ESRC complexity seminar 5: Terrorism and Complexity of Soft Targets: The Case of Tourism Industry
Description
In her opening presentation Prof Eve Mitleton-Kelly introduced the objectives of the seminar which were a better understanding of tourism as a ‘soft target’ for terrorism and the possible ways that the principles of Complexity Thinking can help policy makers in dealing with terrorism. She explained why terrorism should be viewed as a complex phenomenon and asserted that such complex phenomena cannot be addressed exclusively ‘top down’. “What government can do is to create the right infrastructure and the right environment but unless there is distributed leadership and intelligence sharing terrorism cannot be countered” she said. “This complex phenomenon has to be dealt with at multiple scales and multiple levels (national, regional, local) at the same time.”