Low-Intensity Conflict in the Peaceable Kingdom: The Attributes of International Terrorism in Canada, 1960-90

Conflict Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 3, Summer 1994, pp. 36-62

27 Pages Posted: 8 May 2014

See all articles by Jeffrey Ian Ross

Jeffrey Ian Ross

University of Baltimore - School of Law

Date Written: 1994

Abstract

International terrorism in relatively peaceful democracies like Canada is an unsettling affair. Among other effects, it causes casualties and damage, disrupts the routine of citizens, calls into question the adequacy of those bodies responsible for preventing, combating, and investigating terrorist groups and acts of terrorism, and provides fodder for opposition critics.

Although the earliest act of international terrorism in Canada was the assassination of Member of Parliament Thomas D'Arcy McGee by Fenian separatists in 1868, the country generally was spared this type of violence until almost a century later. Over the past three decades. however. Canada, like many Western countries, experienced a number of international terrorist events committed on its home soil. Most of these actions have been successful in capturing the attention of the Canadian public. the government, and the national security agencies. However, few academic studies of an empirical nature analyze political terrorism or any other type of political violence in Canada.

Partly in an attempt to remedy this state of affairs, partly because of a concern among Canadian politicians, policy makers and national security agencies about the past, present, and future impact of terrorism on Canada, and largely as a result of the author's familiarity with Canada, he developed an original detailed, rigorous, comprehensive and publicly available chronology and data set on Canadian terrorist events.

The original data collection project, titled Attributes of Terrorism in Canada (ATIC), was divided into three stages of data collection and analysis, and based on three types of terrorism: domestic (ATIC I), international (including transnational) (ATIC II), and state (ATIC III). The current version of the data base (amalgamated, revised. and labelled ATIC IV) includes 411 domestic events (88 percent) and 58 international events (12 percent). Because the number of domestic events clearly outweigh the amount of international and state terrorist incidents, they were analyzed first. The international events have not been previously analyzed and thus are the subject of this article.

Keywords: Canada, International terrorism, violence, empirical studies, terrorist events, chronologies, data analysis

JEL Classification: H56, K14, K19, K39, K42, K49

Suggested Citation

Ross, Jeffrey Ian, Low-Intensity Conflict in the Peaceable Kingdom: The Attributes of International Terrorism in Canada, 1960-90 (1994). Conflict Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 3, Summer 1994, pp. 36-62, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2434181

Jeffrey Ian Ross (Contact Author)

University of Baltimore - School of Law ( email )

1420 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218
United States

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