Chris Chinda, Cigdem Unal, Zoe Marchment, Paul Gill
{"title":"The Impact of Public Holidays on Insurgent Attacks: The Case of Thailand.","authors":"Chris Chinda, Cigdem Unal, Zoe Marchment, Paul Gill","doi":"10.1080/09546553.2023.2222810","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper analyzes Malay-Muslim insurgents' attacks in the three southern provinces of Thailand between the years of 2010-2021 and identifies the role of public holidays on the level of violence. The existing literature suggests terrorists consider holidays during attack planning. However, there is a lack of agreement on the effect direction. Some studies have found that holidays are a force for peace while others have found they can act as trigger for more violence. Applying environmental criminology to the timing of terrorist attacks, we argue that the type of the holiday matters. Therefore, we analyze public (secular), Islamic, and Buddhist holidays separately. We show that Islamic holidays witness increased violence while Buddhist and public holidays see reductions. We discuss that Islamic holidays increase the Malay-Muslim insurgents' motivation to attack by assigning to those dates a higher symbolic value. On the other hand, on Buddhist and public holidays, insurgents may hesitate to attack to avoid the adverse effects of losing public support and triggering a backlash. The results demonstrate the necessity to analyze the temporal dynamics of terrorist attacks.</p>","PeriodicalId":51451,"journal":{"name":"Terrorism and Political Violence","volume":"1 1","pages":"903-918"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11382784/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Terrorism and Political Violence","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2023.2222810","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This paper analyzes Malay-Muslim insurgents' attacks in the three southern provinces of Thailand between the years of 2010-2021 and identifies the role of public holidays on the level of violence. The existing literature suggests terrorists consider holidays during attack planning. However, there is a lack of agreement on the effect direction. Some studies have found that holidays are a force for peace while others have found they can act as trigger for more violence. Applying environmental criminology to the timing of terrorist attacks, we argue that the type of the holiday matters. Therefore, we analyze public (secular), Islamic, and Buddhist holidays separately. We show that Islamic holidays witness increased violence while Buddhist and public holidays see reductions. We discuss that Islamic holidays increase the Malay-Muslim insurgents' motivation to attack by assigning to those dates a higher symbolic value. On the other hand, on Buddhist and public holidays, insurgents may hesitate to attack to avoid the adverse effects of losing public support and triggering a backlash. The results demonstrate the necessity to analyze the temporal dynamics of terrorist attacks.
期刊介绍:
Terrorism and Political Violence advances scholarship on a broad range of issues associated with terrorism and political violence, including subjects such as: the political meaning of terrorist activity, violence by rebels and by states, the links between political violence and organized crime, protest, rebellion, revolution, the influence of social networks, and the impact on human rights. The journal draws upon many disciplines and theoretical perspectives as well as comparative approaches to provide some of the most groundbreaking work in a field that has hitherto lacked rigour. Terrorism and Political Violence features symposia and edited volumes to cover an important topic in depth. Subjects have included: terrorism and public policy; religion and violence; political parties and terrorism; technology and terrorism; and right-wing terrorism. The journal is essential reading for all academics, decision-makers, and security specialists concerned with understanding political violence.