CyberTerrorism: Some Insights from Owen’s Genetic-Social Framework

Abstract

The following chapter draws upon the latest incarnation of the ever-evolving, meta-theoretical, Genetic-Social framework, recently employed by (Owen in Crime, Genes, Neuroscience and Cyberspace, 2017; Owen et al. in New Perspectives on Cybercrime, 2017; Owen in Raconteur, 2018), and Owen and Speed in (New Perspectives on Cybercrime, 2017), and the intention is to demonstrate its explanatory potential, in particular meta-constructs such as the biological variable [the evidence from behavioural genetics for an, at least in part, biological influence upon human behaviour], psychobiography [the unique, asocial, inherited aspects of the person such as disposition], and neuro-agency [a new term which acknowledges the influence of neurons upon human ‘free-will’], in the task of conceptualising what has come to be known as cyberterrorism. In what follows, cyberterrorism is reconceptualised, moving the definition beyond the usual notions described in the introduction of this chapter. It is the contention here that the synthesis ‘applied’ to cyberterrorism via flexible causal prediction may be of use to criminological theorists, social policy-makers and practitioners working in the field of the criminal justice, and social commentators in the task of constructing predictive models of cyberterrorism.