Terrorism Research: Critical Lessons For Policymakers

Later this week, we'll be releasing a new paper analyzing the latest academic research on terrorism and suggesting a way forward for policymakers. This research suggests that a solid understanding of globalization is the best lense through which to view our ongoing struggle with global terrorism and that this conceptualization frames the most appropriate strategies for countering it. Below is the exectuive summary of that report. We'll be teasing the paper throughout the week and releasing the full report on Thursday. 

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Executive Summary

More than ten years after the tragic events of 9/11 and a year after the death of Osama bin Laden, counter-terrorism professionals have at their disposal a vast trove of empirical and theoretical research on the nature and causes of international terrorism. Interest in this scholarship has risen to unprecedented levels over the past decade as heightened interest and strategic relevance has been supported by surging departmental budgets and federal funding. Charles Strozier, Director of the Center on Terrorism at John Jay College, has observed that prior to 9/11 "terrorism was almost exclusively studied by political scientists...[but] when we became aware of this new form of violence in the world, we realized that you had to come at it from many disciplinary perspectives." This proliferation of multidisciplinary perspectives provides important insight for policymakers as they craft new laws and develop regimes to manage the ongoing defense against terrorism.

In order to evaluate this theoretical work and for it to serve as an effective tool for policymakers, it must meet at least four conditions: These studies must be understandable by their intended audience. They must reveal some kind of observable truth. They must be relevant to the challenges being faced. And most importantly, they must be actionable in some useful and feasible way.

Terror scholarship that does not meet these conditions, while perhaps insightful and novel, is unlikely to spread beyond the domains of universities, conferences, and academic journals. Work that does meet these conditions, however, has the possibility of providing policymakers with a kind of "Moneyball" insight. Like Billy Beane's famed application of systematic statistics to baseball, highly relevant terror studies can help pull back the curtain and reveal to policymakers what is really happening beneath the surface.

After analyzing literature on psychology, criminology, and development theory-this paper will conclude that Globalization Theory offers the most complete and useful framework for understanding the challenges of contemporary counterterrorism policy. The actionable policy recommendations that follow are firmly grounded in empirical research, strategically relevant, and should inform the work of interested policymakers.