Examining Structural Disparities in Domestic and International Counterterrorism Policy in the US and Their Consequences

Prior to the January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol, most of the literature and public discourse surrounding the terrorist threat within the United States was almost exclusively focused on Salafi jihadist extremism, while largely ignoring the resurgence of other forms of domestic extremism perpetrated by violent antigovernment and hate-oriented individuals and groups. This dissertation research takes a historical institutionalist approach to understand this disparity using process tracing and qualitative interviews with former US government personnel to examine how key counterterrorism policy decisions were made from World War I to the September 11, 2001 attacks and how these policies were subsequently implemented through investigations and prosecutions of terrorist groups and individuals across the ideological spectrum. While there are legal and structural limitations to investigating and prosecuting domestic terrorism primarily due to fears of government overreach against US citizens similar to what occurred during the J. Edgar Hoover era of FBI leadership, qualitative interview findings also suggest that the US government essentially “dropped the ball” on the domestic terrorism threat after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Due to the gravity and concern of the threat posed by international terrorism in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks this strategy made sense in the short term, but eventually, the emphasis should have shifted back to combating the domestic terrorism threat, however, it did not. Reasons for this are largely due to legal and structural limitations, but also because personnel working against the Salafi jihadist threat found it easier to be taken seriously and advance in their careers when investigating and prosecuting the “other;” which culminated in the Trump Administration’s outright refusal to respond to missed opportunities to counter the rising domestic terror threat. Opportunities exist to better counter the domestic terrorism threat legally and at the agency level but are unlikely to be implemented because of the current political climate and Congress’s inability to take meaningful action.

Author

• Campbell, Kristy

• Counterterrorism
• Domestic Terrorism
• History of Terrorism
• International Terrorism
• Terrorism Policy

Identifier

hdl:1920/13700

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:MARS:1920/13700