In this video, University of Maryland Professor of Government and Politics Dr. Jóhanna Birnir provides a virtual talk on her co-authored book, Alternatives in Mobilization: Ethnicity, Religion, and Political Conflict, which explores what determines which identity cleavage, ethnicity or religion, is mobilized in political contestation, be it peaceful or violent, and proposes that variation in relative group size and intersection of cleavages help explain conundrums in the mobilization of identity, across transgressive and contained political settings. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this video are the speaker’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of START, the University of Maryland or the United States government.
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In this video, START Founding Director and current University of Maryland Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice Distinguished University Professor Dr. Gary LaFree provides a virtual talk on his recent co-authored article exploring differences in the use of political violence across different ideological categories both worldwide and in the United States, with research done using both the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) and the Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States (PIRUS) dataset. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this video are the speaker’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of START, the University of Maryland or the United States government.
In this video, GTD Program Manager Dr. Erin Miller provides a virtual lecture exploring the most recent terrorism trends found in the Global Terrorism Database (GTD). Twenty years after University of Maryland researchers began developing the GTD in 2002, Miller will present trends from the upcoming publication of new GTD data for 1970 to 2020. Topics will include patterns of terrorism in the United States and around the world during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, developments in Afghanistan leading up to the 2021 collapse of the Afghan government and the evolving geographic footprint of Islamic State-related terrorism. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this video are the speaker’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of START, the University of Maryland or the United States government.
In this video, Unconventional Weapons and Technology (UWT) Director Steve Sin and UWT researchers Megan Rutter and Rhyner Washburn provide a virtual talk on the findings from their project “Developing Impact and Effectiveness Assessment Tool for Influence Operations.” Strategic adversaries and competitors of the United States have come to view influence operations as an effective, low-cost, and low consequence (for the influencer) means of advancing their goals and agendas. Given our adversaries and competitors’ view of influence operations, and the immense implications and potential consequences of them, there is a need for research that will advance the state of the art in detecting, characterizing, and countering state-sponsored influence operations. While there is a large volume of work that has been done to understand the nature and effects of influence operations, as well as exploring various methods to counter them, there is a dearth of work that examines how one can measure the impact and effectiveness of influence operations. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this video are the speaker’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of START, the University of Maryland or the United States government.
In this video, START Associate Research Scientist Dr. Elizabeth Radziszewski provides a virtual talk on her book, “Private Militaries and the Security Industry in Civil Wars: Competition and Market Accountability.” Whether they train police forces in Afghanistan or provide military assistance to governments in Africa that are battling rebel groups, private military and security companies (PMSCs), or corporations that provide security and military services for profit, have been present in numerous conflicts around the globe. In 1984 only one international PMSC intervened in a civil war; in 1989 there were 15 international PMSCs present in conflict zones, while from 2003 to 2019 over 120 of such companies provided services during the Iraq war. Why do international PMSCs sometimes help with conflict termination while in other cases their intervention is associated with prolonged wars? And in what ways does market competition affect PMSCs’ military effectiveness? Disclaimer: The views expressed in this video are the speaker’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of START, the University of Maryland or the United States government.
In this video, Washington Institute for Near East Policy Associate Fellow Ido Levy provides a virtual talk on his book, Soldiers of End-Times: Assessing the Military Effectiveness of the Islamic State. In 2014, the Islamic State shocked the world when it defeated national armies on the battlefield and seized large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria. The group’s military success can be traced to four key variables: organizational innovation, shaping operations, will to fight, and a knack for retaining the initiative. The IS military project led not only to the declaration of a “caliphate,” but to the proliferation of jihadist franchises that devastated countries, displaced millions, and killed tens of thousands. Yet the group’s weaknesses ultimately led to the collapse of its territorial achievement. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this video are the speaker’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of START, the University of Maryland or the United States government.
In this video, SUNY Albany Professor Victor Asal, University of Essex Reader Brian J. Phillips and University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Dean R. Karl Rethemeyer provide a virtual talk on their new START-Oxford University Press book, “Insurgent Terrorism: Intergroup Relationships and the Killing of Civilians.”
Insurgent groups consist of individuals willing to organize and commit acts of terror to achieve their goals. By nature, they depend on public support, yet they sometimes target private civilians in addition to military personnel and government officials. This book examines insurgent embeddedness--the extent to which an insurgent group is enmeshed in relationships with the state, other insurgents, and the public--in order to understand why they attack civilians.
Using Big Allied and Dangerous (BAAD) as the dataset, this book drills into civilian attacks in specific contexts, including schools, news media, and nonmilitary/nongovernment spaces designed for the general public. This book goes one step further, presenting in-depth analyses of intergroup alliances and rivalries, their changes and determinants over time, and the implications for several types of bloodshed against civilians.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this video are the speaker’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of START, the University of Maryland or the United States government.
This video features the final session of the 2021 Webinar Series: Migration, Security and Regional Militancy in Sabah and the Greater Sulu Celebes Sea, co-hosted by the Universiti Malaysia Sabah, the International Islamic University Malaysia, and START. This series is part of the research project “Divergent Dimensions of Radicalization Risk: Migration and Violent Extremism in Sabah,” which focuses on security issues in Sabah, Malaysia.
This webinar series aims to provide awareness, knowledge-transfer, and capacity-building in preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) based on research findings on pertinent issues related to security, migration and regional militancy in Sabah and the greater Sulu Celebes Sea. The first session explores Divergent Dimensions of Radicalization Risk: Migration and Violent Extremism in Sabah & Navigating Research Management During Pandemic. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this video are the speaker’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of START, the University of Maryland or the United States government.
This video features the second session of the 2021 Webinar Series: Migration, Security and Regional Militancy in Sabah and the Greater Sulu Celebes Sea, co-hosted by the Universiti Malaysia Sabah, the International Islamic University Malaysia, and START. This series is part of the research project “Divergent Dimensions of Radicalization Risk: Migration and Violent Extremism in Sabah,” which focuses on security issues in Sabah, Malaysia.
This webinar series aims to provide awareness, knowledge-transfer, and capacity-building in preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) based on research findings on pertinent issues related to security, migration and regional militancy in Sabah and the greater Sulu Celebes Sea. The first session explores Divergent Dimensions of Radicalization Risk: Migration and Violent Extremism in Sabah & Navigating Research Management During Pandemic. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this video are the speaker’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of START, the University of Maryland or the United States government.
This video features the first session of the 2021 Webinar Series: Migration, Security and Regional Militancy in Sabah and the Greater Sulu Celebes Sea, co-hosted by the Universiti Malaysia Sabah, the International Islamic University Malaysia, and START. This series is part of the research project “Divergent Dimensions of Radicalization Risk: Migration and Violent Extremism in Sabah,” which focuses on security issues in Sabah, Malaysia.
This webinar series aims to provide awareness, knowledge-transfer, and capacity-building in preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) based on research findings on pertinent issues related to security, migration and regional militancy in Sabah and the greater Sulu Celebes Sea. The first session explores Divergent Dimensions of Radicalization Risk: Migration and Violent Extremism in Sabah & Navigating Research Management During Pandemic. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this video are the speaker’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of START, the University of Maryland or the United States government.