Deflem’s arguments.
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Jacobson, M. 2006. The West at war: U.S. and European counterterrorism efforts, post-September 11. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
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Michael Jacobson’s book examines the legislative, diplomatic, and practical obstacles that need to be overcome by the United States and the European Union in order to fight a meaningful war on terrorism, hence offering a different perspective and additional insights into those provided by works focusing on the practical aspects of counterterrorism cooperation.
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Stiglitz, J. E., and L. J. Bilmes. 2008. The three trillion dollar war. New York: W. W. Norton.
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This very critical book examines the costs of the GWoT—in economic terms as well as in terms of lives lost—while also providing an overview on what could have been done with the money spent on the war if it would have been invested in the US economy instead.
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Wilkinson, P., ed. 2007. Homeland security in the UK: Future preparedness for terrorist attack since 9/11. New York: Routledge.
DOI: 10.4324/9780203087459Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
This volume examines the threat posed by Al Qaeda and international terrorism to the United Kingdom and efforts taken in the wake of the London 7/7 bombing to reduce that country’s vulnerabilities to it. Chapters cover issues such as CBRN and WMD scenarios, aviation and maritime security, cyber security, police and counterterrorism, and the role of the private sector.
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Hostage Crises
While all of the preceding works offered an eagle eye’s view on countering terrorism, the following three works focus on one very interesting as well as very specialized issue: how to negotiate with terrorists in a hostage situation. Faure and Zartman 2010 offer a very readable introduction into hostage crises and negotiation, also providing the theoretical framework necessary for a better understanding of this subfield of counterterrorism. Dolnik and Fitzgerald 2007, on the other hand, introduces the art of negotiating with terrorists in a so-called “barricade hostage crisis,” such as the one in Moscow’s Nord-Ost theater siege, while Dunlop 2006 focuses on two case studies in order to take a critical look at Russian counterterrorism tactics. In a sense, Dunlop provides the background necessary to get the most out of the books of Dolnik and Fitzgerald 2007 and Faure and Zartman 2010.
Dolnik, A., and K. Fitzgerald. 2007. Negotiating hostage crises with the new terrorists. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International.
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Adam Dolnik and Keith Fitzgerald’s book offers fascinating insights on the role of negotiation in resolving terrorist barricade hostage crises, illustrated by examples on the Nord-Ost crisis and the Riyadus-Salikhin Suicide Battalion. It also raises the question of whether it is possible at all to successfully negotiate with “new” terrorists.
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Dunlop, J. B. 2006. The 2002 Dubrovka and 2004 Beslan hostage crises: A critique of Russian counter-terrorism. Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 26. Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag.
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John B. Dunlop’s book provides readers with a meticulously researched case study on the Dubrovka and Beslan hostage crises. His aims are two-fold: first, help the reader gain a better understanding of Russian counterterrorism tactics, and second, offer a profound criticism of the Russian approach, among others by pointing out what went wrong.
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Faure, G., and W. Zartman, eds. 2010. Negotiating with terrorists, strategy, tactics, and politics. New York: Routledge.
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This edited volume of Guy Faure and William Zartman contains theoretical chapters on how to negotiate (including guidelines for negotiations), as well as several interesting case studies exploring the tactical and practical sides of this art, for example negotiating the hostage crises in Lebanon, Kandahar, and Beslan. Hence this work is an essential companion piece to the Dolnik and Fitzgerald 2007.
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Human Rights
Countering terrorism sooner or later raises the question of how far we can go to combat this threat to our security. Within our Western liberal democracies, debates between utilitarian’s and universalist’s usually center on issues such as indeterminate detention, extraordinary renditions, “enhanced interrogation,” water-boarding, drone strikes, and other forms of targeted killing. However, such issues are only the very visible tip of the antiterrorism iceberg, whose course is uncertain: The “how far can we go” question logically leads to the “and where will we/it end” as a follow-up. If one takes a look at Uruguay and its fight against the Tupamaros, one might get a glimpse at a possible outcome: that, in the search for 100 percent (or more) security, we successively sacrifice our civil liberties and our human rights. Hence, the “how far can we go, and where will it end” debate is of utmost importance in the context on the current war on terror—although, to a large extent, Benjamin Franklin already provided the answer to it: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” To start with, Barber 2003 offers a profound critique of America’s war on terror and its “you are with us or with the terrorists” approach, wrapped into an even more profound critique of the militant Pax Americana that seems to dwell on a perpetual state of fear as a necessary precondition for the preventive and preemptive wars led under the star-spangled banner and for what he calls a “preventive democracy.” Another question often raised in the context of the war on terrorism is dealt with in Ignatieff 2004; that is, how far can we go, and where will we end? Ignatieff’s book offers a lot of food for thought in that regard, as does Leone and Anrig 2003, an edited volume that also focuses on civil liberties and their fate in this ongoing war. However, the onslaught on civil liberties in the context of the war on terrorism is not the only issue that deserves critical