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This paper first introduces a theoretical formalization connecting a polity's income level to terrorism. Our framework can accommodate different underlying assumptions about individual- and society-level grievances, yielding competing hypotheses. We then construct a panel database to study terrorism for 1527 subnational regions in 75 countries between 1970 and 2014. Results consistently imply an inverted U-shape that remains robust to incorporating a comprehensive set of region-level covariates, region- and time-fixed effects, as well as estimating an array of alternative specifications. The threat of terrorism systematically rises as low-income polities become richer, peaking at GDP/capita levels of ≈ US$12,800 (in constant 2005 PPP US$), but then falls consistently above that level. This pattern emerges for domestic and transnational terrorism alike. While peaks differ by perpetrator ideology, the inverted U shape also prevails across ideology-specific subsamples. In sum, alleviating poverty may first exacerbate terrorism, contrary to much of the proposed recipes advocated since 9/11. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines money laundering and terrorist financing from both a conceptual framework as well as the regulations that attempt to combat its use. A historical perspective of money laundering provides context on its origins, evolution, and anti-money laundering efforts. After a review of the money laundering process, anti-money laundering efforts in the United States are examined through the end of the twentieth century as well as the rise of international terrorism. The impact of September 11, 2001 on anti-money laundering efforts is then examined along with identifying links between human and drug trafficking with terrorist financing. The article concludes with emerging technologies that may have a significant impact on both money laundering and anti-money laundering efforts as they apply to the threat of terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in the discipline of counterterrorism studies since al-Qaeda's catastrophic attacks against the United States on 9/11 along 10 dimensions: defining terrorism, group and lone actor typologies, causes of terrorism, terrorist psychologies, radicalization and recruitment, organizational dynamics, modus operandi, incident chronology databases, forecasting and predicting terrorism, and countering terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On October 7, 2001, 3 weeks after 9/11, U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan; bombers struck Taliban headquarters and Al Qaeda training sites. By early December, the Taliban and Al Qaeda have been defeated and had fled. However, a war that began so successfully in 2001, eventually ended ignominiously on August 30, 2021, almost exactly 20 years later, with a U.S. withdrawal and a total Taliban victory. The speed of the Taliban's triumph shocked everyone. The entire campaign, costing US$2.3 trillion and 2,488 U.S. lives, had failed—utterly. The United States had lost its longest-ever war. How is it possible to explain a defeat of that magnitude? This article seeks to address this question. Although numerous factors played a role, this article identifies three principal factors: the environment, the local politics, and the Taliban. Afghanistan is a very difficult place to conduct large-scale military operations. The West never came to terms with the local politics and consequently undermined their own efforts. Finally, although they were not militarily sophisticated, the Taliban were politically astute and very resilient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the impact of exogenous shocks on nonprofit operations by assessing the effect of 9/11 on donations to Muslim American nonprofits. The first narrative promoted by civil rights groups and some Islamic charities argues that donations to Islamic charities have declined. Individuals are afraid of getting indicted by law enforcement agencies for advertently or inadvertently funding an organization that supports terrorism. The second narrative is that donations to Islamic charities have increased post-9/11 as donors push back against Islamophobia by supporting Muslim nonprofits. I systematically assess these narratives using difference-in-difference (DiD) methodology and find that 9/11 had no significant impact on overall contributions to Islamic charities. Although donations to internationally focused Islamic charities declined in the year following 9/11, when compared with domestic-focused Islamic charities, they also recovered shortly after that. Moreover, they did not reduce significantly when compared with non-Islamic internationally focused organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is a content analysis of American news coverage of World Trade Center (WTC) cough syndrome, a common ailment among 9/11 survivors, published before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic, coverage was limited to areas geographically proximate to the attacks and embodied themes of respiratory disease descriptions, heroism and patriotism and government involvement. Pandemic-era coverage expanded to areas where survivors now live and embodied themes of survivors comparing 9/11 to the pandemic, survivors' vulnerability to COVID-19, lack of federal government transparency, calls for caution and safety protocols, heroism and patriotism and the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, research on attitudes towards the use of torture on suspected terrorists has become common. However, despite acknowledging the identity-rooted relationship between threat and out-group hostility, the possible relationship between identity attachment and attitudes towards torture has been under-explored. Using data from the 2016 American National Election Study, the results of the present study further the understanding