Browsing by Subject "Terrorism"
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Item A Study on the Relationship Between Security and Prosperity in PakistanHubbard, Austen Cross; Dailey, Jeffery; Ehlers, Robert; Martinez, Eduardo; Abernathy, SusanSince 2014 Pakistan has reported improvements in their security and their economy. The aim of this study is to determine if those improvements are a result of counterterrorism policies implemented that same year, along with aggressive military operations. By utilizing a linear regression model, the hope was to identify a direct negative relationship between Pakistan’s Market Potential Index scores from 2007-2014 and their reported fiscal loss due to terrorism during the same years. If a relationship exists between those two variables, then there is an opportunity to argue that Pakistan has improved their economic situation by reducing domestic terrorism within their borders. Other research on this topic only measures Pakistan’s economic loss from acts of terrorism; there is no record of research gauging the effects of reported improvements. By studying the effects of a reduction in terrorist acts on the economic potential of Pakistan, the goal is to support increased security reform in Pakistan and international cooperation in their road to stability.Item Civil liberties in America: A study of American attitudes before and after 9/11(2012-05) Billington, John T; Tsai, Yung-Mei; Johnson, Doyle P.This thesis seeks to interpret the attitudes of Americans regarding civil liberties and Muslims following September 11th, 2001 as a moral panic, using the theories of Cohen, Goode and Ben-Yehuda, and Alexander. Consensus as an essential element of moral panic was measured using data from the General Social Survey concerning attitudes towards the restriction of civil liberties before and after 2001. Hostility and consensus of opinion towards Muslims was also measured with the General Social Survey to determine the presence of a "Folk Devil" in a moral panic. Broadly defined, consensus for the restriction of civil liberties did not exist between liberals and conservatives following 2001. Hostility towards Muslims was also not found through the analyses.Item Designing for effective deterrence: a Markovian approach to modeling and analyzing terrorist behavior within the aviation security environment(Texas Tech University, 2004-12) Pacheco, Leticia JThe threat of terrorism on U.S. soil has made security a top priority for the current administration as evidenced by the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. The objective of this research is to improve deterrence of aviation security screening systems by developing a mathematical tool that can be used to optimally allocate security resources, design effective deterrence procedures, and identify where emphasis should be placed to achieve the most effective deterrence. A continuous time Markov chain is used to model terrorist behavior within the aviation security environment. The nine state model addresses three levels of behavior, three levels of expertise, and three levels of inactivity. Optimization is used to identify optimal parameter values that minimize terrorist activity. The focus application is aviation security. However, the intent is to provide a tool that can be used in any area of security or law enforcement.Item Detection of abandoned objects in crowded environments(2007-05) Bhargava, Medha; Aggarwal, J.K. (Jagdishkumar Keshoram), 1936-With concerns about terrorism and global security on the rise, it has become vital to have in place efficient threat detection systems that will identify potentially dangerous situations, and alert the authorities to take appropriate action. Of particular relevance is the case of abandoned objects in highly crowded areas. This thesis describes a general framework that recognizes the event of someone leaving an object unattended in forbidden areas. Our approach involves the recognition of four sub-events that characterize the activity of interest. When an unaccompanied object is found, the system analyzes its history to determine its most likely owner(s). Through subsequent frames, the system keeps a lookout for the owner, whose presence in or disappearance from the scene defines the status of the object and determines the appropriate course of action. The system was successfully implemented and tested on several standardized datasets.Item Dusting off dirty hands(2013-05) Murphy, Hart Hamilton; Tulis, JeffreyThis paper revisits one of the more frequented stops at the crossroads of politics and morality in contemporary ethical theory, Michael Walzer’s essay “Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands.” The aim is to provide a fresh assessment of Walzer’s project, and to evaluate the tenability of its core notion of “dirty hands.” In pursuit of this aim, the effort is made to reopen the paths which take Walzer to his celebrated impasse, from two directions. The first of these resituates Walzer’s analysis in the context of the debate within Anglo-American ethical theory in which it is originally expounded. The second route seeks to recapture the trail of thinkers who guide Walzer to his conclusions from more remote locations in intellectual history, in order to determine the reliability of his intriguing constellation of Machiavelli, Weber and Camus as