Problems in applying counterterrorism to prevent terrorism: Two decades of violence in Northern Ireland reconsidered

The Impact of British Counterterrorist Strategies on Political Violence in Northern Ireland: Comparing Deterrence and Backlash Models*

“…By contrast, the far more limited but in some ways more severe methods used in the Loughall and Gibralter operations produced more evidence of backlash than deterrence. Equally interesting is the fact that \\server05\productn\C\CRY\47-1\CRY105.txt Although we offer the first statistical comparison of deterrence and backlash models of terrorism in Northern Ireland of which we are aware, the basic finding that the imposition of harsh criminal justice and military interventions to reduce terrorism may be counterproductive is by no means new (Collins, 2004;Geraghty, 2000;Kenney, 2003;Lichbach, 1987;Malvesti, 2002;Nevin, 2003;Soule, 1989;Turk, 2002). Given the evidence that deterrence-based thinking with regard to terrorism is often demonstrably unsuccessful, we must ask ourselves why it remains the most common reaction of governments to terrorist threats.…”

“…Although it provided little support for deterrence models, the study was limited to a 5year period and concentrates on riots rather than on terrorist attacks, which is the focus of the current research. Soule (1989) studied the goals and methods of the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the counterterrorist responses of the authorities over a 20-year period. He tracks annual terrorism-related deaths experienced by security forces and civilians, as well as persons charged with terrorist and other criminal offenses.…”

“…He tracks annual terrorism-related deaths experienced by security forces and civilians, as well as persons charged with terrorist and other criminal offenses. He concludes (Soule, 1989: 31) that the two sides have become locked in a "ritualistic dance of death" as each side adapts its tactics to new adaptations on the other side. Although Soule does not directly examine the impact of specific counterterrorist strategies and offers no formal statistical analysis, his results fail to support a deterrence interpretation.…”

“…Because prior research (Soule, 1989;White, 1997) has emphasized the retaliatory nature of loyalist and republican attacks in Northern Ireland, we include a measure of the total number of loyalist attacks in the previous calendar month (from 725 total loyalist attacks). Again, we measure loyalist attacks prior to the current attack to reduce biases from endogeneity.…”

Internal terrorists: the terrorists inside organizations

“…The primary reason for the scarcity of research in this area is that it is difficult to conduct research on a phenomenon that is highly diverse, very unpredictable, and relatively infrequent, even if its consequences are lasting and, in some cases, quite substantial (Merari, 1991). It is also clearly dangerous to conduct field studies of actual terrorists or terrorist organizations, yet some of that kind of work has been done (Jamieson, 1990; Soule, 1989), including a study of terrorist finances (Adams, 1986). Some forms of terrorism can be linked to other forms of dysfunctional behavior such as workplace violence, but that is not true of all forms of terrorism (Reich, 1990).…”