Will the current travel ban by the U.S president help avert the threat of terrorism in USA? Section I: Introduction (1 page)

a) Explain the intelligence issue

The US president, On January 27th 2017, issued an executive order banning the admission of refugees into the US. He further put a temporary ban on people travelling to the US from seven countries of a Muslim majority1. The move was received with mixed reactions even having some people challenge the order in court. The order was temporarily halted when a judge from Seattle suspended its implementation nationwide. The move allowed banned visitors to get admission into the US pending an appeal hearing. Trump did this as an honor to a campaign pledge he had issued1.

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The order suspended refugee admission for a period of 120 days. Refugees from Syria were also banned indefinitely. People arriving from these seven countries with a Muslim Majority were also subjected to a visa suspension for 90 days: Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Iran, Somali and Libya1. Visa categories such as the UN and diplomatic visas were not to be included in the ban. In that order also there was a capping on the number of refugees who can be admitted into the US. The cap was set at 50,000 from the previous 110,000 set by President Obama1. Priority was to be accorded to the religious minority groups subjected to persecution. Trump singled out Syrian Christians in an interview he gave. Any exceptions to this order were to be done based on the unique circumstance each case presented.

The issue at hand is that the threat of terrorism has continued to grow and there are fears that external aggression could be avenue terrorist groups are keen to exploit. Many countries are contending with the challenge of diffusing terrorist initiatives but it has proven to be a challenge. Friendly countries have turned to intelligence sharing, strict border control, monitoring online activity, and war against ISIS etc. as a way of minimizing the risk of terror. The US president in his wisdom has chosen a ban on refugees and some Muslim majority countries hoping that somehow this will minimize the risk of terror.

b). State your research question (what you are attempting to answer)

Research Question: Will the current travel ban by the U.S president help avert the threat of terrorism in USA?

The objective of this research is to assess the credibility of this move by the U.S president. Is it really an informed move? Will it in any significant way help minimize terrorism in the U.S? In this research the fundamental questions about the relevance, significance, impact and outcome of the executive order must be answered. To help answer the research question it will be important to understand the significance of the threat. In what way are the refugees and the foreigners from the given countries a threat to the security of USA and her people? What does the history of terrorist activities in the US tell us?

The objective here is to try and correlate the terror activities and the significance of having the travel ban as a way of alleviating any such attacks on American people. Through a detailed review of the impact external aggression could have on American people and a review of the recent trends on terror activities it will be substantially possible to determine whether target countries in the travel ban will have any significant impact in helping minimize the threat of terror. It is important to remember that success in this case can only be adduced through trends analysis.

c) Give a hypothesis of your answer to the research question

Hypothesis:

1. The recent trends on terrorism have revealed a growing external aggression against western countries therefore calling for heightened border security.

2. Most terrorist...

Content analysis makes it possible to make inferences. The deduced information could be corroborated with some other information applying some other techniques of information gathering. This technique allows researchers a chance to examine loads of data a lot easier and in a systematic manner3. Content analysis as some researchers would put it makes it possible to draw inferences using symbolic data which otherwise would have been very costly, presumptive and impossible if other techniques were used3. The technique further allows researchers to describe and discover patterns from society, institutions, groups and individuals4. While content analysis is not limited to text data, so as to permit replication, content analysis technique is only applicable to durable data3.
Comparative Analysis technique: This is an itemized comparison between more than one comparable product, processes, alternatives, data sets, systems, and qualifications etc. often used in finance to evaluate relationship between financial variables for more than one reporting period6. In business comparative analysis is used to identify operating results and competitive positions over a certain period of time. In security comparative analysis between countries can be performed with an objective of identifying trends and borrowing from successful counter terrorism mechanisms applied elsewhere.

Comparison and science are not unrelated. Comparative research has been a significant pillar in shaping scientific disciplines in history. In social science, however, the use of comparative methods as a methodology or a science subfield has not been agreed upon6.

Rational Choice Theory: This theory is useful in explaining the social phenomena through assuming a rational choice at the level of the actor. In order to achieve its purpose, this theory makes an assumption of two methods i.e. actor’s choice and the transition (macro-micro-macro) 8. The theory in itself is a principle in economics stating that people will always make logical and prudent decisions. The decisions made come with benefits considering the choices that they have. The choices made are also in the best interest of the decision maker. Most academic theories and assumptions are premised on this theory7.

The assumption in this theory is that people will always try to maximize the benefit from any situation. This means that they also will attempt to keep losses at their minimum. The idea behind the theory is that people premise their decisions on rationality assessment, they use rational thinking in making a choice and their objective is to maximize profit or pleasure from a situation. According to the theory all the complicated social situations are instigated by human actions7. For this reason, an economist who intends to put meaning to societal change or social institutions’ actions must examine the rationality of the decisions made by individuals who comprise the whole7.

b) Examine the strengths and weaknesses of each technique for your particular topic

Each of these techniques provides a unique way of identifying a problem and fixing it. In this particular instance, however, some techniques may not be as helpful.

Strengths of content Analysis technique

The method is understandable and inexpensive to implement. The analysis data is not presumptive and requires no personal contact in the process. An analysis of the trends in terror activity across America, Europe and other parts of the world will only…