lodestars. Writing thirty years later, one of Walzer’s friendliest interpreters, Jean Elshtain, in the midst of her enthusiasm for ‘dirty hands,’ renews doubts about his recommendation of “casuistry.” Hints from throughout Walzer’s essay, incompletely elaborated there, are parceled together into closing suggestions as to an alternative approach to so-called ‘dirty hands’ situations.Item Essays on risk aversion(Texas A&M University, 2006-10-30) Jindapon, PaanThis dissertation contains three essays on risk aversion. In the first essay, we an- alyze comparative risk aversion in a new way, through a comparative statics problem in which, for a cost, agents can shift from an initial probability distribution toward a preferred distribution. The Ross characterization arises when the original distribution is riskier than the preferred distribution and the cost is monetary, and the Arrow-Pratt characterization arises when the original distribution differs from the preferred distribution by a simple mean-preserving spread and the cost is a utility cost. Higher-order increases in risk lead to higher-order generalizations, and the com- parative statics method yields a unified approach to the problem of comparative risk attitudes. In the second essay, we analyze decisions made by a group of terrorists and a government in a zero-sum game in which the terrorists minimize a representative citizen's expected utility and the government maximizes it. The terrorists' strategy balances the probability and the severity of the attack while the government chooses the level of investment reducing the probability and/or mitigating the severity. We find that if the representative citizen is risk neutral, the terrorists' response is not associated with the government's action and the representative citizen's risk attitudes affect the strategies of the government and the terrorists. Risk aversion always in- creases equilibrium severity but does not always increase equilibrium expenditure of the government. In the last essay, we consider a situation in which an individual has to pay for a good before he realizes the state-dependent surplus of the good. This ex-ante willingness to pay is called the option price and the difference between the option price and the expected surplus is the option value. We find that the option value actually is the buying price for a fixed payment of the expected surplus, and there is a special case in which the option value equals the negative of the compensating risk premium. We also find the effects on the option price and the option value when the expected utility assumption is replaced by a rank-dependent expected utility.Item Ethnic conflict and its connection to terrorism in the republics of Ingushetia and North Ossetia(2012-08) Osborne, Paul Kenneth; Garza, Thomas J.; Gavin, Francis J.Violence in Russia’s North Caucasus region has not been limited to Chechnya since the early 2000’s. The generally accepted theory on violence in other North Caucasus republics is that it has spilled over from Chechnya and is associated with religious extremism and poverty. There may be other reasons, however, for outbreaks of violence in other North Caucasus republics such as Ingushetia and North Ossetia. The North Ossetians and Ingush have had a tense relationship since the late Tsarist period. Disputes over a region known as the Prigorodny region has fueled ethnic hatreds and resulted in an armed conflict between the two republics in 1992. The relationship remains tense to this day. The conflict may be playing a role in the outbreak of violence in the two republics. Studies have shown that terrorism, while an extreme tactic, is in many cases associated with moderate political demands shared by the terrorists’ community. Additionally, terrorism appears to be often connected with lack of economic opportunity and the need for solidarity rather than simple poverty. The driving forces behind conventional terrorism suggest that Russian policymakers may be misguided in their attempts to combat terrorism in Ingushetia and North Ossetia. Terrorist violence in the region may be an Ingush continuation of ethnic battles fought in 1992, but utilizing extreme guerrilla methods. Exploring the violence in the two republics in the context of an ongoing ethnic conflict may enable policymakers to better tailor anti-terrorism policies in the region.Item From parliamentarianism to terrorism and back again(2011-05) Martin, Nancy Susanne; Moser, Robert G., 1966-; Pedahzur, Ami; Barany, Zoltan; McDonald, Patrick; Weinberg, LeonardWhat are the conditions under which terrorist groups turn to party politics? Under what conditions do political parties turn to terrorism? What types of political groups are more likely to turn to or from terrorism? Answers to these questions provide new insights into explanations for the formation of linkages between political parties and terrorist groups. While political parties and terrorist groups are often differentiated by the tactics they employ, empirical evidence shows that these political groups sometimes shift tactics, making use of violent and nonviolent tactics either concurrently or consecutively. Shifts between violent and nonviolent tactics occur when a political party supports, creates, or becomes a terrorist group and when a terrorist group supports, creates, or becomes a political party. Cases