The developmental dynamics of terrorist organizations

We identify robust statistical patterns in the frequency and severity of violent attacks by terrorist organizations as they grow and age. Using group-level static and dynamic analyses of terrorist events worldwide from 1968-2008 and a simulation model of organizational dynamics, we show that the production of violent events tends to accelerate with increasing size and experience. This coupling of frequency, experience and size arises from a fundamental positive feedback loop in which attacks lead to growth which leads to increased production of new attacks. In contrast, event severity is independent of both size and experience. Thus larger, more experienced organizations are more deadly because they attack more frequently, not because their attacks are more deadly, and large events are equally likely to come from large and small organizations. These results hold across political ideologies and time, suggesting that the frequency and severity of terrorism may be constrained by fundamental processes.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables, supplementary materia

The Social Media Decision: Why Some Terrorist Organizations Choose to Build and Utilize a Social Media Presence and Others Do Not

Traditionally, radicalization was accomplished through isolation from society, in a small, personal, hands-on setting. But today, some groups have embraced social media platforms to reach and radicalize new supporters and recruits. This modern tool is an opportunity to reach more individuals in a manner that is less costly, easier, and less time-consuming. This has opened the process, allowing for both “direct recruiting”, targeting selected individuals, and “indirect recruiting”, loading material online and allowing it to spread to cause a form of self-radicalization in those who encounter it. This would seem beneficial for all rebel groups. If you successfully recruit even a few fighters or supporters through a low-cost process, it would be worthwhile to take advantage of that. Yet, we don’t see this occurring at the rate one would expect from such a low-cost, high-benefit approach. Certain groups—such as the Islamic State—have built an online presence and embraced social media, but others choose not to, or maintain a low presence. This presents a puzzle: which group actors choose to create and use social media as a radicalization and recruitment tool and which do not? What factors or characteristics determine this decision?This research project investigates the usage of social media as a strategic tactic by terrorist groups. We see certain groups embrace the tactic, to varying degrees, and others do not. So what types of groups choose to utilize this tool? Is there some component or trait of groups that can explain and/or predict the choice to create a social media presence? And if they have a presence, is there some component(s) that explains and predicts their level of social media activity? I propose several factors play important roles in this decision: ideological identity, recruitment opportunities through alliance networks, and competition or outbidding behavior spurred by the existence of rival groups.Testable hypotheses are derived from these factors and are tested on a dataset of 25 organizations from 2006 to 2016, then through three case studies on individual groups. The analysis reveals statistically significant support for all three variables and their relationship to social media engagement

The Use of ICT Tools in Tackling Insecurity and Terrorism Problem in Nigeria

The paper seek ICT tools solution to crime and insurgence attack in Nigeria by providing a broad view of the Public Security Communications System  (PSCS), Public Safety Networks (PSNs)  and National Security Information Centre (NSIC) and some ways that ICT-based technologies can assist security agencies in been more efficient and effective in their operations for national development. In addition, some efficient and effective techniques to tackle insurgency was presented. Keywords: PSCS,  PSNs, NSIC, Insecurity, Crime, Insurgency, Boko-Haram, Nigeri

Criminal networks: actors, mechanisms, and structures

Social network analysis is a fruitful approach to the study of relations and interaction between actors involved in organized crime. This dissertation utilizes network perspective to study several cases of organized criminal groups. It is divided into eight chapters. The first introductory chapter is followed by a chapter reviewing the most important network concepts, measures, and models, and their application in the study of organized crime. The four subsequent chapters are empirical studies. The third chapter is a case study of a political corruption network, known as the Rath affair. The study shows that the network consists of different, sometimes overlapping, relations (multiplexity), namely collaboration, resource transfer, and pre-existing ties. The network shows a clear core-periphery structure with politicians forming a dense core and businesspeople occupying periphery. The following chapter studies a case of counterfeit alcohol distribution network, known as the methanol affair. The network structure is composed of two subgroups bridged by one tie, permitting relatively efficient distribution of the beverages. Furthermore, statistical models point out the importance of triadic closure and pre-existing ties for the formation of ties in the network. The fifth chapter tests an influential theory in..

