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This study explores how terrorists use financial technologies in their plots. Using a database of 231 US-based Islamic State actors, it analyses how they move money and make purchases, as well as whether the use of technology affects success. Fundamentally, terrorists opt for simplicity; there is little evidence of sophisticated financial plots. Terrorists tend to use the Internet in two ways: to make purchases and to coordinate transactions. Transactions via Money Service Businesses are more likely to be part of successful plots. Finally, the paper discusses factors which explain this simplicity as well as discussing whether this may change moving forward.

This article seeks to re-ontologize online radicalization. Individuals becoming terrorists after being exposed to online content have become a prescient concern for academics, policy makers, and journalists. Existing theoretical contributions to the concept have assumed that there are two ontological domains—online and offline—that can be meaningfully separated. This article will draw from several arguments from other fields which critique this position; the contemporary information environment enmeshes the two inseparably. This argument is then advanced to demonstrate that online radicalization is a redundant concept by drawing on empirical research as well as recent case studies of terrorism. Instead, scholars should consider holistic theories which account for a range of other factors beyond online communication technologies.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

VOX-Pol Blog Post.

VOX-Pol Blog post.