Letter from the Editorial Team

Abstract

Dear Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict Readers: Welcome to Volume 11, Issue 3 of DAC! We have seven powerful articles to share with you in this Issue, ranging from Hayden Smith’s analysis of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to Sanjin Ulezic’s treatment of Northern Ireland conflict and hoax devices. While they are varied in style, from authors with distinct academic training, and cover a range of issues, the commonality across them is that they are all focused on the dynamics of asymmetric conflict. Moreover, in their own unique way, each addresses a specific tactic or strategy underlying conflict among actors with different levels of power. In a provocative article, Gary Uzonyi analyzes why States differ in their level of support for regimes committing genocide. Positing that third-parties are likely to support their allies – despite atrocities they commit – during times of civil war. Using a longitudinal dataset, he also found that these nation states were no less likely to support murderous regimes in the post-Cold War era. In addition to examining the asymmetry of power, this Issue addresses the dynamics or interplay that occur before, during, or after such conflict. For example, Michael Egnoto, Darrin Griffin, and Fei Qiao use intergroup threat theory to analyze social media and public messages directly following an active school shooter. Examining the intergroup dynamics and threat, the authors found that the seemingly more powerful mass media used less reassurance and information-seeking language than individuals on social media in the aftermath of such a threat. In addition to illustrating the scope of the Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict Journal beautifully through a diverse array of conflicts and group dynamics, Volume 11 Issue three manuscripts use a host of analytic techniques and datasets to provide empirical support. This is particularly important as the study of terrorism as a field moves toward using data – both qualitative and quantitative – to address the critical issues of terrorism and genocide. For example, Tyler Welch uses a large corpus of English-based magazines from ISIS to analyze the shift in ISIS’s operational focus from establishing a physical caliphate to inspiring attacks both locally and abroad. Using four case studies derived from well-known databases of open-source perpetrators of terrorism, authors Thomas Holt, Joshua Freilich, Steven Chermak, and Gary LaFree examined two Far Right and two Salafist-Inspired perpetrators to examine two criminological theories. One of the benefits of this in-depth approach is that they were able to combine two related but distinct theoretical approaches (social control and social learning) to examine how their integration could contribute to explaining radicalization as a whole. Finally, given the applied focus of this journal, we include a practitioner-focused manuscript from Daniel Milton and Arie Perliger about how nations cooperate to execute Counter-Terrorism (CT) policies. They used an innovative dataset of CT campaigns from 1970 to 2007, and their results showed what factors contribute to when DYNAMICS OF ASYMMETRIC CONFLICT 2018, VOL. 11, NO. 3, 123–124 https://doi.org/10.1080/17467586.2018.1519955