To compete and thrive in the 21st century, democracies, and the United States in particular, must develop new national security and economic strategies that address the geopolitics of information. In the 20th century, market capitalist democracies geared infrastructure, energy, trade, and even social policy to protect and advance that era’s key source of power—manufacturing. In this century, democracies must better account for information geopolitics across all dimensions of domestic policy and national strategy.
States commonly employ a divide and conquer strategy against violent nonstate actors, aiming to fragment terrorist groups, shatter their organizational networks, and compel existing members to renounce violence. Surprisingly, there has been little systematic analysis of precisely how internal splintering affects the trajectories of terrorist organizations and why the subsequent splinter groups develop in particular ways. This presentation highlights a new theory of organizational fragmentation that ultimately connects the different causes of group splintering with particular outcomes, and it presents preliminary evidence on the development of terrorist splinter organizations over time.
Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.