in which terrorist groups turn to party politics have been addressed in the literature, most often in the form of case studies. Less attention has been paid to the more numerous cases of political parties forming linkages with terrorist groups. Both types of tactical shifts are under-studied and under-theorized. This dissertation fills a gap in the largely separate literatures on political parties and terrorism through an analysis of international-, state-, and group-level factors associated with the formation of party-terror linkages and a discussion of the implications of these factors for the construction of a more general theory of political group adaptation.Item Libyan terrorism: a case study of United States policy under the Reagan administration(Texas Tech University, 1989-08) Castro, Susan MNot availableItem The Ludic wars : the interactive pleasures of post-9/11 military video games(2011-08) Payne, Matthew Thomas; Strover, Sharon; Straubhaar, Joseph; Kackman, Michael; Tyner, Kathleen; Cloud, DanaThis dissertation examines how commercially successful military-themed video games produced after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks are crafted, marketed, and played with the goal of understanding the interlocking technological, cultural, and social practices that contribute to their interactive pleasures. The systematic inquiry into the production and experience of media pleasure carries with it vexing questions about how such affect is created and how it is situated within broader cultural fields. This interdisciplinary project accordingly utilizes multiple methods including close textual readings of seminal games, a critical discourse analysis of marketing materials, and an ethnography and focus group of a war gaming fan community to track how these sites of practice give post-9/11 military-themed gameplay its distinctive experiential character and cultural import. The case studies examined herein reveal that the affective dimensions of militarized gameplay are intimately linked to the political and cultural forces undergirding their production, marketing, and reception, and that the games industry mobilizes anxieties about terrorism to entice gamers into virtually striking back against foreign aggressors.Item Mutable terrorism : Gerhard Richter, Hans-Peter Feldmann, and the cultural memory of Germany’s Red Army Faction(2012-08) Williamson, Jason Kirk; Bos, Pascale R.; Hake, Sabine; Arens, Katherine; Crew, David; Streeck, JürgenThis project explores the intersection of postwar German history, visual art, and left-wing terrorism. More than thirty years have now passed since the German Red Army Faction’s (1970-1998) most spectacular violent campaign—the so-called “German Autumn” of 1977—and yet the organization continues to elicit a variety of cultural responses from many artists. Interestingly, many films, texts, and visual artworks featuring the Red Army Faction (RAF) as their subject focus heavily on the group’s charismatic founders and on the German state’s vigorous efforts to suppress them and their successors, and yet these works pay comparatively scant attention to the individuals whom the RAF murdered. In light of this observation, I argue that the German Left’s cultural memory of the RAF was and still is marked not only by a significant ambivalence concerning the RAF (especially the founders) and the German state, but also the victims. As a means of elucidating this ambivalence, I offer close “readings” of two works of visual art that debuted at different moments in the years following the German Autumn. Gerhard Richter’s October 18, 1977 (1988) is a photorealist series that invites viewers to consider the lives and especially the deaths of the RAF’s principal members, while Hans-Peter Feldmann’s photo compilation The Dead 1967-1993 (1998) presents a sobering chronology of individuals killed either directly or indirectly as a result of the German leftist counterculture, including terrorist violence, without making an immediate distinction between perpetrators and victims. Within the framework of the larger RAF cultural memory, the works of Richter and Feldmann thus help clarify some of the causes and effects of the German Left’s suspended resolution regarding RAF terrorism.Item Negotiating with terrorists in the shadow of American power(2015-05) Rondou, Benjamin Robert; Wolford, Scott; McDonald, PatrickNegotiation with terrorists is a controversial policy issue that effects both domestic actors and the international community. Current literature only focuses on the domestic characteristics of this phenomenon though. This paper presents a theory of international pressure's influence on the domestic bargaining process between governments and terrorist groups, arguing that governments are more likely to align their domestic terrorism policy with the United States in the aftermath of a terror attack on the US. I find statistical support for this theory using data on concessions to terrorists in Africa from 1989-2010 as concessions are significantly less likely in in the 6 months following an attack on the USItem “Nothing’s been the same since New York” : the Marvel Cinematic Universe's engagement with 9/11 and the War on Terror(2015-05) Bograd, Natalie Kate; Perren, Alisa; Schatz, ThomasThis thesis explores how the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has