Promise and Pitfalls of Terrorism Research

Young, Joseph K.; Findley, Michael G.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1676553

Cited by 35 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…While research examining definitions of terrorism and the dynamics of radicalization have necessarily relied more on small-N and qualitative research (see Young and Findley 2011), research on lethality and target choice is dominated by large-N statistical analyses that rely on the growing corpus of terrorism data.…”

Section: Intensity and Targets Of Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Beck (2015) goes so far as to suggest that regime type by itself predicts the type of political violence and contention that is most likely. Young and Findley (2011) also highlight that differences in target reflect an organization's operational capacity.…”

Section: Intensity and Targets Of Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This has "resulted in an elusive pursuit for a single definition of terrorism that appears to be unattainable and potentially counterproductive" (Young and Findley 2011:414). Many political scientists and sociologists have weighed in, emphasizing motivations, outcomes, symbolism, intensity, targets, asymmetry and so on (Crenshaw 1981;Enders and Sandler 2002;Hoffman 1998;Lizardo 2008;Tilly 2004;Young and Findley 2011). However, efforts to offer precise, clearly specified definitions are often criticized as overly-narrow, whereas broader definitions fail to provide analytic clarity, leading to "the road of obscurantism" (Gibbs 1989:329).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…In an effort to productively address these definitional inconsistencies, Young and Findley (2011) suggest that scholars embrace the diversity in definitions of terrorism. Highlighting the growth of databases that record various acts of political violence, they recommend establishing a firm minimal definition, then working to identify empirical regularities among recorded terrorist events to develop basic typologies that would allow researchers to better account for variation.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Highlighting the growth of databases that record various acts of political violence, they recommend establishing a firm minimal definition, then working to identify empirical regularities among recorded terrorist events to develop basic typologies that would allow researchers to better account for variation. However, Young and Findley's (2011) focus on inductive analysis does not culminate in a proposed definition. Nor does it provide a clear way to assess the definitions offered by others.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Terrorism and Social Movements; Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, 2nd Edition

Beck¹,

Schoon²

2017

Preprint

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In spite of a proliferation of empirical research, scholarship on terrorism remains theoretically fragmented and often inconclusive on even basic issues. In this chapter, we detail how terrorism can be incorporated into the social movements and collective action scholarships' portfolio of research through a review of several of the most widely debated topics in current terrorism research: 1) how terrorism is defined; 2) dynamics of radicalization for individuals and groups; 3) intensity and targets of violence; 4) organizational diversification; and 5) the context of terrorist action. Taking a problem-centered approach, we detail how prior insights from scholarship on social movements and collective action can theoretically and substantively advance terrorism research.

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Section: Intensity and Targets Of Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Intensity and Targets Of Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Terrorism and Social Movements; Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, 2nd Edition

Beck¹,

Schoon²

2017

Preprint

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Terror per Capita

Jetter¹,

Stadelmann

2019

Southern Economic Journal

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Studies on the correlates of terrorism usually analyze total numbers of attacks or victims per country. However, what we may ultimately care about in terms of policy recommendations is the likelihood of any individual being subject to the respective phenomenon. Thus, we propose and explore a simple alternative measure of terrorism: terror per capita. Studying terror per capita across 162 countries from 1970–2015, the associated correlates differ substantially in terms of sign, levels of statistical significance, and magnitude from those when analyzing total terror. We illustrate two cases in point, serving as proof of concept. First, democracy, often associated with more total terror, emerges as a marginally negative predictor of terror per capita. Second, a larger share of Muslims in society is associated with a positive and statistically significant link to total terror, but emerges as a negative predictor of terror per capita. We find similar changes in sign and statistical relevance for GDP per capita and language fractionalization as correlates of terrorism. Depending on the policy question, studying terror per capita can greatly enhance our understanding of terrorism drivers, especially when analyzing data across countries with vastly differing population sizes.

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Game Changers: Detecting Shifts in Overdispersed Count Data

Blackwell¹

2018

Polit. Anal.

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In this paper, I introduce a Bayesian model for detecting changepoints in a time series of overdispersed counts, such as contributions to candidates over the course of a campaign or counts of terrorist violence. To avoid having to specify the number of changepoint ex ante, this model incorporates a hierarchical Dirichlet process prior to estimate the number of changepoints as well as their location. This allows researchers to discover salient structural breaks and perform inference on the number of such breaks in a given time series. I demonstrate the usefulness of the model with applications to campaign contributions in the 2012 U.S. Republican presidential primary and incidences of global terrorism from 1970 to 2015.

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Promise and Pitfalls of Terrorism Research

Cited by 35 publications

References 26 publications

Terrorism and Social Movements; Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, 2nd Edition

Terrorism and Social Movements; Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, 2nd Edition

Terror per Capita

Game Changers: Detecting Shifts in Overdispersed Count Data

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