Evaluation Capacity
ICCT sees a need for systematic evaluation of past and current counter-terrorism policies and strategies to assess effectiveness, learn from experiences and improve practices. Policies and strategies are often based on untested assumptions, thus running the risk of improper decision-making, which in turn might trigger unwanted and unforeseen dynamics. Though to some degree understandable, political imperatives to act first and reflect afterwards, are unsustainable. Therefore, ICCT aims to improve the feedback loop between policy and practice and will start by taking stock of and evaluate existing counter-terrorism strategies and initiatives.
The situation Mali has hit the headlines quite often in the last years, with journalistic articles and reports mainly focusing on the threat posed by terrorist groups in the country as well as in the region. Besides attracting the attention of the media, the presence of terrorist actors in the country has become a top […]
Some 5000 men, women and children have travelled from Europe to Syria and Iraq since 2012. Less than a year after this process began, European intelligence services started to openly express their concerns about the dangers emanating from the potential return of seasoned fighters. Policy responses, however, were slow in coming and mostly ad hoc, […]
In this Research Paper, Marieke Liem et al provide a bivariate analysis of lone actor terrorists and common homicide offenders. Liem et al’s findings problematise the classification of lone actors as an entity fundamentally different from the sample of single homicide offenders and call for future in-depth assessments of possible differences in homicidal drive.