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Terrorist Organizations: Social Science Research on Terrorism 4–5 May 2007 La Jolla, California

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Terrorist Organizations: Social Science Research on Terrorism 4–5 May 2007 La Jolla, California Terrorist Organizations: Social Science Research on Terrorism 4–5 May 2007 La Jolla, California UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation with support from University of California Office of the President The Earhart Foundation British Consulate-General, Los Angeles Participants Max Abrahms Esteban F. Klor Efraim Benmelech Daniel Korski Eli Berman Fred T. Krawchuk Claude Berrebi David A. Lake Mia Mellissa Bloom Zeev Maoz Ethan Bueno de Mesquita Eva Meyersson Milgrom Richard English Samuel Popkin Joseph H. Felter Babak Rahimi Dipak Gupta Christopher Runyan Justin Hastings Gershon Shafir Lindsay L. Heger Jacob N. Shapiro Gregg Herken Susan Shirk Andrew Hossack Michael Spagat Thomas H. Johnson Barbara Walter Mark Juergensmeyer Detlof von Winterfeldt Miles Kahler Herbert York Max Abrahms is a Ph.D. candidate at UCLA focusing on terrorism. He is the author of “Why Terrorism Does Not Work,” International Security (fall 2006), and has published other articles on terrorism in International Security (forthcoming), Security Studies (forthcoming), Terrorism and Political Violence, and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. His research generally analyses terrorist motives, effectiveness, and target selection. Last year Abrahms was a research associate at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and he has been a fellow at Tel Aviv University and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Abrahms used to be the commissioned op-ed writer on Palestinian terrorism for the Los Angeles Times. Efraim Benmelech joined Harvard University’s Department of Economics as an assistant professor in July 2005 and is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He currently teaches courses in corporate finance. His research investigates the relation between liquidation values and financial contracts, the maturity structure of debt contracts, the political economy of financial development, and the economics of terrorism. Professor Benmelech received a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Chicago in 2005. He holds B.A. (economics) and MBA degrees from the Hebrew University. Prior to joining the department of economics at Harvard, Professor Benmelech was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard Business School. Eli Berman is research director for international security studies at IGCC and an associate professor of economics at UC San Diego. His research interests include labor economics, labor markets and technological change, the economics of religion, economic demography, applied econometrics, economic growth and development, and environmental economics. Recent grants from the National Science Foundation (2002 and 2005) have enabled him to look closely at relationships between religion and fertility from an economic standpoint. His latest publication, “Religious Extremism: The Good, the Bad, and the Deadly” (with Laurence R. Iannaccone), is forthcoming in Public Choice. Berman received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and was a National Bureau of Economic Research Sloan Fellow in 1999. Claude Berrebi, Ph.D., MBA, is an economist at RAND and an affiliate member of the Pardee-RAND Graduate School faculty. Berrebi’s work on terrorism includes a paper investigating the link between education, poverty, and terrorism, which received extensive media coverage and academic recognition through citations in top peer-reviewed publications. Other papers have analyzed the simultaneous relationship between terrorism and electoral outcomes; the impact of terrorism across industries based on fluctuation of firm’s stock market valuation; and the spatial and temporal determinants of terrorism risk, using Israel as a case study. A paper forthcoming in the Journal of Economic Perspectives investigates attack assignments in terror organizations and the productivity of suicide bombers, and his most recent terrorism study analyzes the impact of terrorism on Israeli voter’s preferences. Berrebi’s ongoing terrorism studies include one aimed at assessing the effectiveness of suicide bombers’ home demolitions as a counter-terrorism policy, and another study investigating the link between economic conditions and the quality of terror. Dr. Berrebi’s work at RAND includes a labor market study for the U.S. Department of Labor, assisting the Qatari government to examine its labor market structure and performance while assessing reforms options, a project for the U.S. military estimating the effect of bonuses on potential military recruits, a project for the U.S. Treasury Department modeling the appropriate level of asset forfeiture in cases involving the employment of illegal aliens, a study for the Securities Exchange Commission analyzing the regulatory as well as perceived differences between broker dealers and investment advisers, and a risk analysis for the Israeli government of energy alternative futures following an increased use of natural gas. He was in charge of the economic analysis in a multi-disciplinary team of researchers advising the National Institutes of Health about the feasibility of a National Clinical Research Associates network to increase the community-based provider's involvement in research, and is also working on the analysis of a RAND Health unit-wide initiative aimed at assessing reform efforts. Berrebi holds two masters’ degree in economics, one with specialization in economic theory and another with specialization in applied microeconomics, as well as an MBA in finance. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University in 2005. Mia Mellissa Bloom is the author of Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror and a new edited volume with Roy Licklider, Living Together After Ethnic Killing, regarding post–civil war reconciliation. Bloom is currently an assistant professor in the School of International and Public Affairs at the University of Georgia in Athens. Previously, she was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Cincinnati and consulted for the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office of Counter Terrorism. She has held research or teaching appointments at Rutgers, Princeton, Cornell, Harvard, and McGill universities. Bloom is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Council on World Affairs. She is currently completing research on rape and war, child terrorists, the radicalization of Muslims in Europe, and the 1990 "proxy bombing" campaign in Northern Ireland. Bloom has a PhD in political science from Columbia University, a masters in Arab studies from Georgetown University and a bachelors from McGill University in Russian and Middle East studies. She regularly appears on CNN, Fox News, CSPAN, NBC Nightly News, and has been interviewed by Jim Lehrer for PBS, Ted Koppel for Nightline, and Jesse Pearson for MTV. Ethan Bueno de Mesquita is assistant professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis. Bueno de Mesquita’s research focuses on the application of game theoretic models to the study of politics. He has published widely on terrorism and counterterrorism, elections, and law and politics. He has also served as a consultant on the root causes of support for terrorism to the United States Institute of Peace. Bueno de Mesquita spent academic year 2005–2006 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he taught a graduate seminar on Terrorism and Political Violence and held appointments as both a Lady Davis Fellow in the Department of Political Science and a visiting fellow in the Center for the Study of Rationality. Richard English is professor of politics at Queen's University. His books include Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (2003), which won the UK Political Studies Association's Politics Book of the Year Award that year, and Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (2006), which won the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize in 2007. He is currently working on a book to be published by Oxford University Press, entitled The Terrorist Problem. He has been the editor of a number of books, and has published articles in Past and Present, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, History of Political Thought, European Review of History, Irish Review and Irish Historical Studies. English studied history at Oxford, and then received his Ph.D. in history from Keele University in 1990. In addition to his published work, English has done considerable work as a media commentator on the BBC and ITV. He has also been a commentator for the New York Times, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Le Monde, the Guardian, the Independent, the Irish Times, the Sunday Times, the Independent on Sunday, and the Daily Telegraph His work has been awarded grants from the British Academy, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Nuffield Foundation, the Arts and Humanities Research Board, and the Leverhulme Trust. Lieutenant Colonel Joseph H. Felter, a career Special Forces and foreign area officer, is the director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point and an instructor in the USMA terrorism studies program. His military experience includes service as a platoon leader with the 75th Ranger regiment and as a Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha and Company Commander in the 1st Special Forces Group. As a military attaché in Manila, he planned and coordinated combined efforts to develop the counter-terrorist capabilities of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Felter is a graduate of the United States Military Academy, earned a masters
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