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Papers by William Costanza

Journal of Strategic Security, 2013

Lone-Actor Terrorism, 2022

As emphasized in this volume, lone-actor terrorists comprise a broad group of individuals influen... more As emphasized in this volume, lone-actor terrorists comprise a broad group of individuals influenced by an array of variables. Research in this area has indicated some more common factors and patterns running through this group. An interesting and potentially informative perspective is a comparison of the lone-actor group to other groups posing a higher risk to society and national security. A comparison review with three other high-risk groups—those committing treason, those engaging in mass violence without an identified ideology, and school shooters, each show common and distinguishing features that add to the base of knowledge in understanding lone-actor terrorism.

Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2012

The activities of Hizballah in Latin America generally have been viewed by governmental authoriti... more The activities of Hizballah in Latin America generally have been viewed by governmental authorities in the region as a security concern primarily because of its importance in bilateral relations with the United States rather than as an internal terrorist threat targeted against their sovereign interests. This article explores Hizballah's network and past activities in South America to assess the nature

Journal of Strategic Security, 2000

ABSTRACT! The search to understand contemporary terrorism has led researchers to increasingly foc... more ABSTRACT! The search to understand contemporary terrorism has led researchers to increasingly focus their attention on the radicalization process as a means to gain insight into how individuals become susceptible to recruitment by terrorist organizations. There has been an unending search to identify a set of universal principles that would define the essential nature of radicalization and thereby provide insight into the psychology of individuals who constitute the pool of potential terrorist recruitment candidates. This effort has been primarily carried out by Western scholars theorizing about radicalization from a narrow Western causal-based reductionist perspective. Unfortunately, the product of these efforts has often been characterized as ambiguous and contradictory.! The intent of this study is to provide an alternative perspective to examine the radicalization process that rejects the causal paradigm in favor of a discursive approach that focuses on understanding psychologic...

Georgetown University-Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, 2012

The search to understand contemporary terrorism has led researchers to increasingly focus their a... more The search to understand contemporary terrorism has led researchers to increasingly focus their attention on the radicalization process as a means to gain insight into how individuals become susceptible to recruitment by terrorist organizations. There has been an unending search to identify a set of universal principles that would define the essential nature of radicalization and thereby provide insight into the psychology of individuals who constitute the pool of potential terrorist recruitment candidates. This effort has been primarily carried out by Western scholars theorizing about radicalization from a narrow Western causal-based reductionist perspective. Unfortunately, the product of these efforts has often been characterized as ambiguous and contradictory. ! The intent of this study is to provide an alternative perspective to examine the radicalization process that rejects the causal paradigm in favor of a discursive approach that focuses on understanding psychological phenom...

Journal of Strategic Security, 2013

What began as an initiative to introduce one or two intelligence-related courses into the forensi... more What began as an initiative to introduce one or two intelligence-related courses into the forensic psychology curriculum at Marymount University is now evolving into a process to create a series of skills-based intelligence courses geared to meet the analytic needs of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). The process of building the program is centered on the stated goal of building analytic skills to enhance the employability of students for jobs in the IC upon graduation. This approach relies on a combination of skills-based coursework and IC internships developed through input and feedback from IC managers. Continuing efforts to establish the program is based on a strategy of "in-reach" aimed at gaining support and resources from university administration officials and selected academic departments, and "outreach" aimed at gaining direct input from IC managers and relevant private sector partners to assist in course design and development. The long-term goal is to establish a Center for Intelligence Education at Marymount to serve as the focal point for the proposed intelligence education program.

Journal of Strategic Security, 2013

What began as an initiative to introduce one or two intelligence-related courses into the forensi... more What began as an initiative to introduce one or two intelligence-related courses into the forensic psychology curriculum at Marymount University is now evolving into a process to create a series of skills-based intelligence courses geared to meet the analytic needs of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). The process of building the program is centered on the stated goal of building analytic skills to enhance the employability of students for jobs in the IC upon graduation. This approach relies on a combination of skills-based coursework and IC internships developed through input and feedback from IC managers. Continuing efforts to establish the program is based on a strategy of "in-reach" aimed at gaining support and resources from university administration officials and selected academic departments, and "outreach" aimed at gaining direct input from IC managers and relevant private sector partners to assist in course design and development. The long-term goal is to establish a Center for Intelligence Education at Marymount to serve as the focal point for the proposed intelligence education program.

