NCJ Number
216262
Journal
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism Volume: 29 Issue: 7 Dated: October-November 2006 Pages: 657-678
Date Published
October 2006
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This study examined the nature and scope of the analytical failure of the academic community to predict the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Abstract
The key research finding was that academics in the International Relations (IR) and political science communities failed to predict the attacks of September 11, 2001 because they were narrowly focused on issues related to Asia, particularly China, Taiwan, and Japan. The focus on Asia gained prominence after the fall of the Soviet Union and during the 1990s when the Clinton administration made Asia a distinguishing feature of its foreign policy agenda. This was due in part to the fact that China was seen as the new economic rival of the United States as well as a strategic threat to other Asian countries. The findings further revealed that other academic fields suffered the same blind spot as IR and political science researchers--even those in the field of Terrorism Studies failed to predict the attacks of September 11th. Interestingly, the results indicated that the articles that did have insight into the threat of Islamic terrorists were authored by journalists. The analytic trends and predictive analyses regarding Islamic terrorist trends that occurred in the academic community from 1993 through 2001 are analyzed followed by a discussion of the shortcomings of the terrorism research that was produced during this time, which include a lack of research and theorizing on governmental policymaking. The author also observed that the failure of the academic community to predict the events of September 11th arose from the inability of terrorism as a topic of inquiry to fit neatly within a broader academic discipline, leaving the study of terrorism fragmented between different disciplines. The current study relied on a literature review of 14 journals published between 1993 and 2004. The journals are among the most prestigious in their fields and can be grouped into four categories: mainstream journals, specialized journals, news magazines, and area studies journals. Notes