Terrorism 2 Flashcards
Reasons for terrorism in non-OECD
history of armed conflict; ongoing conflict; corruption; weak business environment
Has terrorism been reduced and if so, how
Global number of airliner hijackings/fatalities from hijackings has been reduced; effective strategies have basically eliminated this form of terrorism
Terrorism peaked around what year
Terrorism peaked around 2013-2014 and has been decreasing since then (however, majority are in Middle East)
In France and USA, most terrorist attacks are by
In France, most terrorist attacks are by political (right wing) extremists
Issues with terrorism peer-reviewed research
only 4% of peer reviewed terrorism literature is based on empirical analysis
Research and ethical issues with terrorism research
access to terrorists; personal risk; reliability (how do we know the terrorist is telling the truth); should we conduct interviews with terrorists?
Access to terrorists
Access to terrorists is restricted in terms of contacting them and interviewing them
Terrorism can by studied by (7)
conducting interviews in conflict zones; conducting interviews in post-conflict zones; conducting interviews in prison/detention; using police listening devices and telephone intercept transcripts; using police files and court transcripts; studying online terrorist material and communications; fieldwork in communities affected by terrorism
Personal risk
most researchers are perceived to be the enemy and are typically not seen as neutral (see journalist deaths when reporting on conflicts)
Reliability terrorism research
most people use a self-serving bias to explain their behaviour
Attribution theory
explains with how a person uses information to arrive at causal explanations for events
Attribution explanations can be reduced to how many dimensions
3
3 dimensions attribution
1) internal (personal cause) versus external (another cause); 2) stables (permanent) versus unstable (varies over time); 3) global (universal influence) versus specific (unique to this event)
In everyday life what kind of attributions do people make for their own behaviour
in everyday life, humans use internal, stable and global attributions to explain success but use external, unstable and specific attractions for their failures
Terrorism and attribution
When interviewing terrorists, their attributions change depending upon whether they are successful in conflict zone (take responsibility) versus when they have failed and are in prison (blame external factors - propaganda or life events etc.)
