Societal Impact and Consequences

Research Briefs are short, engaging and accessibly written descriptions of the results of TSAS-funded research projects, focusing on top-level conclusions and policy relevance.

Research Reports are longer, evidence-based, policy-relevant scholarly analyses on topics related to terrorism, security, and society, broadly defined, that touch on Canada, Canadian issues in comparative context, or global issues of interest to a Canadian audience.

Working Papers are scholarly analyses of various lengths that provide analysis based on TSAS-funded research projects. We are no longer accepting submissions for this series.

RESEARCH BRIEF

China’s Digital War on Terrorism: Can Mass Surveillance and Cyber Censorship Radicalize a Nation

This research brief concisely describes my analysis of China’s internet censorship system – colloquially known as “the Great Firewall” – and the societal impacts it has had in terms of nationalism, radicalization, and terrorism, particularly amongst China’s youth. In short, for over twenty years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been limiting online freedoms and…

RESEARCH BRIEF

The Parallel Threat: Political Framing and Right-Wing Extremism in Canada and the United States

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, drastic measures were taken to secure the US homeland, as well as to curtail what was understood as an imminent and transnational threat: Islamist-inspired terrorism (IIT). Political decision-makers immediately tightened the borders, erected new security agencies, adopted sweeping antiterrorism legislation, and initiated the wars in Afghanistan and…

RESEARCH BRIEF

Exploiting Chaos: How Malicious Non-State Actors Are Using COVID-19 to Their Advantage in Cyberspace

Since the beginning of 2020, while societies and economies around the world have struggled to cope with the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic, cyberspace has given governments, businesses, and general end-users the ability to work, play, and connect in new and innovative ways. With everything from workspaces and classrooms to family gatherings and exercise routines…

RESEARCH BRIEF

TERRORISM AND THE TERRORIZED: How the ‘Terrorism’ Label is Informed and Applied to a Violent Attack in Canada

SUMMARY •The threat posed by al Qaeda, Daesh, and those inspired by their ideologies, has framed the way Canada has understood and labelled terrorism for almost twenty years, but the framework within which we compartmentalize and understand terrorists needs to adapt. •There is a fluidity to the “terrorism” label and an inherent inequality in its…

Working Paper Title 2019
RESEARCH REPORT

‘IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER’: Recognizing the Breadth of Women’s Participation in Violent Political Organizations and Beyond.

The potential for political violence in women is still something that most contemporary societies are wary of openly acknowledging. It is, after all, easier to apprehend the relation between women and violence as a unidirectional one, that is to say, as something that is done to them. Even when a woman is at the origins…

Working Paper Title 2019
WORKING PAPER

Tracking Transnational Terrorist Resourcing Nodes and Networks

This study is the first comprehensive effort to collect, code, compare, and analyze all available open source data on transnational terrorist financing networks. It thus contributes to the ongoing optimization of anti-terrorist resourcing laws, policies, and risk-management practices. Initially the study operationalizes some key concepts, then goes on to review efforts to contain terrorist financing…

Working Paper Title 2019
RESEARCH REPORT

Meanwhile in Canada: anti-Muslim ordinary racism and the banalization of far-right ideology

Aurélie Campana (Université Laval) et Samuel Tanner (Université de Montréal) This paper focuses on the public discourse of extra-parliamentary far right groups in Canada. It analyses how these groups shape discourses on Muslims and Islam in an attempt to influence public debates on core far right issues, such as immigration. It argues that more subtle…

Working Paper Title 2019
RESEARCH BRIEF

TERRORISM HOAXES IN CANADA: Data and Trends

Empirical research on terrorism hoaxes is limited, because hoaxes are frequently excluded from large sample terrorism events database on the grounds that they do not directly yield casualties or property damage. Some data sources do include information on terrorism hoaxes, but they are limited by their scope of coverage (see Figure 1). International Terrorism: Attributes…

Working Paper 2018 Title
WORKING PAPER

Belonging: Feelings of attachment and acceptance among immigrants in Canada

In line with previous research, we argue that belonging is a core dimension of immigrant integration, and that belonging is better conceptualized and measured by distinguishing between immigrants’ feeling of being attached and feeling of being accepted. Feeling attached captures immigrants’ desire to belong, whereas feeling accepted captures the perception that the community wants them…

