Climate change is a potential major driver of future terrorism. It is already recognised by many (if not most) nations as a strategic security threat, though the potential role it can play in ignit...
In 2014, Marc Sageman proposed that terrorism research had stagnated. The claim of stagnation has resulted in a period of collective review within terrorism studies. To date, the fruits of this review have revealed a more cautiously optimistic view of the field than that proposed by Sageman. This article aims to add to this review by analyzing the interviews of forty-three guests from the first season of the Talking Terror podcast. Presented is a thematic analysis of their views on the overall health of terrorism research. The interviewees included both pre-and post-9/11 researchers. Through this analysis four themes are identified: Interdisciplinary Research and Researchers, Data, Applied Research, and Area/Field. The majority of interviewees were more optimistic than Sageman in relation to the overall health of the area. Analysis of their responses is presented alongside some recommendations for the future direction of the area.
17 March 2021 in Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression
Leakage is one of the eight warning behaviors referred to in the violence risk and threat assessment literature. Previous research has highlighted the relevance and prevalence of leakage in lone-actor terrorists; however, a more detailed understanding of this phenomenon is lacking. This study sets out to expand our knowledge of this behavior by conducting an exploratory analysis using court records relating to IS-inspired lone-actor terrorism cases in the United States. The general patterns in leakage warning behavior were analyzed, and different types of leakage were examined with regard to from whom they were leaked, how they were leaked, their presence online, and whether or not they occurred before certain types of attacks more than others. It was found that leakage in the form of support tended to be leaked most frequently to members of the public, via written text and online, whilst the leakage of intent and specifics appeared to be more regularly leaked to co-conspirators and through verbal communication that avoided the online world. Significant relationships were also found between leakage, FBI interaction and attack initiation, but no significant relationship was found between leakage and mental health. The implications of these findings are discussed.
1 January 2020 in Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism Studies
In this Policy Brief, the authors critically analyse the definition of 'recidivism', and demonstrate the need for a concrete operational definition before one is able to truly analyse recidivist activity. Following this, the authors discuss terrorist recidivism in a range of international contexts, ranging from Northern Ireland to Sri Lanka, the United States to Israel. By taking this broader perspective it allows the reader to gain a greater understanding of what factors related to recidivism rates may be context-specific, and which are universal.