Vol 8, No 4 (2014): Perspectives on Terrorism
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM Volume 8, Issue 4 Table of Contents Welcome from the Editors 1 Report of the Jury on the TRI Award Competition for “Best Ph.D. Dissertation on Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism completed in 2013” 2 I. Articles Alliance Hubs: Focal Points in the International Terrorist Landscape 4 by Tricia Bacon An Exploratory Study on the Impact of Electoral Participation upon a Terrorist Group’s Use of Violence in a Given Year 27 by Stephen McGrath and Paul Gill Terrorist Networks’ Productivity and Durability: A Comparative Multi-level Analysis 36 by Arie Perliger II. Research Notes The Importance of Financing in Enabling and Sustaining the Conflict in Syria (and Beyond) 53 by Tom Keatinge Special Research Notes Section: Bart Schuurman, Guest Editor Using Primary Sources for Terrorism Research: Introducing Four Case Studies 62 by Bart Schuurman A History of the Hofstadgroup 65 by Bart Schuurman, Quirine Eijkman and Edwin Bakker The German Sauerland Cell Reconsidered 82 by Quirine Eijkman Operation Pendennis: A Case Study of an Australian Terrorist Plot 91 by Bart Schuurman, Shandon Harris-Hogan, Andrew Zammit and Pete Lentini Who Are They and Why Do They Go? The Radicalisation and Preparatory Processes of Dutch Jihadist Foreign Fighters 100 by Daan Weggemans, Edwin Bakker and Peter Grol III. Resources Bibliography on Islamist Narratives and Western Counter-Narratives (Part 1) 111 ISSN 2334-3745 i August 2014 PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM Volume 8, Issue 4 Compiled and selected by Judith Tinnes Bibliography on State Sponsored Terrorism and Assassinations Abroad; with Special Emphasis on the Assassination of 28 July 1914 that Triggered World War I 146 Selected and compiled by Eric Price IV. Book Reviews John Horgan, The Psychology of Terrorism [Revised and updated second edition]. New York, NY: Routledge: 2014. 184 pages, US$170.00 [Hardcover], ISBN: 978-0-415-69800-9; US$42.95 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-0-415-69802-3. 153 Reviewed by Jeff Victoroff Andrew Silke (Ed.), Prisons, Terrorism and Extremism: Critical Issues in Management, Radicalisation and Reform. New York, NY: Routledge, 2014. 312 pages, US$ 150 .00 [Hardcover], US$ 45.95 [Paperback], ISBN-13: 978-0415810371. 156 Reviewed by Jacqueline Bates-Gaston “Counterterrorism Bookshelf”: 47 Books on Terrorism & Counter-terrorism Related Subjects 158 by Joshua Sinai V. Ne w s News from the National and Regional Networks of Ph.D Thesis Writers 171 VI. Notes from the Editor About Perspectives on Terrorism 172 ISSN 2334-3745 ii August 2014 PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM Volume 8, Issue 4 Welcome from the Editors Perspectives on Terrorism, Vol. 8, no. 4 (ISSN 2334-3745) Dear Reader, We are pleased to announce the release of Volume VIII, Issue 4 (August 2014) of Perspectives on Terrorism at www.terrorismanalysts.com. Our free online journal is a joint publication of the Terrorism Research Initiative (TRI), headquartered in Vienna, and the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies (CTSS), headquartered at the University of Massachusetts’ Lowell campus. Now in its eighth year, Perspectives on Terrorism has over 4,300 regular subscribers and many times more occasional readers worldwide. The Articles of its six annual issues are fully peer-reviewed by external referees while its Research Notes, Resource and Book Reviews sections are subject to internal editorial review. We begin this issue by announcing Dr. Tricia Bacon as the winner of the competition for the “Best Dissertation on Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism published in 2013”. The Jury’s report also provides the honorable mention of authors whose theses were judged second and third best. A summary of Dr. Bacon’s thesis is provided as the first research article in this issue, in which she examines alliance behaviour among terrorist networks and the vulnerabilities that come with alliances. This is followed by an article by Stephen McGrath and Paul Gill examining the relationship of terrorist groups’ attack patterns and participation of front organisations in democratic electoral contests. Next Arie Perliger shows in his article how a sympathetic, supportive community is essential for a terrorist network’s durability. Our Research Notes section begins with insights from Tom Keatinge on the various sources of financing that are sustaining the conflict in Syria. This is followed by a Special Research Notes Section, assembled by guest editor Bart Schuurman of the Center for Terrorism and Counterterrorism (CTC) in the Netherlands. He and his colleagues provide four case studies of jihadist-related terrorism that draw heavily from primary source materials. Three of these focus on homegrown jihadist groups in the Netherlands, Germany and Australia, while the