Foreign Terrorist Organization designation, international cooperation, and terrorism

How does branding militant groups as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” (FTOs) affect them? Beyond its obvious policy importance, this question speaks to debates about counterterrorism, terrorism financing, and organizational dynamics of subnational violence. This article analyzes FTO designation, a key policy used by the U.S. government since 1997 to impose costs on foreign terrorist groups and those who might support them. Contrary to arguments that sanctions are ineffective and that terrorism is too “cheap” to be affected, it is argued that designation should weaken terrorist groups, reducing their attacks over time. However, the effect is probably conditional. FTO designation should be especially effective against groups operating in U.S.-aligned countries, given the importance of international cooperation in counterterrorism. Global quantitative analyses suggest that FTOs operating in U.S.-aligned countries carry out fewer attacks over time than other groups, taking many other factors into consideration

Experimental Trials Based on a Neocortex-based Adaptive System Pattern

AbstractThis paper proposes a general design pattern for building adaptive systems. The Neocortex Adaptive System Pattern (NASP) architecture is an adaptive decision-making architecture. It is derived from the physical architecture observed within the neocortex of a primate brain. This architectural pattern is used as a basis to provide necessary functions to adaptive systems, allowing different adaptive system components with different methodologies and techniques to coexist and cooperate within a single system. Properties of the NASP are illustrated using an agent-based simulation experiment framework composed of simulated tank vs. tank game. This study supplies experimental results that compare adaptive decisions based on accuracy and timeliness. It shows that a more accurate decision may in fact be the less optimal one due to time constraints. The experimentation results suggest that multi-system adaptation can increase system performance, and learned information can identify time frames when an adaptation can increase system performance. The practice of designing and building agent based systems shares many principles and approaches with the NASP. An agent-based architecture has a common environment that is utilized to share the state of the system with member agents. It contains autonomous entities that communicate with each other in order to perform their designed functions. A unique contribution of the NASP approach over other research is to add the ability for different agents to create alternative courses of action and controls such as rule-based, neural, or Bayesian that are used to choose from those alternatives based on their latest information. While counter intuitive, the findings suggest that increased performance in this combatant domain suggest that earlier adaptations, using less information, improve the performance of the adaptive system. The paper provides a literature review of relevant neuroscience literature that describes the parallels between the architecture of the neocortex and NASP. The paper discusses the simulation experiments and associated results that illustrate how tradeoffs between information completeness and timeliness affect system performance within a NASP-based system

Narco-Messages: Competition and Public Communication by Criminal Groups

Criminal groups often avoid the limelight, shunning publicity. However, in some instances they overtly communicate, such as through banners or signs. We explain the competition dynamics behind public criminal communication, and provide theory and evidence of the conditions under which it emerges. Relying on a new data set of approximately 1,800 banners publicly deployed by Mexican criminal groups from 2007 to 2010, we identify the conditions behind such messaging. The findings suggest that criminal groups “go public” in the presence of interorganizational contestation, violence from authorities, antagonism toward the local media, local demand for drugs, and local drug production. Some of these factors are only associated with communication toward particular audiences – rivals, the state, or the public. Interestingly, we find that the correlates of criminal propaganda are sometimes distinct from those of criminal violence, suggesting that these phenomena are explained by separate dynamics

The HEA takes on forensic science

There are many routes into becoming a qualified forensic scientist within the UK. All forensic science providers have some form of ‘in-house training’ but prior to this there are a number of different academic paths a potential forensic scientist can take. These can be split into two major paths which can be described as the ‘older’ and ‘newer’ routes. Up until now neither of these routes was formally recognised as part of the Higher Education Academy. Brian Rankin, President of the Forensic Science Society said…“it is probably the diversity of subjects which make up forensic science that meant it is difficult to fit forensic science into the HEA”

How Terrorist Organizations Survive: Cooperation and Competition in Terrorist Group Networks

Why do some terrorist groups last much longer than others? This dissertation is among a small but growing number of studies to apply social networks analysis to the study of terrorism, and addresses an outcome of interest that is important but under analyzed. Terrorist group survival is puzzling because it is not explained by the conditions that encourage terrorism generally. Much of the literature has focused on terrorist attacks as an outcome of interest, ignoring the group context in which most incidents occur. Organizational and social network research suggests that group dynamics have important effects on outcomes, but connections between these studies and terrorism are underdeveloped. The dissertation presents an organizational-network model of terrorist group survival. Organizational aspects are the base of the model, but network attributes are a greater innovation, as this research offers the first explanation of terrorist group longevity to incorporate network attributes. The argument suggests the importance of direct ties between terrorist groups – cooperative and adversarial. It also argues for a role of interorganizational relations more broadly, in terms of indirect competition and eigenvector centrality. Finally, I incorporate the state into the explanation, emphasizing how state attributes condition intergroup relations. Hypotheses are evaluated on a newly-extended global dataset of terrorist group networks 1987-2005. Case studies of terrorist groups in Colombia, Northern Ireland, and Pakistan illustrate how causal mechanisms often function as argued