The article intends to provide an alternative perspective to examine the radicalization process. ... more The article intends to provide an alternative perspective to examine the radicalization process. It rejects the causal paradigm in favor of a discursive approach that focuses on understanding
psychological phenomena as revealed in discourse. My central argument is that a discursive approach offers greater explanatory power than is offered by the causal, reductionist approach that currently dominates the field. My article concludes by offering an interdisciplinary framework that uses discursive psychology as a mode of explanation to better understand how radicalization may occur at the individual level in various sociocultural contexts as a product of lived experience. The framework employs positioning theory as an analytic tool to examine discursive exchanges to provide insight into pathways to the development of radical belief systems among at-risk youth.

The Encyclopedia of U.S. Intelligence, forthcoming August 2014, Taylot and Francis Publishers

This article provides an overview of the concept of human intelligence as used within the U.S. in... more This article provides an overview of the concept of human intelligence as used within the U.S. intelligence community. Commonly referred to as HUMINT, human intelligence provides an important and in some cases a unique stream of intelligence used in a broad array of intelligence products utilized by consumers in the U.S. intelligence and policymaking communities. This entry will define human intelligence and provide an understanding of how it is collected, the types of sources that provide it, and how it is used in formulating intelligence assessments and in guiding operational decision-making.

The Hizballah network in Latin America continues to pose a threat to U.S. and Latin American int... more The Hizballah network in Latin America continues to pose a threat to U.S. and Latin American interests through its illicit fundraising in the region and potential infrastructure to support terrorist attacks on its behalf and as a proxy for Iran.

Words of Conflict, Words of War

Positioning theory is used to analyze a contentious encounter between Barack Obama and another st... more Positioning theory is used to analyze a contentious encounter between Barack Obama and another student when both were student activists at Occidental College. The analysis provides insights in the continuing emergence of Barack Obama's racial identity within the context of his student activism.

Talks by William Costanza

Cross-cultural research has been underutilized in studies attempting to provide explanations of ... more Cross-cultural research has been underutilized in studies attempting to provide explanations of the root causes that make individuals susceptible to recruitment by terrorist organizations. Consequently, an important analytic perspective is not being fully integrated into current research efforts to comprehensively create knowledge leading to an informed public policy. My presentation proposes a more inclusive interdisciplinary model to facilitate the use of cross-cultural research in order to generate terrorism studies that are analytically richer and more relevant to policymakers.

Journal of Strategic Security, 2013

Lone-Actor Terrorism, 2022

As emphasized in this volume, lone-actor terrorists comprise a broad group of individuals influen... more As emphasized in this volume, lone-actor terrorists comprise a broad group of individuals influenced by an array of variables. Research in this area has indicated some more common factors and patterns running through this group. An interesting and potentially informative perspective is a comparison of the lone-actor group to other groups posing a higher risk to society and national security. A comparison review with three other high-risk groups—those committing treason, those engaging in mass violence without an identified ideology, and school shooters, each show common and distinguishing features that add to the base of knowledge in understanding lone-actor terrorism.

Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2012

The activities of Hizballah in Latin America generally have been viewed by governmental authoriti... more The activities of Hizballah in Latin America generally have been viewed by governmental authorities in the region as a security concern primarily because of its importance in bilateral relations with the United States rather than as an internal terrorist threat targeted against their sovereign interests. This article explores Hizballah's network and past activities in South America to assess the nature

Journal of Strategic Security, 2000

ABSTRACT! The search to understand contemporary terrorism has led researchers to increasingly foc... more ABSTRACT! The search to understand contemporary terrorism has led researchers to increasingly focus their attention on the radicalization process as a means to gain insight into how individuals become susceptible to recruitment by terrorist organizations. There has been an unending search to identify a set of universal principles that would define the essential nature of radicalization and thereby provide insight into the psychology of individuals who constitute the pool of potential terrorist recruitment candidates. This effort has been primarily carried out by Western scholars theorizing about radicalization from a narrow Western causal-based reductionist perspective. Unfortunately, the product of these efforts has often been characterized as ambiguous and contradictory.! The intent of this study is to provide an alternative perspective to examine the radicalization process that rejects the causal paradigm in favor of a discursive approach that focuses on understanding psychologic...

