TSAS Key Publications consist of working papers written by Affiliates whose projects have been funded by the TSAS Executive Committee.
Listed on the next two pages are abstracts for the 10 successful projects selected for funding by TSAS. The final working papers will be published in the TSAS virtual library in 2014.
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Publisher: TSASYear Published:Description:
At a fundamental level, responding to the threat posed by terrorist radicalization is hampered by a paucity of baseline information. Most notably, the prevalence of extremist, and violent extremists, is unknown. The reason for this gap is straightforward: violent extremists represent the ultimately example of what is often referred to as “hidden” or “hard to count” populations. The solution to this problem is more daunting. Ultimately, the goal of this project is to establish a framework for answering these questions: How many extremists are there in Canada? And how many of these are potentially violent extremists? To this end, this research will a) identify various methods that have been proposed to estimate hidden populations generally; b) critically evaluate how these methods might be extended or adapted to estimate the number of extremists Read More -
Publisher: TSASYear Published:Tags: Approaches, Canada, Counter-terrorism, Counterterrorism, Crowd Simulation, GENIUS, Gaps, Prevention, Security, Security Priorities, TechnologyDescription:
Public safety has been an important concern over the years. When a public event is held in an urban environment like Olympic games or soccer games, it is important to keep the public safe and at the same time, to have a specific plan to control and rescue the public in the case of a terrorist attack. In order to better position public safety in communities against potential threats, it is of utmost importance to identify existing gaps, define priorities and focus on developing approaches to address those. This project aims to make an extension to the GENIUS system, where crowd simulation will be included in the computational modeling framework for counter-terrorism planning and response. Based on swarm intelligence and agent-based modeling, we will create a model where the system can create a large number of people with specific behavioral characteristics. It is our goal to create a tool where operator can simulate a crowd of over 20,000 individuals. Police and other law enforcement officers can use this tool for training and operational simulation. Read More -
Publisher: TSASYear Published:Description:
This project examines the dynamics of the fundamental political beliefs and values of newcomers to Canada. To what extent do the beliefs and values of immigrant Canadians match the dominant political orientations of the majority domestic-born population? What are the origins of those beliefs and values? How do they change as immigrants gain greater exposure to Canadian politics and society? The project focuses on views about: how society ought to be governed; the relationship between citizens and the state; and relationships between citizens. For each of these dimensions, two distinct empirical possibilities are considered. First, we assess the extent to which early political socialization in the country of origin shapes immigrants’ political outlooks by comparing the attitudes of immigrants from different countries of origin to those of the domestic-born Canadian population. The expectation is that if political attitudes formed in the country of origin persist after migration then immigrants from social, economic, and political systems that are dramatically different from Canada may hold distinctive political outlooks. Second, we assess whether exposure to Canadian politics and society influences the political attitudes of newcomers by comparing the attitudes of immigrants residing in Canada for various lengths of time to those of the domestic-born population. The expectation is that if immigrants adopt the dominant political attitudes of the domestic-born population as they gain exposure to Canadian politics and society, then well established immigrants are more likely than relative newcomers to hold political attitudes that are similar to those of the domestic-born population. Read More -
Publisher: TSASYear Published:Description:
In recent years, eco-terrorism has become a new concern of many developed countries. The awareness of environmental preservation and protection is further sharpened by several large-scale natural disasters, like Hurricane Katrina in the United States and the tsunami in South East Asia and in Japan last year. The tsunami in Japan led to a huge amount of deaths and the malfunctioning of a nuclear plant, which incurred worries of the general public and environmental groups about the safety of nuclear power. These situations are concerning, as in the past this type of tension has tended to radicalize environmental groups to turn violent against businesses, factories, and individual properties. To prevent eco-terrorism, it is important to understand the nature of the problem and design effective prevention strategies.
This proposed research will combine two academic disciplines, criminology and legal studies, to explore the extent of the threats of eco-terrorism in three countries–the United States, Canada, and Japan. First, we will explore and provide a detailed illustration of eco-terrorism up-to date, including the frequency, geographic distribution, target selection, choice of weapon, and extent of casualties. The second step is to conduct comparative legal analysis examining the antiterrorist laws and legal regulations regarding environmental development in these three countries.
Finally, the findings from both quantitative analysis and legal analysis will be used to form recommendation for modern countries to strengthen the responsive ability and resilience of their systems to the potential threats of eco-terrorism and hopefully deter future attacks from happening. Read More -
Publisher: TSASYear Published:Description:
The conversion of non-Muslims to Islam is a key strategy employed by Islamic extremists and since 2001 the number of converts involved with radical and militant Islamic activities and networks has noticeably increased (Roy 2004; Sageman 2008). The presence of recent converts amongst those arrested for terrorism has drawn specific comment in the press and elsewhere. This research project seeks to establish the causes and patterns of radicalisation among Western converts to Islam. Drawing on detailed ethnographies it will establish a new dataset to develop an interdisciplinary framework that will provide a rigorous, scientific method for predicting factors that contribute to radicalisation.
The aim of this framework, entitled the Conversion-Radicalisation Continuum (CRC) is to enable the development of policies and programs to counter violent extremism. The research will significantly contribute to the study of Islamic conversion and enhance currently incomplete understandings of radicalisation and terrorism where converts are involved.
There is limited research on Islamic conversion, yet researchers across Europe, North America, and the Asia Pacific observe that the majority of new Muslims reform their lives in positive ways following conversion. This research suggests that most converts experience a greater sense of self-control, internal peace and moral behaviour. Like many born-again Christians, Muslim converts’ renewal of personal values and beliefs appear to help them to avoid negative behaviours including excessive drinking, prostitution, gambling and the like. The shift to these behaviours is not correlated with drinking, prostitution, gambling and the like. The shift to these behaviours is not correlated with an increased interest in violence for converts, and empirical evidence shows that the vast majority of people converting to Islam never become radical. Even among the handful of converts who develop radical views, most do not engage in illegal behaviour. Furthermore, most of the even smaller percentage of converts who do go on to commit or plan attacks did not have violent intentions at the time of their conversion. Nonetheless their conversion, or at least some aspect of it, played an instrumental and still little understood role in their eventual turn to violence, and we need to better understand how this is the case. Read More