Gill, P; (2017) Tactical Innovation and the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism , 40 (7) pp. 573-585. 10.1080/1057610X.2016.1237221.

Preview

Text Gill_Resub_Tactical Innovation and the Provisional Irish Republican Army(1).pdf Download (491kB) | Preview

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) innovations with regards to improvised explosive devices (IEDs). It situates PIRA's tactical innovations within the broad organizational psychology literature focused on the nature and drivers of creativity and innovation. This discussion helps frame the two empirical analyses that follow. The first analysis provides a graphical timeline of PIRA's radical innovations (and their drivers) in relation to IED technology. This helps provide a sense of the specific occasions in which PIRA innovations were numerous and when they were sparse. The second analysis looks at the locations in which PIRA radical innovations debuted. This provides us with an understanding of the specific PIRA units responsible for these innovations. The results demonstrate that whilst PIRA operations spanned the six counties of Northern Ireland for 29 years, radical IED innovations were conceived, developed and initially implemented within only two areas of operations for only seven of those years.

Download activity - last month

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as CSVJSONXML

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as XMLJSONCSV

Archive Staff Only

View Item