Georgetown University-Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, 2012

The search to understand contemporary terrorism has led researchers to increasingly focus their a... more The search to understand contemporary terrorism has led researchers to increasingly focus their attention on the radicalization process as a means to gain insight into how individuals become susceptible to recruitment by terrorist organizations. There has been an unending search to identify a set of universal principles that would define the essential nature of radicalization and thereby provide insight into the psychology of individuals who constitute the pool of potential terrorist recruitment candidates. This effort has been primarily carried out by Western scholars theorizing about radicalization from a narrow Western causal-based reductionist perspective. Unfortunately, the product of these efforts has often been characterized as ambiguous and contradictory. ! The intent of this study is to provide an alternative perspective to examine the radicalization process that rejects the causal paradigm in favor of a discursive approach that focuses on understanding psychological phenom...

Journal of Strategic Security, 2013

What began as an initiative to introduce one or two intelligence-related courses into the forensi... more What began as an initiative to introduce one or two intelligence-related courses into the forensic psychology curriculum at Marymount University is now evolving into a process to create a series of skills-based intelligence courses geared to meet the analytic needs of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). The process of building the program is centered on the stated goal of building analytic skills to enhance the employability of students for jobs in the IC upon graduation. This approach relies on a combination of skills-based coursework and IC internships developed through input and feedback from IC managers. Continuing efforts to establish the program is based on a strategy of "in-reach" aimed at gaining support and resources from university administration officials and selected academic departments, and "outreach" aimed at gaining direct input from IC managers and relevant private sector partners to assist in course design and development. The long-term goal is to establish a Center for Intelligence Education at Marymount to serve as the focal point for the proposed intelligence education program.

Journal of Strategic Security, 2013

What began as an initiative to introduce one or two intelligence-related courses into the forensi... more What began as an initiative to introduce one or two intelligence-related courses into the forensic psychology curriculum at Marymount University is now evolving into a process to create a series of skills-based intelligence courses geared to meet the analytic needs of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). The process of building the program is centered on the stated goal of building analytic skills to enhance the employability of students for jobs in the IC upon graduation. This approach relies on a combination of skills-based coursework and IC internships developed through input and feedback from IC managers. Continuing efforts to establish the program is based on a strategy of "in-reach" aimed at gaining support and resources from university administration officials and selected academic departments, and "outreach" aimed at gaining direct input from IC managers and relevant private sector partners to assist in course design and development. The long-term goal is to establish a Center for Intelligence Education at Marymount to serve as the focal point for the proposed intelligence education program.

The article intends to provide an alternative perspective to examine the radicalization process. ... more The article intends to provide an alternative perspective to examine the radicalization process. It rejects the causal paradigm in favor of a discursive approach that focuses on understanding
psychological phenomena as revealed in discourse. My central argument is that a discursive approach offers greater explanatory power than is offered by the causal, reductionist approach that currently dominates the field. My article concludes by offering an interdisciplinary framework that uses discursive psychology as a mode of explanation to better understand how radicalization may occur at the individual level in various sociocultural contexts as a product of lived experience. The framework employs positioning theory as an analytic tool to examine discursive exchanges to provide insight into pathways to the development of radical belief systems among at-risk youth.

The Encyclopedia of U.S. Intelligence, forthcoming August 2014, Taylot and Francis Publishers

This article provides an overview of the concept of human intelligence as used within the U.S. in... more This article provides an overview of the concept of human intelligence as used within the U.S. intelligence community. Commonly referred to as HUMINT, human intelligence provides an important and in some cases a unique stream of intelligence used in a broad array of intelligence products utilized by consumers in the U.S. intelligence and policymaking communities. This entry will define human intelligence and provide an understanding of how it is collected, the types of sources that provide it, and how it is used in formulating intelligence assessments and in guiding operational decision-making.

The Hizballah network in Latin America continues to pose a threat to U.S. and Latin American int... more The Hizballah network in Latin America continues to pose a threat to U.S. and Latin American interests through its illicit fundraising in the region and potential infrastructure to support terrorist attacks on its behalf and as a proxy for Iran.

Words of Conflict, Words of War

Positioning theory is used to analyze a contentious encounter between Barack Obama and another st... more Positioning theory is used to analyze a contentious encounter between Barack Obama and another student when both were student activists at Occidental College. The analysis provides insights in the continuing emergence of Barack Obama's racial identity within the context of his student activism.

Cross-cultural research has been underutilized in studies attempting to provide explanations of ... more Cross-cultural research has been underutilized in studies attempting to provide explanations of the root causes that make individuals susceptible to recruitment by terrorist organizations. Consequently, an important analytic perspective is not being fully integrated into current research efforts to comprehensively create knowledge leading to an informed public policy. My presentation proposes a more inclusive interdisciplinary model to facilitate the use of cross-cultural research in order to generate terrorism studies that are analytically richer and more relevant to policymakers.