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Data is accurate
Leonard Weinberger ‘8, Foundation Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Reno, Senior Fellow at the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism in Oklahoma City and at the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa AND William Eubank is Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Nevada, August 2008, “Problems with the critical studies approach to the study of terrorism.” Critical Studies on Terrorism, Vol. 1 No. 2
Is the quality of the data used by terrorism’s orthodox investigators as poor as the critics assert. Perhaps it was at one time, but it is no longer the case. The reliance on newspaper accounts and other secondary sources is diminishing. Marc Sageman, for instance, has developed his own database on al-Qaeda’s core membership (Sageman 2004, pp. 61–135). A number of researchers have conducted and continue to conduct interviews with individuals involved in terrorist activities in Germany, Italy, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Iraq, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip. The family and friends of suicide bombers have been interviewed, as have those who have sent them on their missions. Those who attempted to kill themselves but were apprehended before they could do so have been interviewed in prison. Among the long list of orthodox terrorism researchers who have had these extended and systematic face-to-face encounters, we should mention Nicole Argo, Anat Berko, Mia Bloom, Mohammed Hafez, John Horgan, Ariel Merari, Donatella della Porta, Jerrold Post, the late Ehud Sprinzak, and Yoram Schweitzer.6 The list is partial and continues to grow. Our understanding of terrorist motivations – what causes them to become radicalised (or de-radicalised) – expands correspondingly.
No bias
Leonard Weinberger ‘8, Foundation Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Reno, Senior Fellow at the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism in Oklahoma City and at the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa AND William Eubank is Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Nevada, August 2008, “Problems with the critical studies approach to the study of terrorism.” Critical Studies on Terrorism, Vol. 1 No. 2
The critics also complain about the funding of terrorism research as well as its quality. In the case of social scientists in the US and to a lesser extent Britain, the complaint is that much of the money to support terrorism research comes from government agencies. The National Institute of Justice in the US and Britain’s Economic and Social Research Council come to mind. The critics’ assumption is that government support is more than likely to determine the choice of topics and the results of those research projects which receive funding; in short, a conflict of interest is created. Without much doubt there is something to be said for this contention. We should bear in mind however, that government support in itself is hardly an evil. In the US, for example, major advances in the study of HIV/AIDS, cancer and a long list of other diseases would not have been achieved without the substantial financial support of the National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation. Even work reporting the damaging effects of global warming received grant support from government agencies. The 9/11 attacks killed about 3000 people, more than the deaths suffered by American forces at Pearl Harbor in December 1941. In this context, it would have been surprising if the US government had not been willing to fund research projects, on a competitive basis, devoted to understanding the sources of terrorist violence. Related to the question of funding is the assumption that those supported or employed by the government will produce results necessarily sympathetic to policies the government wishes to pursue. However, former American executive branch officials whose jobs involved the study of terrorism and the formulation of terrorism policy wrote books highly critical of American responses. Richard Clarke, a principal advisor to the Clinton and Bush administrations, wrote a highly critical book about the latter’s lack of interest in the emerging terrorist threat in the months leading up to 9/11 (Clarke 2004, pp. 182–287). Two members of Clinton’s National Security Council staff, Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon wrote, The Next Attack, in which they argue the Iraq war had the unintended effect of confirming the suspicions of Jihadi about American intentions and consequently served as the basis for the recruitment of a new generation of terrorists – precisely the opposite of what the Bush administration hoped to accomplish by toppling Saddam Hussein (Benjamin and Simon 2005, pp. 126–193). After leaving government Clarke, Benjamin and Simon have gone on to become orthodox terrorism specialists working at Washington area think-tanks. It is not the end of the matter even if we assume a refusal by government agencies to fund research projects whose results might prove embarrassing or contrary to what they wish to hear. Washington at least now abounds with well-funded oppositional research foundations and institutes or ‘think tanks’ (e.g. the CATO Institute, American Enterprise Institute, the New America Foundation, Brookings) that have both the money and the will to support terrorism-related projects which might produce results that would make Republican or Democratic administrations exceedingly uncomfortable
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