fourth examines the backgrounds of Dutch jihadists who travelled to Syria as “foreign fighters”. Dr. Judith Tinnes has compiled an extensive bibliography on Islamist narratives and Western counter- narratives, and Eric Price has compiled a bibliography on state-sponsored terrorism and assassinations. Book reviews by Jeff Victoroff and Jacqueline Bates-Gaston can be found in Section IV of this issue. Finally, our book reviews editor, Joshua Sinai, presents summary reviews of 47 new publications in the field of terrorism and counterterrorism. The current issue of Perspectives on Terrorism was prepared at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. The October issue will be assembled by Editor-in-Chief, Prof. em. Alex P. Schmid. Sincerely, Professor James J.F. Forest Co-Editor, Perspectives on Terrorism ISSN 2334-3745 1 August 2014 PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM Volume 8, Issue 4 Report of the Jury on the TRI Award Competition for “Best Ph.D. Dissertation on Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism completed in 2013” Over the course of the preceding academic year, the Directors of the Terrorism Research Initiative received and reviewed 29 valid entries (academic theses in the field of Terrorism Studies either completed or defended in 2013) for this annual competition. The final deadline to submit entries for this year’s competition was 31 March 2014. While the gender distribution was practically even–14 of the 29 dissertations were written by female scholars–the country distribution was more uneven. The scholars submitting their theses to the competition came from eleven countries–Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Pakistan, Poland, Switzerland, United States, and United Kingdom. This less than global spread can partly be explained by the fact that one of the requirements was that the thesis had to be submitted in (or translated into) English. Except in one case where a Ph.D. supervisor submitted a doctoral thesis, all other dissertations were submitted by the authors themselves. The jury used six criteria for the evaluation, the most important being these: • Is it the product of in-depth research? • Does it show originality in terms of introducing new data, theory or methodology? • Does it show novelty/uniqueness in its findings? The topics ranged from State Sponsored Terrorism to Socio-psychological Profiles of Terrorist Leaders in Israeli Prisons, and from The Potential Terrorist Threat of European Converts to Islam to Terrorised into Compliance: Why Countries Submit to Financial Counterterrorism. Many of the dissertations were of almost equal quality, which made it difficult for the jury to rank them. Notably, the five top-ranking dissertations were all written by female scholars. After several rounds of evaluations, three finalists were selected by the jury, and from these the winner. The winner of the TRI Best Thesis Award 2013 is Dr. Tricia Bacon. She is is currently a Professorial Lecturer at American University in Washington D.C. Her thesis, which was defended with distinction at Georgetown University, is titled Strange Bedfellows or Brothers-in-Arms: Why Terrorist Groups Ally. An article based on parts of her dissertation has been included in this issue of Perspectives on Terrorism. A book-length volume based on her nearly 800-pages long text will be published by Pennsylvania University Press later this year. The Jury noted with appreciation the wide range of primary sources utilized by the author (including archival information, declassified documents from the Harmony database on Al-Qaeda, groups’ statements, interviews and trial transcripts) and the amount of field research conducted in North Africa, the Near East and South Asia. The combination of quantitative methods resulting in the testing of hypotheses with a series of historical case studies led Dr. Bacon to reach findings that contradict the widely held assumption that terrorist groups easily form alliances. On the contrary, she found that–for lack of trust and other reasons (which she details in her article in this issue)–alliances are rare, with less than one percent of terrorist attacks over a period of more than a quarter century being conducted by more than one terrorist group. Only very few armed groups manage to become what she terms “alliance hubs” like al-Qaeda. As readers of Perspectives on Terrorism will recognise, there is a considerable need for excellent research on the organisational behaviour and decision-making of terrorist groups. The winner in our competition has significantly expanded our knowledge in this area. The jury was impressed by Dr. Bacon’s command of the materials studied, the elegant style in which the thesis was written and the convincingly argued chief finding ISSN 2334-3745 2 August 2014 PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM Volume 8, Issue 4 that contradicts conventional wisdom. For her