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1. Leadership Targeting as a Counterterrorism Strategy: The Nigerian Experience

Author:
Gbemisola Animasawun
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
This paper examines the implications of leadership decapitation as a counterterrorism tactic using as case studies, the killings of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by the US and Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf by Nigeria. It is based on Alex S. Wilner’s method of comparing the number of attacks a group successfully carried out before and after the removal of its leader as a means of ascertaining its weakness, demise, or renewed ferocity due to the death of its leader.12 This study gives an account of the unprecedented increase in the number of Boko Haram attacks and the high level of fear and attention—both local and international—due to the high-level targets chosen by the group after the killing of Mohammed Yusuf. This is complemented by primary data gathered through semi-structured interviews with selected security operatives who had contact with Yusuf and his successor Abubakar Shekau. For al-Qaeda, data was collected from secondary sources only. This study begins by summarizing the origin and agenda of violent Islamism, followed by arguments for and against leadership decapitation. Next, it considers accounts of the evolution of al-Qaeda and Boko Haram, their experience of leadership decapitation, and the ferocity of both groups in the aftermath of leadership decapitation. Finally, it examines the overall implications of leadership decapitation for counterterrorism efforts in light of the post-decapitation recovery and increase in reach of both al-Qaeda and Boko Haram. The two cases of leadership decapitation examined in this article are telling cases that invite closer attention to the implications of counterterrorism strategies.13
Topic:
Counter-terrorism, Al Qaeda, Refugee Crisis, Leadership, and Boko Haram
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, Middle East, and Nigeria

2. Israeli Democracy Depends on Peace with the Palestinians

Author:
Heiko Wimmen
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
HW: Professor Peled, during the two years of Ariel Sharon's tenure as prime minister, Israel has seen a steep economic decline, and a rapidly deteriorating security situation. Yet Mr. Sharon enjoys more support than any Israeli head of government for a long time. What do you make of this paradox?
Topic:
Government and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

3. Iraq and the Return of Colonialism

Author:
Burhan Ghalioun
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
The failure to discover any traceable evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq doubtlessly creates a serious embarrassment for the American administration. But the US never made much of an effort to conceal that the purported existence of WMDs in Iraq was only a pretext employed to obtain the consent of some of its bigger allies to its global strategic outlook, and the acquiescence of smaller nations to its regional plans. The real objective behind the US strike against Iraq was not the destruction of WMDs – Iraq in its pre-war state was ill equipped to produce WMDs anyway – but to topple the regime of President Saddam Hussein. The Bush administration also clearly considered regime change to be more than a strategic aim in itself, but rather a prelude to a general makeover of the region, in the course of which many local regimes would have to change or be changed according to its strategic vision. Secretary of State Colin Powell made this abundantly clear when, in December 2002, he promised the peoples of the region a concerted effort on behalf of the US to achieve democratic change, fight unemployment and work for the improvement of women's position in society.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, America, and Middle East

4. Ideas, Culture and Political Analysis Workshop

Author:
Thomas Risse, Sarah Mendelson, Neil Fligstein, Jan Kubik, Jeffrey T. Checkel, Consuelo Cruz, Kathleen McNamara, Sheri Berman, Frank Dobbin, Mark Blyth, Ken Pollack, George Steinmetz, Daniel Philpott, Gideon Rose, Martha Finnemore, Kathryn Skikkink, Marie Gottschalk, John Kurt Jacobsen, and Anna Seleny
Publication Date:
05-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
The last decade or so has witnessed a resurgence in scholarship employing ideational and cultural factors in the analysis of political life. This scholarship has addressed political phenomena across a variety of national and international settings, with studies of European politics being particularly well represented. For example, the work of scholars like Peter Hall (1993), Peter Katzenstein (1996), Ronald Inglehart (1997), Robert Putnam (1994) and Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (1995) has improved our understandings of European polities, societies and economies. Yet despite a recent rise in interest, ideational and cultural explanations still meet with skepticism in many quarters of the discipline. Some scholars doubt whether non-material factors like ideas or culture have independent causal effects, and others, who accept that such factors might matter, despair of devising viable ways of analyzing their impact on political life.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, Security, Democratization, Economics, Government, Human Rights, International Cooperation, Nationalism, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, France, and Latin America