The aim of this research is to get a better understanding of the influence of terrorism on risk perceptions and attitudes of the German travel behaviour towards Egypt. The research process involved an online self-administered method created with one of the leading research and web based survey tools called Qualtrics. The questionnaire filled in by 171 respondents. Findings indicate that Egypt is generally perceived as an unsafe destination to travel to, however, those respondents with Past Travel Experience (PTE) rate the country’s attractiveness higher and are therefore, more likely to revisit as well. Spillover effect was found to be significant, as well as the influence of several socio- demographic factors. Risk reduction strategies were generally rated to be effective and could therefore have implications for Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) to create a more appealing image for Egypt as a holiday destination.
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Purpose: This study aims to examine the impact of terrorism on risk perception and travel behaviour of the Dutch market towards Sri Lanka. Design/methodology/approach: The research process involved an online self-administered method created with one of the leading research and web-based survey tools called Qualtrics. The questionnaire was filled in by 328 respondents. Findings: Findings indicate that Sri Lankan is perceived to be a relatively safe destination. However, the likeliness of visiting the country is unlikely. The respondents with past travel experience (PTE) perceive Sri Lanka to be safer than those without PTE and are more likely to revisit. Male respondents have a higher safety perception of Sri Lanka than women. Most of the respondents see Sri Lanka as an attractive destination and would consider travelling there with children. Research limitations/implications: The majority of the respondents are female and aged between 18 to 29 years old. The majority of the respondents’ children were already 19 or older and not accompanying their parents on holiday. This study has managerial implications for Sri Lanka’s tourism board that could work on developing a marketing strategy that focusses on promoting Sri Lanka as a safe destination in combination with all the other unique selling points. Originality/value: To the best of author’s knowledge, no analysis has been so far published with a focus on the impact of terrorism on risk perception and attitudes of the Dutch tourist towards Sri Lanka. The aim of this paper is to close the existing gap in the literature and to provide valuable knowledge on the influence of terrorism on risk perception and attitudes of the Dutch tourists’ travel behaviour towards Sri Lanka as a destination.
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In most models on terrorism, interaction with other radicals is a key factor. However, systematic empirical evidence that radical ties affect behaviour is scarce. Our access to detailed police information allows us to apply Social Network Analysis (SNA) on a Dutch Salafi-Jihadi network and analyse the social relationships and network positions of 80 actors, out of whom 20 turned to terrorist acts. The results suggest that ties to leaders and terrorist offenders, co-attendance of radicalising settings and greater structural embeddedness relate to the likelihood of individual actors turning to acts of terrorism. However, we also find some individual attributes that may offer competing explanations. In this paper we discuss our findings and address how future research may provide further insights into an important issue for agencies involved in countering terrorism: which radical actors, if any, are more likely to turn to acts of terrorism?
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Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to get a better understanding of the influence of terrorism on risk perception and attitudes of the German travel behavior toward Turkey as a destination in crisis, which has been considered one of the biggest losers for 2016. Design/methodology/approach: The research process involved an online self-administered method created with one of the leading research and web-based survey tools called Qualtrics. This tool has been considered useful to reach a wider target, the questionnaire filled in by 305 respondents. Findings: The findings revealed a strong tendency of a low safety perception among the sample toward Turkey. Furthermore, a large proportion indicated a strong unlikelihood of traveling to the country within the upcoming 12 months independently of a past travel experience. In addition, Turkey and Egypt were the countries perceived as most unsafe among the mentioned destinations. Research limitations/implications: The majority of the respondents of the study were aged between 50 and 59 years and were employed as commercial employee, office or administration workers. The outcomes might be different for a higher sample size with a tendency of various demographic characteristic such as age and profession. Furthermore, the study should be repeated while focusing on respondents with accompanied children on holidays, which only made up a minority for the present research study. Originality/value: To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study to examine the influence of terrorism on risk perception and attitudes of the German travel behavior toward Turkey and their risk reduction strategies/preventive measures.
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Social network analysis can be a powerful tool to better understand the social context of terrorist activities, and it may also offer potential leads for agencies to intervene. Our access to Dutch police information allows us to analyse the relational features of two networks that include actors who planned acts of terrorism and were active in the dissemination of a Salafi-Jihadi interpretation of Islam (n = 57; n = 26). Based on a mixed-method approach that combines qualitative and more formal statistical analysis (exponential random graph models), we analyse the structural characteristics of these networks, individual positions and the extent to which radical leaders, pre-existing family and friendship ties and radicalizing settings affect actors to form ties. We find that both networks resemble a core–periphery structure, with cores formed by a densely interconnected group of actors who frequently meet in radicalizing settings. Based on our findings, we discuss the potential effects of preventive and repressive measures developed within the Dutch counterterrorism framework.