Government decentralization as a disincentive for transnational terror? An empirical analysis

Using panel data for a maximum of 109 countries over the years 1976-2000, we empirically analyze the impact of decentralization on the occurrence of transnational terror. Our results show that expenditure decentralization reduces the number of transnational terror events in a country, while political decentralization has no impact. These results are robust to the choice of control variables and method of estimation.Terrorism; Decentralization; Federalism; Governance quality; Government effectiveness

The Determinants of Religious Radicalization: Evidence from Kenya

A variety of theories attempt to explain why some individuals radicalize along religious lines. Few studies, however, have jointly put these diverse hypotheses under empirical scrutiny. Focusing on Muslim–Christian tensions in Kenya, we distill salient micro-, meso-, and macro-level hypotheses that try to account for the recent spike in religious radicalization. We use an empirical strategy that compares survey evidence from Christian and Muslim respondents with differing degrees of religious radicalization. We find no evidence that radicalization is predicted by macro-level political or economic grievances. Rather, radicalization is strongly associated with individual-level psychological trauma, including historically troubled social relations, and process-oriented factors, particularly religious identification and exposure to radical networks. The findings point to a model of radicalization as an individual-level process that is largely unaffected by macro-level influences. As such, radicalization is better understood in a relational, idea-driven framework as opposed to a macro-level structural approach

50 years of Galtung and Ruge : reflections on their model of news values and its relevance for the study of journalism and communication today

In 1965, Galtung and Ruge initiated a rich strand of academic research on the notion of news values and the practice of gatekeeping in a context of international news reporting. Since its publication, many scholars have criticized, revisited, and put their findings to the test, often leading to somehow conflicting conclusions. In general, some studies tend to confirm their findings while others have uttered methodological concerns or came up with new or additional sets of news factors, hence arguing for a further specification of the model. In recent years, scholars also pointed towards the increasing impact of digital media on journalistic practices of news selection. Likewise, new perspectives on global journalism were introduced into the debate. In this article, we bring together these different perspectives in order to inform a broad discussion on Galtung and Ruge’s legacy for the field of communication sciences in general and studies on journalism and international news selection in particular. We first assess how Galtung and Ruge’s hypotheses hold up in an era of unlimited data. Second, we reflect on the need to integrate changing societal and cultural contexts of news selection, production and reception to understand news values today. Third, with contemporary journalistic practices and research in mind, we suggest an agenda for the study of news values in an era of global journalism

Militant Splinter Groups and the Use of Violence

Existing research portrays militant splinter groups as more violent than their parent organizations due to factors like more extreme preferences or capacity-building needs. Though widely held, the assumption that splinters are particularly violent has not been systematically tested. In this paper, we develop and test an alternative explanation for splinter behavior. We argue splinter groups often appear less violent than their parents due to an underlying selection effect. Splinters break away where there are large organizational barriers to internally address a faction’s grievances. These barriers tend to exist in well-organized parents that are also capable of high levels of violence. Splinter groups lack this established organizational infrastructure, resulting in lower levels of relative violence. We test this logic with an original dataset on parent and splinter groups and a pair of comparative case studies. We find that splinters are less violent than parent organizations, challenging conventional wisdom

War-Fighting or Enhanced Policing?: The Effectiveness of Kill-Capture Tools and Tactics in the Post-9/11 Era

For more than ten years the so-called Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) has been shaping not only national security strategies, but also influenced the definition of the enemy being fought as well as the nature of and boundaries between tactics used in this war. While the discussion about anti-terror strategies and tactics on the political level is ongoing, (empirical) research on the efficiency and effectiveness of these measures is still limited. In our article, we examine the relative impact two counter-terrorism approaches – killing and capturing – have on several measures of effectiveness. Scrutinizing data from 2001-2011 in numerous specifications, we empirically test to what extent these tactics may have different effects on different aspects of terrorism. The primary finding of our analysis is that both killing and capturing have components that have significant positive effects, but that these effects vary based on the specifics of who states target as well as the terrorists’ own targeting strategies. The most interesting specific findings are that drone strikes seem counter-productive for counterterrorism and that renditions seem effective, but that traditional policing through enhanced defenses has the largest effects, which are both positive and negative depending on where one lives