Terrorist Group Rivalries and Alliances: Testing Competing Explanations

Terrorist group rivalries and alliances have important consequences, but the sources of these relationships are debated. This article offers a side-by-side examination of correlates of terrorist rivalries and alliances. Global analyses of hundreds of terrorist groups find violent rivalry is associated with drug trafficking, state sponsorship, ethnic motivation, and operating in a civil conflict country. Alliances are associated with territorial control, intermediate membership size, and religious motivation. The idea that alliances are an indicator of weakness does not find much support. When relationships are disaggregated into theoretically relevant categories (inter-field and intra-field rivalries, and domestic and international alliances), further distinctions appear

Terrorist Tactics by Criminal Organizations: The Mexican Case in Context

In the past 10 years in Mexico, more than 100,000 people have been killed in violence related to organized crime. Some attacks have left horrific scenes, meant to send messages to the public or government. Debate continues about how to characterize this violence, and some observers describe it as “terrorism” or its perpetrators as “terrorists.” This article emphasizes that Mexico has experienced terrorist tactics by criminal organizations. This implies that while the perpetrators are better thought of (and dealt with) as criminal groups, some of their violence at least partially fulfills the criteria to be defined as terrorism. The use of terrorist tactics by criminal groups is an understudied aspect of the crime-terror nexus because more research examines crime by terrorist groups. The article discusses three tactics seen in Mexico: bombings, violent communication, and attacks against politicians. It then presents comparable examples from other countries, such as Brazil, Colombia, Italy, and Russia. Similarities and differences between criminal groups and terrorist groups are discussed. The violence in Mexico is relatively unique for its scale, for the number of people killed, but in general the use of terrorist tactics by criminal organizations is not new

Terrorist Organizational Dynamics

Most terrorism is carried out by organizations with particular political motivations, mobilization issues, and other characteristics that affect their behavior, including their attacks. Group dynamics are often overlooked when research focuses on units of analysis such as countries or individuals. However, understanding the organizational dynamics of terrorism can shed light on this type of violence in important ways. This chapter begins by discussing definitions of key concepts, and then analyzes recent literature on several prominent topics: outbidding, internal group dynamics, and organizational longevity or failure. It concludes by noting potential avenues for future research, including more work on strategic interactions between terrorist organizations and states, as well as increased dialogue with research on related topics such as civil conflict

Do 90 Percent of Terrorist Groups Last Less than a Year? Updating the Conventional Wisdom

Prominent scholars criticize terrorism research for lacking sufficient empirical testing of arguments. Interestingly, one of the most widely cited estimates in terrorism studies has not been evaluated using the many data sources now available. Rapoport’s 1992 claim, that perhaps 90 percent of terrorist groups last less than one year, has been described as part of the conventional wisdom. This estimate is frequently used to justify studies of terrorist group longevity, a substantial line of research in recent years. Is the estimate accurate? Scholars increasingly publish data sets of terrorist organizations, but no one has analyzed them collectively to see if the 90 percent claim holds up. This article examines the eight largest global data sets of terrorist group longevity, covering 1968–2013. The samples vary considerably, but the percentage of groups that do not survive beyond their first year in these relevant data sets is between 25–74 percent. Across all data sets, on average about 50 percent of terrorist organizations do not make it past their first year. There is some variation depending on group motivations, consistent with Rapoport’s “wave” theory. However, overall, terrorist organizations appear to be more durable than the conventional wisdom suggests

Terrorist group survival as a measure of effectiveness

Why do some terrorist groups last much longer than others? And what does this longevity tell us about the effectiveness of terrorist organizations? This article argues that organizational survival can be considered one element of organizational effectiveness. The article then reviews the recent literature on terrorist group longevity, including a systematic survey of ten quantitative studies on the subject. Only a few factors are repeatedly associated with longevity, such as group size and participation in terrorist group alliances. Because of theoretical interest in interorganizational relationships, arguments are then considered for why terrorist group alliances, and also intergroup competition, probably contribute to group endurance