The Transnational Terrorism Today conference answers questions on global terrorism

As transnational terrorism continues to become an increasing threat worldwide, people everywhere are wondering why this is happening and how it can be resolved. The Transnational Terrorism Today conference brought together a wide range of experts on Thursday and Friday to answer exactly these questions. 

According to Our World in Data, there were 13,488 terrorism-related incidents in 2016 — a major increase from 1,907 incidents in 2001 when former President George W. Bush declared the United States’ War on Terror. 

One of the organizers of the Transnational Terrorism Today conference, history professor Klaus Larres, said the increase in terrorism in the West can be partly explained by the foreign policies of Western nations. 

“It has perhaps something to do with the continued foreign policies some leading Western countries conduct, which seems to ignore local problems and just focuses on their own objectives,” he said. “Of course, it is no way — we all believe — to deal with these problems in a violent way, but some countries, some people, believe unfortunately that only with violence you get attention, and only with violence Western countries will change their policies.” 

One of the expert panelists at the conference, Sarah Desmarais, associate professor of psychology at North Carolina State University, said she was attracted to the conference partly because of its multidisciplinary approach. 

“I always think that there’s going to be a better solution that’s brought together by people from multiple disciplines trying to work on it together,” she said. “I really think psychology has something to offer in terms of understanding human behavior and also appreciating the value of backgrounds and the perspectives of other disciplines.” 

Cori Dauber, professor of communication, said that holding events like the Transnational Terrorism Today conference is important so that researchers and professors can share their work. 

“As much as we all follow one another’s work and follow one another on social, there’s still something that is invaluable that comes from the ability to hear one another’s research being presented, raise questions and look for interactions and connections.” 

Desmarais said she hopes the research presented during the Transnational Terrorism Today conference can be utilized by the intelligence community and policymakers to tackle the issue of terrorism in the United States. 

“There’s a lot of public conversation about terrorism and what should be going on to combat terrorism, and they don’t always reflect current academic knowledge,” she said. “There’s this whole enterprise that exists tackling these issues within the intelligence community and there’s not necessarily a good back and forth between the intelligence community and academics that are working on the same problem.” 

Dauber said any student who wants to know more about terrorism and international issues would benefit from attending similar conferences because that is where researchers often present new projects. 

“What you tend to get at conferences, in fact what you always get at conferences, is the newest, the most recent work, and typically you get it while it’s still in a formative stage,” she said. “People will bring material to conferences even before they send it off to journals, so you’re getting it in its most recent form, and you get to really see the process at work.” 

Larres said he encourages any students interested in the topic of terrorism to attend the round-table discussion that will end the conference on Friday in the FedEx Global Education Center. 

“I can only encourage people to come and listen, and ask questions. It’s not just a listening exercise; they have the opportunity to engage with our scholars as well.”

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