of the relationship between identity and support for torture. Two main findings are supported: 1) greater attachment to American Identity increases support for the torture of suspected terrorists, and 2) the perceived threat of terrorism partially mediates the relationship between attachment to the American Identity and attitudes towards torture. Ultimately, the study demonstrates, high attachment to American Identity and the 9/11-generated discursive construction of terrorists as threatening this identity is associated with individuals' attitudes towards torture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the end of the Cold War and through the start of the 21st century, conventional IR theories were anticipating an eventual balancing against the United States. Puzzled when this phenomenon did not occur, balancing theorists engaged in a lively discussion, bringing with it the development of proposed alternative forms of balancing and a debate over whether the concept itself had perhaps outlived its relevance. This article reengages with this discussion, suggesting that many of the involved theorists were hampered by theoretical blinders based on statism, and that in fact balancing did occur, but in an unconventional manner and at the hands of an unexpected suspect: al Qaeda, a violent non-state actor, acting in a transnational manner. In this context, this article treats the 9/11 attacks of the violent Jihadist anti-Western movement as an instance of balancing against the hegemon, a successful one in that the Jihadists arguably aimed not at "winning," but at revealing the superpower's weaknesses so that others would subsequently join the balancing effort. By failing to view the Jihadists' efforts as an ideological balancing effort, the United States responded with force rather than ideational counter-balancing. They waged a war instead of emphasizing efforts to separate the radical violent Jihadist perpetrators from the idea they were championing—a struggle in the name of Muslims/the downtrodden East against the United States—and thus allowing the challenger to rise into a position of "dissident" in the Muslim world, and, arguably, paving the path for today's state revisionist behaviors. The article proposes a framework based on traditionally state-based concepts of intent and impact/capacity to show how non-state actors can in fact balance superpowers and therefore should be incorporated into balancing theories, and presents the actions of the violent Jihadists as an example of transnational, ideational balancing—a phenomenon as real and consequential as state-balancing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an editor's introduction to a special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist journal on terrorism in the 21st century. The editor, Harvey W. Kushner, explains that the issue was published shortly before the September 11, 2001 attacks, making the topic even more relevant. Kushner had to put his own contribution on hold due to his involvement in the U.S. Embassy Bombing trial. He then invited back contributors from the original issue to reassess their thoughts on terrorism after 9/11. The special issue includes articles on the future of terrorism, personal reflections on terrorism research, right-wing extremism, counterterrorism studies, and the impact of 9/11 on money laundering. The goal of the issue is to stimulate dialogue, understanding, and further research on terrorism in the new millennium. [Extracted from the article]

I was amazed at the resiliency of the EASU staff and the many conference participants who were physically in Ukraine. On June 23, 2022, I was invited by an EASU conference team member to participate in an upcoming 5-day conference in Ukraine in July entitled "Unknown Wars." Keywords: EASU; Ukraine; Russo-Ukrainian War EN EASU Ukraine Russo-Ukrainian War 355 357 3 01/16/23 20230301 NES 230301 The European Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (EASU) is a nongovernmental organization that promotes and advances science and scholarship within Ukraine and throughout the world. [Extracted from the article]

Information sharing has become a central concern for security agencies since 9/11. Previous research has identified a number of barriers to information sharing among agencies: a combination of legal or policy constraints, interagency rivalry and mistrust, and technology. Drawing on ideas from the sociology of information and trust, this article conceptualises the sharing/withholding of information between agencies as dependent on rules as a system of trust. Adapting Richard Ericson's framework of the different contexts of rule-following and making use of an Australian case study, the article demonstrates how law, culture and technology are intertwined in constraining or enabling access to information. The implications of this model for legal and policy interventions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a panel study where one survey was conducted immediately after a terrorist attack in central Stockholm, with over 20,000 participants, we examine the possibility that first-hand experiences with terror increases effects compared to people located elsewhere in Sweden. We use matching and as-if random variation in our data to identify the effect of personal proximity. While we find that people close to the attack perceived themselves as more affected, attesting to the vividness of the experience, we find no evidence of stronger rally effects, greater outgroup dislike, preferences for security policies or emotional effects. The results challenge previous theories on public opinion change in the aftermath of vivid events. In line with prior research, however, the results indicate that public opinion among people across Sweden did change on a range of issues. These general effects occurred uniformly, regardless of geographic location in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]