engaged with 9/11 and the War on Terror since its inception in 2008. This thesis examines industrial and cultural factors affecting the way these post-9/11 superhero films engage with contemporary sociopolitical concerns and argues that the Marvel Studios films both attempt to engage with said concerns and also sanitize and rework references to terrorism, war, torture, and destruction in order to remain palatable for the widest possible audience (including a family audience and a growing international market). In contrast to other superhero franchises, several of which intentionally play on post-9/11 feelings of vulnerability and terror, the MCU films and television series use a combination of humor, a brightly colored comic book aesthetic, and impressive visual spectacles in order to ensure that the primary focus is on entertainment. This thesis provides a detailed analysis of the characters, ideological content, and visual elements of the MCU as they relate to 9/11 and the War on Terror.Item Pathologies of terrorist target selection(2010-08) Krishnan, Sarat; Pedahzur, Ami; Perliger, ArieThe phenomenon of Terrorism has perplexed and fascinated policy makers and scholars. While there has been significant amount of research on Terrorism, the dynamics or Pathologies of Terrorist Target Selection have received less attention, with few comprehensive treatises on the subject. In this paper, I review and critique existing literature on the subject, while offering a different perspective and model for this dynamic. First, I introduce a contemporary definition of terrorism and establish a framework for the analysis of Terrorist Target Selection. In Chapter 2, I posit that accurate Target Selection Forecasting Techniques need to account for the Adaptive Learning Mechanisms that Terrorist Groups adopt and existing case studies on the subject. Chapter 3 undertakes a critical literature review of Target Selection Case Studies. In Chapter 4, I suggest new research proposals that adopt this theme. In conclusion, I offer what we believe is a novel approach to understanding Terrorist Target Selection and argue that such a model should be flexible enough to work across the various Ideological Silos that Terrorist movements are bracketed into in the current Geo-Political Environment.Item Religion and politics : investigating the relationship between the Islamist social movement and the Muslim intra-religious convert(2007-08) Arnoult, Jonathan Blake; Pedahzur, AmiNews headlines link the religion of Islam to acts of violence every day, interchangeably using terms like "radical," "Islamo-fascist," "militant," "terrorist," "wahabbist," "jihadist," "Islamist," "Muslim-extremist," and "al-Qaeda member" to describe the anti-"moderate" Muslim. In an effort to contribute to the literature supporting the idea that political ideology is the focus of radical Islam, or ‘Islamism,’ rather than the religion of Islam, this study seeks to explore whether recent converts to Islam in the West are attracted to the social movement based on Islamism.Item The Revolutionaries(2012-12) Basu, Rhituparna; Shea, Andrew Brendan; Stekler, Paul; Schiesari, Nancy; Ramirez-Berg, CharlesThis report outlines the creation of my thesis project “The Revolutionaries: An Untold History of Freedom” from concept to completed film. The Revolutionary Movement was an underground militant movement in pre-independent India which sought to overthrow the British government by force. The film interleaves the interview of an elderly ex-Revolutionary with a high-level history of this mostly-forgotten underground movement.Item Russia's Federal Security Service in the twenty-first century : terrorism, the political manipulation of domestic intelligence, and the dramatic expansion of the FSB(2010-05) Oermann, Ross Laurence; Barany, Zoltan D.; Pedahzur, AmiThe objective of this research was to analyze the evolution of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) during the twenty-first century, using historical institutionalism as a framework. Three critical junctures were President Putin’s election in 2000, the Nord-Ost Terrorist Crisis in 2002, and the Beslan Terrorist Crisis in 2004; theories dealing with insecurity, the psychological effects of terrorism, and domestic intelligence were also incorporated. This study found that the expansion of the FSB has provided it with greater potential for carrying out its functions as a domestic intelligence service as well as abusing authority and assisting the state in regime consolidation. Consolidation, in the intelligence community and state, was made possible by legitimate terrorist crises and the perception of threats, which were manipulated by Vladimir Putin’s administration. Public support for consolidation, favoring security over freedom, was mobilized around Putin’s war against terrorism and perceived foreign “threats” within a political system devoid of effective checks against the executive.Item State sponsored terrorism? leader survival and the foreign policy of fear(2013-05) Skuldt, Amanda C.; Pedahzur, Ami; Trubowitz, Peter; Pedahzur, Ami; Trubowitz, PeterStates that sponsor terrorism pose one of the greatest policy and security challenges of the 21st century. Over the past decade, the United States and coalition allies have invested over a trillion dollars in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both