examination: a series of human rights violations such as extraordinary rendition, water-boarding, or the use of white phosphorus in the Iraqi town of Fallujah in 2004 gave rise to a nagging question of whether we are countering their terror with our own terror. Poynting and Whyte 2012 deals with this and related questions. Although we do not necessarily agree with all of their underlying assumptions or all the arguments made in the various contributions, we still find this an eminently important book: It forces the reader to challenge their own positions and assumptions and helps to answer the questions already raised above: How far can we as liberal democracies go, and where will we end? Balancing human rights protection and security concerns was always high on the agenda of the late Paul Wilkinson as well. Hence, not surprisingly, Ranstorp and Wilkinson 2006 also concentrates on the crucial “how far can we go and where will we end” question, however in a more dispassionate way. Quite interestingly in this regard, Wittes 2008 argues that in the aftermath of 9/11, “a gulf has opened up between the views of the elites, mostly but far from exclusively liberals, and majority opinion on such questions as detention, surveillance, interrogation, and trial of suspected terrorists” (p. 2). While the former are thinking in moral absolutes, the latter are willing to adopt far more pragmatic views—which raises some rather fundamental questions with regard to how to bridge this gulf and how the current judicial system will evolve in the context of the war on terror. Finally, Mueller 2006 attacks the very construction of the terrorist threat itself, and with good reason. After all, conceptualizing terrorism does not only mean thinking in categories and typologies, or churning out even more definitions. Rather, it also means thinking hard about the magnitude of the terrorist threat and whether it is real or inflated. It does not really matter where one stands in this debate, or whether one identifies with orthodox or critical terrorism studies: Mueller forces us all to redefine our positions and to justify them. In a time of shrinking national budgets and potentially growing global risks and challenges, this is a good thing. As such, Mueller’s book should be seen as required reading in any course on terrorism.
Barber, B. J. 2003. Fear’s empire: War, terrorism, and democracy. New York: W. W. Norton.
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In this thought-provoking book, Benjamin Barber, author of the highly acclaimed and also rather critical Jihad vs. McWorld (New York: Ballentine, 1995) offers a profound criticism of the United States’ war on terrorism. Some of the arguments in his prior work are used to make some strong statements: You cannot export McWorld and call it democracy, and you cannot export America and call it freedom.
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Ignatieff, M. 2004. The lesser evil: Political ETHICS IN AN AGE OF TERROR. Toronto: Penguin Canada.
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What lesser evils may a society commit when it believes it faces the greater evil of its own destruction? Michael Ignatieff answers this question against the backdrop of the GWoT, US actions at the “far shores,” and its willingness to throw overboard many civil liberties in undue haste in order to be safe from this menace.
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Leone, R. C., and G. Anrig, eds. 2003. The war on our freedoms. Civil Liberties in an age of terrorism. New York: Public Affairs.
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Richard C. Leone and Greg Anrig’s edited volume raises some awkward but interesting questions: Why was the civil liberty debate so muted, or even missing, in the United States post-9/11? What lessons can we learn from previous assaults on our freedom, for whatever reasons they were launched? How can we preserve our freedoms in the times of (counterterrorist) war—and who are “we” now?
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Mueller, J. 2006. Overblown: How politicians and the terrorism industry inflate national security threats, and why we believe them. New York: Free Press.
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Is terrorism indeed a threat to the very survival of our societies, as has been consistently argued in the post-9/11 environment? Or have interested parties for their own reasons artificially inflated this threat, while more serious threats have been pushed aside? These are the questions that John Mueller addresses in his thought-provoking contribution to the debate.
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Poynting, S., and D. Whyte, eds. 2012. Counter-terrorism and state political violence: The “war on terror” as terror. Routledge Critical Terrorism Studies. New York: Routledge.
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David Whyte and Scott Poynting’s edited volume examines the following important questions: To what extend can our counterterrorism strategies be read as a form of state terror? To what extend is state terror necessary to uphold the current neo-liberal social order? And what are the features of our counterterrorism tactics that render them so easily reducible to state terror?
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Ranstorp, M., and P. Wilkinson, eds. 2006. Terrorism and human rights. London: Taylor & Francis.
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In this book that he co-edited with Magnus Ranstorp, Paul Wilkinson collected a range of contributions exploring the topic from a United Nations and European Union perspective as well as from national perspectives from the states most affected by transnational terrorism: How did they respond to terrorism, and what impact did this response have on human rights and civil liberties?
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Wittes, B. 2008. Law and the long war: The future of justice in the age of terror. New York: Penguin.
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Benjamin Wittes examines the future of justice against the backdrop of the gulf between the moral absolute views of the elites and the more pragmatic majority opinion on questions such as detention, surveillance, interrogation, and trial of suspected terrorists. How to bridge this gulf, and how the current judicial system will evolve in the context of the war on terror are the two central questions of this work.
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