Working Paper 2016 Title
WORKING PAPER

Social impacts of the securitized arrival experiences of in-Canada refugee claimants

This multi-sited research included qualitative interviews with 19 in-Canada refugee claimants declared convention refugees under the new (since Dec 1, 2012) immigration legislation. The research sought to answer two questions: (i) What are the effects of the securitization of migration policies insofar as success in integration and feelings of trust and belonging; and (ii) Are…

Working Paper 2016 Title
WORKING PAPER

Impromptu Initiative: Security Certificates and Scale

This paper offers some background and theoretical framing as part of a larger project on the Canadian Security Certificate Initiative. Here I consider questions about different ways of thinking about responses to national security and how they contrast with security concerns that do not invoke the need for secrecy. The use of secret information in…

Working Paper 2015 Title
WORKING PAPER

Terrorist Babble and the Limits of the Law: Assessing a Prospective Canadian Terrorism Glorification Offence

Since 2007, the Canadian government has repeatedly expressed interest in a terrorism “glorification” offence, responding to internet materials regarded by officials as terrorist propaganda and as promoting “radicalization”. In the wake of the October 2014 attacks, this idea clearly remains on the government’s shortlist of responses. This article addresses the merits of such a criminal…

Working Paper 2014 Title
WORKING PAPER

Social Perspectives on National Security: A review of recent literature

This review was commissioned by TSAS to survey the ways in which academic researchers have been trying to understand the experiences of exclusion by marginalized youth, and how these might relate to trajectories of radicalization to violent extremism, and community-level security interventions. The primary purpose of this review is to consider the turn to community…

Working Paper 2014 Title
WORKING PAPER

A Systematic Approach to Develop a Computational Framework for Counter-terrorism and Public Safety

Can agent-based modelling and virtual environment technologies be used to create a decision support, response planning and risk assessment system for emergence preparedness? By using state-of-the-art agent-based modelling and virtual environment technologies, we have built an affordable, flexible and powerful system for decision support, response planning and risk assessment. This system allows the user to…

Working Paper 2014 Title
WORKING PAPER

A Framework for Estimating the Number of Extremists in Canada

How can researchers appropriately estimate the number of extremists, particularly violent extremists, in Canada? Having a reasonable idea of the size of the threat posed by violent extremists is a central policy consideration. Crucially, accurate estimates would allow for the better allocation and prioritization of limited resources. As well, they would allow afford a better…

Working Paper 2014 Title
WORKING PAPER

(Mis)Understanding Muslim Converts in Canada: A Critical Discussion of Muslim Converts in the Contexts of Security and Society

This research seeks to understand the causes and processes of Islamic conversion in Canada through this initial study of Islamic conversion in Ontario. It attempts to contextualize Islamic conversion within Canada’s national security debate. Canadian census data shows that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the country, and that although most of the Muslim…

Working Paper 2014 Title
WORKING PAPER

The Effectiveness & Effects of Canada’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams

This paper is part of a larger project that studies the emergence of the idea of integration together with its implications. This paper asks: how has the idea of integration been institutionalized in Canada? What are its implications? Moreover, how should we study the effectiveness and effects of counter-terrorism institutions? The idea of integration in…

Working Paper 2014 Title
WORKING PAPER

Researching Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism through a Network Lens

In this paper, we argue that integrating network concepts and network methods to the study of terrorism and counter-terrorism are central ingredients in bringing the field forward from theoretical, empirical, and policy perspectives. This is not exactly a new idea, although the move to study terrorist networks did not really take off until the events…

Working Paper 2013 Title
WORKING PAPER

Le projet de loi antiterroriste canadien: une sélection sécuritaire

Comment les parlementaires canadiens ont-ils défini le problème du terrorisme dans le cadre des débats sur le projet de loi antiterroriste canadien (C-36), qui ont eu lieu du 15 octobre 2001 au 18 décembre 2001? Quels impacts ces différentes constructions discursives ont-elles eus sur les solutions préconisées par les parlementaires et celles adoptées dans le…

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