waged, in part, to end their support for terrorism. Iran's support for Hezbollah and Hamas makes negotiations over its nuclear program tremendously difficult and the prospect of an Iranian nuclear umbrella, under which these groups could operate, especially concerning. Likewise, Qaddafi's overthrow and the siege on Assad's regime in Syria have both been justified in the context of their historic support for terrorists, as well as the more recent normative concern for the repression of their people. This paper moves beyond a simple explanation of state sponsorship as covert war or way to persuade target states to concede policy objectives. Rather, it models state sponsored terrorism as a leader survival strategy that leaders choose when facing simultaneous internal and external threats. By investing a portion of the state's military power outside the control of the military and into terrorist groups and the security services that arm and train them, the leader is able to signal competency to other elites in his coalition and insulate himself from existing threats of coup d'état from the military while avoiding defeat in external conflict. Using a newly constructed dataset on state sponsorship that uses the leader-year (1968-2001) as the unit of analysis (N=5139), this study finds that many existing explanations for state sponsorship do not withstand empirical testing and that the combined level of high external threat and elevated threat of coup d'état are key determinants of a leader's decision to sponsor terrorist groups. This work has tremendous implications for US security policy as current practices, such as regime-targeted sanctions, may have the unintended effect of increasing the level of threat that the leader experiences and thus the likelihood of state sponsorship. These insights highlight a major reason why military strikes and economic sanctions are less successful than regime change for ending state sponsorship. Furthermore, it suggests that carefully reducing the external and internal levels of threat the leader faces may be the most effective method to end state sponsorship of terrorism.Item Terrorism in authoritarian regimes : defining the cycle of repression and violence in Uzbekistan(2006-05) Trisko, Jessica; Buckley, Cynthia J.As terrorism continues to grow in importance for national and global security, it is imperative to understand both the positive and the negative implications of anti-terrorism efforts. This study explores the impact that the introduction of terrorism-oriented legislation has on state-society relations in authoritarian countries. I examine changes in the definition of terrorism, the use of associated terms and the occurrence of terrorist incidents along a timeline of terrorism in Uzbekistan dating from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2005. The example of Uzbekistan’s struggle against terrorism, under the leadership of President Karimov, allows for an examination of the conceptualization of terrorism prior and subsequent to the events of 11 September 2001. Through a content analysis of English and Russian language newspaper reports, in addition to the relevant laws and Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan, I reveal that state-society relations in Uzbekistan were not clarified by the introduction of terrorism-oriented legislation in 2001. This analysis has important implications for future anti-terrorism efforts, such as the introduction of terrorism-oriented legislation, in authoritarian countries and suggests that anti-terrorism efforts may not decrease terrorist activities.Item Terrorism in the Sinai(2014-05) Richards, Robin Nicole; Suri, Jeremi; Brownlee, Jason, 1974-This report tracks and analyzes militant activity in the Sinai Peninsula. It focuses on the violence that has occurred since 2011, and particularly on the major increase in violence has been ongoing since July 2013. The project relies on open source intelligence to identify the reasons for the increase in violence and also determine the nature of the violence – who is carrying out the attacks and why. On July 3, 2013, the Egyptian military removed the democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi. What followed was an unprecedented increase in violence in the Sinai Peninsula. Since the fall of 2013, the violence has spread from the Sinai Peninsula into the mainland of Egypt. Hundreds of security personnel have been killed or injured since the uptick in the violence. After the coup that removed Morsi, there was a significant shift in the targets of attacks and the tactics used and this shift is indicative of the presence of the global jihadi network in the Sinai. Terrorist groups stopped targeting Israel and turned almost exclusively to Egypt security personnel. There has also been a major increase in suicide attacks, which indicates that there is a connection between the global jihadi network and Egyptian militant groups. The military is once again in control of Egypt’s government yet they have focused on consolidating political control instead of dealing with Egypt’s mounting security problem. The military has consistently insisted that the Muslim Brotherhood is behind the terror and ignored the true cause of the violence. This willful omission has allowed the terrorist groups in the Sinai to flourish and threaten security in mainland Egypt.