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In recent years, the fight against terrorism and political violence has focused more on anticipating the threats that they pose. Therefore, early detection of ideas by local professionals has become an important part of the preventive approach in countering radicalization. Frontline workers who operate in the arteries of society are encouraged to identify processes toward violent behavior at an early stage. To date, however, little is known about how these professionals take on this screening task at their own discretion. Research from the Netherlands suggests that subjective assessment appears to exist. In this article, we argue that the absence of a clear norm for preliminary judgments affects prejudice or administrative arbitrariness, which may cause side effects due to unjustified profiling.
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ABSTRACT This study investigates how perceptions of radicalisation and co-occurring mental health issues differ between mental health care and the security domain, and how these perceptions affect intersectoral collaboration. It is generally thought that intersectoral collaboration is a useful strategy for preventing radicalisation and terrorism, especially when it concerns radicalised persons with mental health issues. It is not clear, however, what perceptions professionals have of radicalisation and collaboration with other disciplines. Data was obtained from focus groups and individual interviews with practitioners and trainers from mental health care and the security domain in the Netherlands. The results show a lack of knowledge about radicalisation in mental health care, whereas in the security domain, there is little understanding of mental health issues. This leads to a mad-bad dichotomy which has a negative effect on collaboration and risk management. Improvement of the intersectoral collaboration by cross-domain familiarization, and strengthening of trust and mutual understanding, should begin with the basic training of professionals in both domains. The Care and Safety Houses in the Netherlands offer a sound base for intersectoral collaboration. Future professionals from different domains ought to be familiarized with each other’s possibilities, limitations, tasks, and roles.
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This article is about the effect of local tailored interventions to counter (violent) extremism, and therefore contributes to the academic and policy debates. It focusses on local, professional perspectives on person-specific interventions utilising a Dutch case study as the basis. The interventions are part of the wider-ranging counter terrorism policy that entails (local) measures that are deployed in relation to designated high-risk individuals and groups. By reviewing policy documents and conducting semi-structured interviews, the exploratory study concludes that the key factors for a hand-tailored intervention are a solid network, expert knowledge to assess potential signs of extremist ideology, an awareness of not having too many concurrent measures, good inter-institutional cooperation and information-sharing. The professionals involved felt that person-specific interventions have contributed to reducing the threat of religious extremism in the Netherlands. Nonetheless, municipal officials and security agents emphasised the importance of setting realistic goals and a focus on preventive rather than repressive measures. Furthermore, despite the central role that municipal actors play, they run up against problems such as cooperation within the security and care sector. National entities appear to emphasize information-gathering and monitoring more than community-focused cooperation. Thereby questioning whether, on the national level, local professionals are perceived as playing a key role in dealing with extremism.
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In the literature about web survey methodology, significant e orts have been made to understand the role of time-invariant factors (e.g. gender, education and marital status) in (non-)response mechanisms. Time-invariant factors alone, however, cannot account for most variations in (non-)responses, especially fluctuations of response rates over time. This observation inspires us to investigate the counterpart of time-invariant factors, namely time-varying factors and the potential role they play in web survey (non-)response. Specifically, we study the effects of time, weather and societal trends (derived from Google Trends data) on the daily (non-)response patterns of the 2016 and 2017 Dutch Health Surveys. Using discrete-time survival analysis, we find, among others, that weekends, holidays, pleasant weather, disease outbreaks and terrorism salience are associated with fewer responses. Furthermore, we show that using these variables alone achieves satisfactory prediction accuracy of both daily and cumulative response rates when the trained model is applied to future unseen data. This approach has the further benefit of requiring only non-personal contextual information and thus involving no privacy issues. We discuss the implications of the study for survey research and data collection.
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Frontline professionals such as social workers and civil servants play a crucial role in countering violent extremism.Because of their direct contac twith society,first liners are tasked with detecting individuals that may threaten national security and the democratic rule of law. Preliminary screening takes place during the pre-crime phase. However, without clear evidence or concrete indicators of unlawful action or physical violence, it is challenging to determine when someone poses a threat. There are no set patterns that can be used to identify cognitive radicalization processes that will result in violent extremism. Furthermore, prevention targets ideas and ideologies with no clear framework for assessing terrorism-risk. This article examines how civil servants responsible for public order, security and safety deal with their mandate to engage in early detection, and discusses the side effects that accompany this practice. Based on openinterviews with fifteen local security professionals in the Netherlands, we focus here on the risk assessments made by these professionals. To understand their performance, we used the following two research questions: First, what criteria do local security professionals use to determine whether or not someone forms a potential risk? Second, how do local security professionals substantiate their assessments of the radicalization processes that will develop into violent extremism? We conclude that such initial risk weightings rely strongly on ‘gut feelings’ or intuition. We conclude that this subjectivitymayleadto prejudiceand/oradministrativearbitrariness in relationtopreliminary risk assessment of particular youth.
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