Methods and Findings in the Study of Suicide Terrorism

2008 ◽  
Vol 102 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT A. PAPE
Keyword(s):  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
General Question ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Suicide Terrorism ◽  
Main Claim ◽  
Independent Variables ◽  
Sample Bias ◽  
Suicide Attacks ◽  
The Universe

Scott Ashworth, Joshua Clinton, Adam Meirowitz, and Kristopher Ramsay (2008) allege that I have committed the sin of sampling on the dependent variable by considering only the universe of suicide terrorist attacks rather than the universe of all imaginable instances when potential or actual terrorists might have committed suicide attacks, and so cannot measure the effects of any independent variables. They go on to describe a method that they say I should have used, which is not of interest because the accusation that is supposed to motivate this discussion is inaccurate.The main claim—that my work on suicide terrorism samples on the dependent variable—is simply wrong. Indeed, the authors paid no attention to the large portions of my recent book that explain what we know about factors that make resort to suicide terrorist campaigns more or less likely, and how we know it. Hence, this letter is mainly devoted to updating Ashworth, Clinton, Meirowitz, and Ramsay on my work. I also make a few comments about the general question of whether concerns about “sample bias” should carry significant weight when dealing with the complete universe of a phenomenon, as is the case in my work on suicide terrorism.

The Impact of Terrorism on Construction Industry in Iraq

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-84
Author(s):  
Wadhah Amer Hatem ◽  
Samiaah M. Hassen Al-Tmeemy
Keyword(s):  
Construction Industry ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Construction Sector ◽  
Statistical Procedures ◽  
Qualitative Approaches ◽  
Suicide Attacks ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Impact

     Suicide attacks, bombings, explosions became the part of daily life in Iraq. Consequently, the threat of terrorism put the Iraqi construction sector in the face of unique and unusual challenges that not seen on other countries. These challenges can have extensive impact on construction projects. This paper seeks to examine the impact of the terrorist attacks on construction industry and determine the extent to which the impact of terrorism on construction projects in terms of cost, schedule, and quality. This study adapted quantitative and qualitative approaches to collect data using questionnaire survey and interviews, as well as historical data. The study focused on projects that have been the target of terrorist strikes in Diyala governorate. A variety of statistical procedures were employed in data analysis. The results revealed the extent to which terrorist attacks impact construction projects in terms of cost, time, and quality. The results of this study will enhance the awareness of all construction parties to the impact of the terrorist attacks against construction projects. Eventually, this can develop a risk management assessment and assist contractors to properly protect projects and buildings to minimize injuries and fatalities in the event of terrorism.

A comparison of global suicide terrorism by region before and after 9/11 terrorist attacks

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmet Guler ◽  
Mustafa Demir
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Interrupted Time Series ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Suicide Terrorism ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The World ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Global Terrorism Database

Purpose This study aims to examine the effect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on suicide terrorism in different regions of the world and changes in the trends in suicide terrorism according to regions before and after 9/11. Design/methodology/approach Using the data obtained from the Global Terrorism Database from 1981 to 2019, the descriptive statistics were computed first and then, independent samples t-tests were run to compare the monthly mean percentage of suicide-terrorism incidents that occurred in each region between the pre-9/11 and the post-9/11 periods. Finally, to statistically assess the effect of the 9/11 attacks and changes in the trends for the dependent variables over time, monthly interrupted time-series analyzes were conducted. Findings The results of monthly interrupted time series analyzes showed that after the 9/11 attacks, the trends for suicide-terrorism rates decreased significantly in three regions including South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa and Europe, while the trend for suicide-terrorism rates increased significantly in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, no statistically significant changes in the trends in suicide-terrorism rates occurred in three regions including North America, East Asia and Central Asia and Southeast Asia before 9/11, during November 2001 or after 9/11. Originality/value This study indicates the critical importance of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in suicide terrorism and its impact on these events in different regions of the world. The research also provides some recommendations concerning the effectiveness of defensive and offensive counterterrorism policies against suicide terrorism.

LXXII. Robert Bridges' Concept of Nature

PMLA ◽  
1939 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 1181-1197
Author(s):  
J. Gordon Eaker
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
General Attitude ◽  
The Universe

Whether because of a misunderstanding of the concept of evolution or for some other reason, a change has apparently come in the attitude of poets toward nature. Mr. Beach in his recent book laments the decline of faith in the benevolence of nature and presents the general attitude of nineteenth-century poets toward it as a bridge between the age of faith and the age of disbelief.1 But since neither terminal is proved, his fundamental thesis, which he calls a tragedy of belief, is unconvincing. The consequence of the acceptance of such a tragedy was clearly foreseen by G. K. Chesterton, who recently wrote:When first it was even hinted that the universe may not be a great design, but only a blind and indifferent growth, it ought to have been perceived instantly that this must for ever forbid any poet to retire to the green fields as to his home, or to look at the blue sky for his inspiration. . . . Even the nature-worship which Pagans have felt, even the nature-love which Pantheists have felt, ultimately depends as much on some implied purpose and positive good in things, as does the direct thanksgiving which Christians have felt. . . . Poets, even Pagans, can only directly believe in Nature if they indirectly believe in God; if the second idea should really fade, the first is bound to follow sooner or later; and, merely out of a sad respect for human logic, I wish it had been sooner.

