Discussing Concepts of Terrorist Rationality: Implications for Counter-Terrorism Policy

Scholars of terrorism studies have long struggled to agree on a common understanding of what terrorism is. To date, they have agreed on little more than the fact that terrorism is difficult to define. As a consequence, more than 100, if not more than 200 modern definitions of terrorism have been formulated. Within those definitions, different aspects of terrorism are stressed including the underlying motivations, applied tactics and chosen targets. While no consensus has been found on how to define terrorism or terrorists, a meta-study by Schmid and Jongman (1988) provides fruitful insight into the most relevant aspects of definitions of terrorism which have proven valid to the present day. The two researchers analyzed various academic and official definitions of terrorism and identified three main elements as being vital to define terrorism; (1) the use (or threat) of violence1, (2) political objectives and (3) the intention of sowing fear in a target population as a means of achieving these political objectives.

Counter-Terrorism in a Police State: The KGB and Codename Blaster, 1977

The paper provides a rare case study of terrorism and counter-terrorism within a closed society, carried out under a blanket of official secrecy. This case is unexpectedly revealing in what it tells us about terrorism, counterterrorism, and the relative strengths of open and closed societies. Documents from the archive of the Lithuania KGB show how the Soviet authorities managed the hunt for the perpetrators of bombing attacks carried out in Moscow in January 1977. Lithuania, a sensitive border region with a troubled history, was far distant from the epicenter of the conspiracy in Soviet Armenia, but the authorities did not know this beforehand, and made considerable efforts to establish or rule out a Lithuanian connection. It was a problem that the KGB, like other Soviet organizations, was vulnerable to boxchecking and other kinds of perfunctory working to the plan. The career concerns of regional KGB leaders appear to have countered this tendency. The paper evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of a counter-terrorist operation carried out under conditions of the intense secrecy that was normal in the Soviet police state.Career Concerns, Homeland Security, Moral Hazard, Secrecy, Terrorism

Does Terrorism Work?

This paper examines whether terrorism is an effective tool to achieve political goals. By exploiting variation in terror attacks over time and across locations in Israel from 1984 to 2006, we show that local terror attacks cause Israelis to be: (i) more willing to grant territorial concessions to the Palestinians; (ii) more willing to accept a Palestinian state; (iii) less likely to identify oneself as being right-wing; and (iv) more likely to have a favorable opinion of Arabs. These effects are especially pronounced for individuals from particular demographic groups which are typically right-wing in their political views. In addition, we show that terror induces Israelis to vote increasingly for right-wing parties. This pattern of results demonstrates that right-wing parties are becoming more accommodating to Palestinian demands for territorial concessions. Hence, this paper shows that terrorism appears to be an effective strategy in terms of shifting the entire Israeli political landscape to the left. These findings may shed light on the causes underlying the spread of global terrorism in the last few decades.

Counter-Terrorism in a Police State : The KGB and Codename Blaster, 1977

The paper provides a rare case study of terrorism and counter-terrorism within a closed society, carried out under a blanket of official secrecy. This case is unexpectedly revealing in what it tells us about terrorism, counterterrorism, and the relative strengths of open and closed societies. Documents from the archive of the Lithuania KGB show how the Soviet authorities managed the hunt for the perpetrators of bombing attacks carried out in Moscow in January 1977. Lithuania, a sensitive border region with a troubled history, was far distant from the epicenter of the conspiracy in Soviet Armenia, but the authorities did not know this beforehand, and made considerable efforts to establish or rule out a Lithuanian connection. It was a problem that the KGB, like other Soviet organizations, was vulnerable to boxchecking and other kinds of perfunctory working to the plan. The career concerns of regional KGB leaders appear to have countered this tendency. The paper evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of a counter-terrorist operation carried out under conditions of the intense secrecy that was normal in the Soviet police state.Career Concerns ; Homeland Security ; Moral Hazard ; Secrecy ; Terrorism. JEL Codes: H56 ; K42 ; N44.

Research Project on Dorothea Abrahams

Dorothea was born in Anastasia, West Indies, in 1779. She married Abraham De Lyon Abrahams in 1803. She died in 1853. In her will she left monies to open the Abrahms Home for indigent widows of Savannah.https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/sav-bios-lane/1000/thumbnail.jp

Suite of simple metrics reveals common movement syndromes across vertebrate taxa

ecause empirical studies of animal movement are most-often site- and species-specific, we lack understanding of the level of consistency in movement patterns across diverse taxa, as well as a framework for quantitatively classifying movement patterns. We aim to address this gap by determining the extent to which statistical signatures of animal movement patterns recur across ecological systems. We assessed a suite of movement metrics derived from GPS trajectories of thirteen marine and terrestrial vertebrate species spanning three taxonomic classes, orders of magnitude in body size, and modes of movement (swimming, flying, walking). Using these metrics, we performed a principal components analysis and cluster analysis to determine if individuals organized into statistically distinct clusters. Finally, to identify and interpret commonalities within clusters, we compared them to computer-simulated idealized movement syndromes representing suites of correlated movement traits observed across taxa (migration, nomadism, territoriality, and central place foraging)

Lessons from integrating behaviour and resource selection: activity-specific responses of African wild dogs to roads

Understanding how anthropogenic features affect species' abilities to move within landscapes is essential to conservation planning and requires accurate assessment of resource selection for movement by focal species. Yet, the extent to which an individual's behavioural state (e.g. foraging, resting, commuting) influences resource selection has largely been ignored. Recent advances in Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking technology can fill this gap by associating distinct behavioural states with location data. We investigated the role of behaviour in determining the responses of an endangered species of carnivore, the African wild dog Lycaon pictus, to one of the most widespread forms of landscape alteration globally: road systems. We collected high‐resolution GPS and activity data from 13 wild dogs in northern Botswana over a 2‐year period. We employed a step selection framework to measure resource selection across three behavioural states identified from activity data (high‐speed running, resting and travelling) and across a gradient of habitats and seasons, and compared these outputs to a full model that did not parse for behaviour. The response of wild dogs to roads varied markedly with both the behavioural and the landscape contexts in which roads were encountered. Specifically, wild dogs selected roads when travelling, ignored roads when high‐speed running and avoided roads when resting. This distinction was not evident when all movement data were considered together in the full model. When travelling, selection for roads increased in denser vegetative environments, suggesting that roads may enhance movement for this species. Our findings indicate that including behavioural information in resource selection models is critical to understanding wildlife responses to landscape features and suggest that successful application of resource selection analyses to conservation planning requires explicit examination of the behavioural contexts in which movement occurs. Thus, behaviour‐specific step selection functions offer a powerful tool for identifying resource selection patterns for animal behaviours of conservation significance

Comment on Claude Berrebi and Esteban F. Klor (2008): “Are voters sensitive to terrorism? Direct evidence from the Israeli electorate”

In “Are Voters Sensitive to Terrorism? Direct Evidence from the Israeli Electorate,“ Claude Berrebi and Esteban F. Klor analyze the causal effects of terrorist attacks on the political preferences of the Israeli electorate. In this comment, I discuss Berrebi and Klor's empirical approach - especially their treatment of possible reverse causality between voters' preferences and the occurrence of terrorist attacks - and make suggestions for improvement.terrorism; voter behavior; elections; electoral behavior; political economy; security policy