A Behavioural Analysis of Terrorist Action: The Assassination and Bombing Campaigns of ETA between 1980 and 2007

Wilson, Margaret; Scholes, Angela; Brocklehurst, Elizabeth

doi:10.1093/bjc/azq023

Cited by 14 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 20 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The premise of this research was that involvement in terrorism has traditionally been understood in simplistic terms, failing to provide detailed insights into what involvement and engagement actually entail beyond a vague description of “terrorist activity.” Here, we illustrate that involvement in terrorism can encompass complex, multiple, diverse, and often overlapping activities. Research on terrorist behavior has traditionally focused on terrorist attacks (e.g., ); however, engagement in terrorism involves more than executing violence, and as we have seen here, convictions for terrorist activity primarily involve providing (or attempting to provide) material support. The individuals analyzed here were associated with a wide spectrum of terrorism‐related behaviors from attempting to launch an actual attack (e.g., Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Richard Reid) to lying to officials regarding the involvement of a family member (e.g., Umer Hayat).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Actions Speak Louder than Words: A Behavioral Analysis of 183 Individuals Convicted for Terrorist Offenses in the United States from 1995 to 2012

Horgan

Shortland

Abbasciano

et al. 2016

Journal of Forensic Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Involvement in terrorism has traditionally been discussed in relatively simplistic ways with little effort spent on developing a deeper understanding of what involvement actually entails, and how it differs from person to person. In this paper, we present the results of a three-year project focused on 183 individuals associated with the global jihadist movement who were convicted in the United States, for terrorist offenses, between 1995 and 2012. These data were developed by a large-scale, open-source data collection activity that involved a coding dictionary of more than 120 variables. We identify and explore the diversity of behaviors that constitute involvement in terrorism. We also compare lone actors and those who acted as part of a group, finding that lone actors differed from group-based actors in key demographic attributes and were more likely to be involved in attack execution behaviors. Implications for counterterrorism are then discussed.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Actions Speak Louder than Words: A Behavioral Analysis of 183 Individuals Convicted for Terrorist Offenses in the United States from 1995 to 2012

Horgan

Shortland

Abbasciano

et al. 2016

Journal of Forensic Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, Zartman (2007) assessed terrorists as “not mad but highly rational and strategic calculators” (p. 246). Wilson, Scholes, and Brocklehurst (2010) stated, “terrorists are not characterized by mental disorder . .…”

Section: Paradigm 3: Synthesizing the Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

There and back again: The study of mental disorder and terrorist involvement.

Gill¹,

Corner²

2017

American Psychologist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

For the past forty years, researchers studied the relationship between mental disorder and terrorist involvement. The literature developed in four paradigms, each of which differs in terms of their empirical evidence, the specific mental disorders studied, and their conceptualizations of terrorist involvement. These paradigms have not, however, witnessed linear and incremental improvements upon one another. Although one paradigm has generally tended to dominate a temporal period, many false assumptions and incorrect interpretations of earlier work permeate into today's discourse. This paper provides a history of the study of mental disorders and the terrorist. First, we briefly outline the core fundamental principles of the first two paradigms, The paper then outlines the core arguments produced by the seminal reviews conducted in paradigm three. We highlight how these findings were consistently misinterpreted in subsequent citations. We then highlight recent innovations in the study of terrorism and mental disorder since the various influential literature reviews of 1997-2005. We conclude by outlining how future research in this area may improve in the coming years by broadening our understanding of both terrorist involvement and psychopathology away from simple dichotomous thinking.

show abstract

“…Wilson (2000) found strong evidence of a consistency in the resources used and demands made by different terrorist groups, which she attributed to differences in the social and historic roots of the groups. Wilson, Scholes, and Brocklehurst (2010) took this analysis one step further by showing that the behavior exhibited by terrorists depended on the type of victim that was targeted. This suggests that there is some regularity with respect to the kinds of attack used in various circumstances, implying a degree of planning and goal-driven behavior behind such incidents.…”

Section: Investigative Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%