The United States has a long history of domestic terrorism, yet U.S. counterterrorism policy has focused almost completely on the threat from international terrorism. The gap in the literature was the absence of an empirical evaluation of U.S. counterterrorism policy on domestic terrorism in general. The purpose of this quantitative study was to describe the impact of 21st century U.S. counterterrorism policy on incidence, lethality, and cost of domestic terrorism using data from the Global Terrorism Database. The multiple streams framework and the power elite theory were used. In this longitudinal trend study using secondary data analysis, domestic terrorism data were analyzed from 749 terrorist attacks using descriptive statistics, visual analysis, and the series hazard model to examine any changes in the frequency and hazard of domestic terrorism in relation to the following 5 policies: USA PATRIOT Act, USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act, Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act, and USA FREEDOM Act. The results empirically supported the greater threat of domestic terrorism and showed that domestic terrorism changed in relation to counterterrorism policy. Further, the addition of the series hazard model in the analysis of domestic terrorism following policy implementation added additional depth to the results. This study contributed to positive social change by providing policy makers and counterterrorism agencies with an empirical, evidence-based method for evaluating U.S. counterterrorism policy and for a non-partisan, non-political, evidence-based method for quantitatively determining terrorist threat.

Western nations continue to face potential attacks from violent extremist organizations waging a campaign of violence in the name of political Islam. Though these attacks are traditionally labeled as originating from abroad, leaders of these extremist organizations are utilizing a new tactic of radicalizing native or naturalized citizens from within Western countries in an effort to bypass the massive defensive security apparatus Western governments have put in place since the September 11 attacks. These undistinguishable citizens turned radical jihadists, better known as homegrown terrorists, represent a clear and present danger to the security of the United States. In an effort to understand the problem, this paper seeks to identify patterns common amongst these individuals and addresses the question "How does a Muslim youth become radicalized into a homegrown terrorist?" This research will use a case study approach to identify patterns of radicalization in convicted homegrown terrorist and test the hypothesis that a failure of integration will cause some Western Muslim youth to radicalize and in some cases, commit violent crimes of terrorism.

The thesis focuses on comparison of strategies of the USA and the EU in the fight against global terrorism, thus since terrorist attacks committed on 11 September 2001. The aim of the thesis is to assess which one of the strategies offers more suitable longterm counter-terrorism tool. Confrontation of the strategies with current development of global terrorism is included to help to assess strengths and weaknesses of the strategies.

<p>Even though terrorism has been on the political agenda for several years there is no general accepted definition of the phenomena of terrorism. Several scientist do also apply that terrorism have changed after the 9/11-attacks. The purpose with this thesis was to analyze and compare the image of terrorism represented by the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden and Norway, in an attempt to draw conclusions about similarities and differentials. The material that was used was these four nations individual counter terrorism strategy. This was made by using idea analysis and self constructed dimensions based on earlier science about security, terrorism and international law. A result of this study showed that there is a consensus about terrorism as a high existential threat because of the religious extremism that is related to Al Qaeda and justifies mass murder and have showed attempt to acquire weapons of mass destruction. On this adoption the nations in this study justifies extraordinary actions in cooperation against global terrorism. It is however some differentials about the means to counter this threat. The United States, United Kingdom and Norway describes in their strategy that the threat of Al Qaeda and its allies should be met by military force. United Kingdom describes that the military action is to consider as an exception based on the extraordinary threat that Al Qaeda poses. Sweden on the other hand shows a description of terrorism as a criminal act that should be met by national measures.</p>

The master thesis Global terrorism and the media as the means of communication focuses on examining the relationship between terrorist organisations and the news media which play a key role in planning terrorist attacks. The author assumes that a better understanding of the mutual relationship within the communication process requires the engagement of other players into the research as well: the government and the public. Their mutual interdependence is illustrated on the abstract model from which the author, afterwards, deduces the factors which influence relationships between all the players.

Even though terrorism has been on the political agenda for several years there is no general accepted definition of the phenomena of terrorism. Several scientist do also apply that terrorism have changed after the 9/11-attacks. The purpose with this thesis was to analyze and compare the image of terrorism represented by the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden and Norway, in an attempt to draw conclusions about similarities and differentials. The material that was used was these four nations individual counter terrorism strategy. This was made by using idea analysis and self constructed dimensions based on earlier science about security, terrorism and international law. A result of this study showed that there is a consensus about terrorism as a high existential threat because of the religious extremism that is related to Al Qaeda and justifies mass murder and have showed attempt to acquire weapons of mass destruction. On this adoption the nations in this study justifies extraordinary actions in cooperation against global terrorism. It is however some differentials about the means to counter this threat. The United States, United Kingdom and Norway describes in their strategy that the threat of Al Qaeda and its allies should be met by military force. United Kingdom describes that the military action is to consider as an exception based on the extraordinary threat that Al Qaeda poses. Sweden on the other hand shows a description of terrorism as a criminal act that should be met by national measures.