Cognitive simplicity and self-deception are crucial in martyrdom and suicide terrorism

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 366-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Fink ◽  
Robert Trivers
Keyword(s):  
Religious Commitment ◽  
Suicide Terrorism ◽  
Self Perception ◽  
Suicide Attacks

AbstractSuicide attacks and terrorism are characterized by cognitive simplicity, which is related to self-deception. In justifying violence in pursuit of ideologically and/or politically driven commitment, people with high religious commitment may be particularly prone to mechanisms of self-deception. Related megalomania and glorious self-perception are typical of self-deception, and are thus crucial in the emergence and expression of (suicide) terrorism.

Boko Haram's Feminization, Minorization, and Cyberization of Terrorism

2021 ◽  
pp. 344-355
Author(s):  
Adamkolo Mohammed Ibrahim
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Suicide Terrorism ◽  
Boko Haram ◽  
Political Values ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Suicide Attacks

This chapter employs cybertechnology approaches to address issues related to the continuing Boko Haram insurgency in North-East Nigeria supported by cybertechnology, especially the group's deployment of girls and boys to perpetrate suicide attacks. The mass abduction of nearly 300 schoolgirls in 2014 at Chibok Community in the North-Eastern Nigerian state of Borno is widely believed as the group's first ever gendered terrorism activity, which could only be successful if cybertechnology was used to coordinate the activity. That incident raised the group's global notoriety. The aftermaths of that sad incident rather emboldened the terrorists and made them appreciate the global social and political values of girls as potent tools for suicide terrorism. Recommendations for theoretical approach and policy guidelines toward ending terrorism were discussed at the end.

Odd Man Out

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Jordan
Keyword(s):  
New Physics ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
The Universe

A review of Roger Penrose’s recent book, Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe by physicist Andrew Jordan. The book reflects an ironic tension: Penrose attacks the cosmologies of contemporary physics as fanciful, while proposing improvements that are just as farfetched.

Recording and Representing, Analog and Digital

Giving a Damn ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kulvicki
Keyword(s):  
Main Claim ◽  
Independent Variables

In “Representational Genera,” Haugeland built an account of representational kinds around the structures of their contents. Icons, which include pictures, images, graphs, and diagrams, differ from logical representations like linguistic expressions because iconic contents are essentially patterns of dependent and independent variables. Such structures are absent in language. Recording is a witless, replayable process that Haugeland deployed to calm worries about his content-wise account of representational genera. This paper elevates recording from the supporting role Haugeland gave it to star of the show. The main claim defended here is that some kinds of representation—pictures, images, graphs, diagrams—are modeled by recording processes, while others, like languages, are not. Extensionally, this distinction is close to Haugeland’s, but it is intensionally subtler, more plausible, and, as I hope to show, more useful. This approach abandons Haugeland’s goal of distinguishing representational kinds exclusively in terms of their contents, but there are many advantages to doing so.

The Second Intifada

2016 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nada Matta ◽  
René Rojas
Keyword(s):  
Initial Phase ◽  
Lethal Violence ◽  
Rates Of Change ◽  
Suicide Attacks ◽  
Second Intifada ◽  
Balance Of Forces ◽  
The Universe

AbstractDominant theories fail to explain the use of terror during the Second Palestinian Intifada. Notably, they fail to explain Hamas’s abandonment of suicide attacks by 2005. We classified the universe of fatalities on both sides and examined the conflict’s patterns of lethal violence. Our analysis of fatality ratios and rates of change by fatality category supports a dual-arena theory of terror. Noting a rapid increase of indiscriminate Israeli civilian deaths and a relative evening out within this category in the conflict’s initial phase, we demonstrate that externally Hamas aimed to improve the balance of forces to compel Israel to negotiate on equal terms using the “out-suffering” mechanism. Internally, Hamas used terror to build confrontational capacity by attracting Palestinian factions to a resistance pole and isolating conciliatory elites. When their continued deployment became too costly relative to emerging options, the campaign was swiftly called off. In the end, while based on strategic calculations, Hamas’s use of terror proved to be a failure.

scholarly journals Suicide Terrorism: Perspectives from Muslims in Northern Ghana

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Agyemang Frimpong
Keyword(s):  
Arabian Peninsula ◽  
The United States ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Northern Ghana ◽  
Cultural Integration ◽  
Suicide Terrorism ◽  
The People ◽  
The World

Suicide terrorism has been on the rise in most parts of the world after the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Ghana as a country is yet to experience any acts of terrorism but recent events in some parts of Northern Nigeria, Kenya, and Somalia and in the Arabian Peninsula have given policymakers a great concern. Some African Muslims with ties to radical Islamic organizations have embraced this phenomenon as a means of settling their grievances. This article attempts to examine the phenomenon of suicide terrorism from the perspectives of Muslims in Northern Ghana. The paper discusses some of the rationale behind the phenomenon and various efforts that have been made to address the psychology behind the phenomenon. It was established that individual psychopathology alone is not the only reason for suicide terrorism but intertwined with other social conditions. In order to develop the appropriate responses and policies to protect the people, there is the need to understand these social conditions. It concludes by discussing the reason why adopting combative approach to the issue has not worked and recommends the use of economic development as well as cultural integration in changing the psychology behind the phenomenon.Keywords: suicide terrorism, psychopathology, homegrwon terrorists; lonewolf terrorists

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