Researching Terrorist Networks

Abstract While there has been a great deal of work on networks and their impact on governance, government and social movements, until the attacks against the United States in 2001 very few studies focused on what Raab and Milward call “Dark Networks” (2003). The attack on the United States illustrated how effectively tactical and strategic networks can exploit modern technology for violence. Since 2001, there has been a growing interest in the role that networks play in facilitating terrorist tactical and strategic behavior. Much of the network literature on terrorism has focused on the tactical importance of networks. Strategic terrorist networks (i.e., the relationships between and among terrorist organizations and the states that sponsor terrorism) are rarely, if ever, studied. In this paper, we give an overview of why terrorist networks are important, the major areas of investigation, and possible future areas of exploration.

[1]  D. Strang.  Networking for Other People , 2004 .

[2]  Marc Sageman,et al.  Understanding terror networks. , 2004, International journal of emergency mental health.

[3]  S. Wayland.  Ethnonationalist networks and transnational opportunities: the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora , 2004, Review of International Studies.

[4]  A. Klotz.  Transnational Activism and Global Transformations: The Anti-Apartheid and Abolitionist Experiences , 2002 .

[5]  Destabilizing networks , 2002 .

[6]  Kathryn Sikkink,et al.  Transnational advocacy networks in international and regional politics , 1999 .

[7]  Davis Lazarus.  Effects-Based Operations and Counterterrorism , 2005 .

[8]  W. Powell,et al.  Interorganizational Collaboration and the Locus of Innovation: Networks of Learning in Biotechnology. , 1996 .

[9]  H. Milward,et al.  Dark Networks as Problems , 2003 .

[10]  Kathleen M. Carley.  Estimating Vulnerabilities in Large Covert Networks , 2004 .

[11]  Ted E. Senator,et al.  Countering terrorism through information technology , 2004, CACM.

[12]  W. Eggers,et al.  Governing by Network: The New Shape of the Public Sector , 2004 .

[13]  Zachary Abuza,et al.  Funding Terrorism in Southeast Asia: The Financial Network of Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiya , 2003 .

[14]  Laurence J. O'Toole,et al.  Implementing Public Innovations in Network Settings , 1997 .

[15]  David Tucker,et al.  What is New about the New Terrorism and How Dangerous is It? , 2001 .

[16]  David Shallcross,et al.  Practical Issues and Algorithms for Analyzing Terrorist Networks 1 , 2002 .

[17]  Stephen P. Borgatti,et al.  Identifying sets of key players in a social network , 2006, Comput. Math. Organ. Theory.

[18]  Varvara Mitliaga,et al.  Networks and Netwars - The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy , 2002, Int. J. Law Inf. Technol..

[19]  Executive Summary,et al.  COUNTERING GLOBAL INSURGENCY , 2004 .

[20]  L. O'toole.  Treating networks seriously: Practical and research-based agendas in public administration , 1997 .

[21]  J. Sullivan,et al.  Multilateral Counter-Insurgency Networks , 2002 .

[22]  Michele Zanini,et al.  Middle Eastern Terrorism and Netwar , 1999 .

[23]  R. Karl Rethemeyer,et al.  Policymaking in the Age of Internet: Is the Internet Tending to Make Policy Networks More or Less Inclusive? , 2006 .

[24]  Zachary Abuza.  Tentacles of Terror: Al Qaeda´s Southeast Asian Network , 2002 .

[25]  N. Ettlinger,et al.  Thinking Through Networks and Their Spatiality: A Critique of the US (Public) War on Terrorism and its Geographic Discourse , 2004 .

[26]  Keith G. Provan,et al.  Governing the Hollow State , 2000 .

[27]  William Elison,et al.  Netwar: Studying Rebels on the Internet , 2000 .

[28]  G. Shambaugh,et al.  The Limits of Terrorism: A Network Perspective , 2005 .

[29]  Francesca Polletta,et al.  Dynamics of Contention , 2002 .

[30]  John Arquilla,et al.  Information-Age Terrorism , 2000 .

[31]  B. McAllister.  Al Qaeda and the Innovative Firm: Demythologizing the Network , 2004 .

[32]  David Jones,et al.  Looking for the Pattern: Al Qaeda in Southeast Asia--The Genealogy of a Terror Network , 2003 .

[33]  K. Cragin,et al.  The Dynamic Terrorist Threat , 2004 .