Researching terrorism

How do we know (about) terrorism?

Eg Houthis
What do we know? What did we know?
Global Terrorism Database (& other
databases)
Fieldwork (interviews and observations)
Al-Shabaab reading
 Terrorism: yes or no?
Do we all agree?
How did you decide?
 Terrorism?
“Global terrorism” vs “foreign terrorist
organization”?
As of last week, Houthis = not a global
terrorist
Now: global terrorist

From the US perspective.

From other perspectives, the meanings of
Houthi actions could be different
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 To think on…

What can we know from that chart?

What can’t we know?
What is our data for terrorism attacks/deaths?
Can we make causal claims?
i.e. can we say X caused rise of terrorism by al-
Shabaab from 2007 to now?
No. We need to do further research and compare
cases/do in-depth qualitative fieldwork/etc
Do we have in-depth info from these charts?
 Schuurman
What are some common features about how
terrorism has been studied?
How is terrorism commonly studied?
Lack of fieldwork - why is this?
Why care about what topics are/are not
studied in terrorism studies?
Lack of information especially on far-right/right-wing
terrorism and its causes and how to prevent it
Research on terrorism/political violence
Two ways of doing terrorism research
1. Quantitative: utilize existing datasets; large-n (n=
no of cases)
1. goal: generalize across cases
2. Statistical analysis (usually)
2. Qualitative: fieldwork, interviews, textual
analyses
1. goal: understanding small no. of cases in-depth
2. Today’s readings focus on fieldwork
1. Fieldwork methods: participant-observation and interviews
 Task
Ask someone about their definition of terrorism
Also ask them how they could do fieldwork on Al
Shabaab
 Why interviews?
To get an individual perspective from within a
collective group framework
e.g. What is the meaning of “involvement”, to:
someone who is thinking about becoming involved;
someone who is involved in a sustained and focused way;
someone who is thinking about leaving;
someone who has left?
Someone who did not join a terrorist group
Meanings could be…
Adventure, counterculture, religious/ideological support,
friends/peers went (solidarity), coercion, family reason, etc
 At the beginning
Preparation?
You?
Speckhard and Shajkovci?
Ethics
Is it safe to do research?
Is it safe to do fieldwork?
 Readings: evaluating fieldwork
1. Research questions?
2. Methods?
3. Access?
4. Field-entering; being in
5. Norms?
6. Data?
7. Role of the researcher?
Speckhard and Shajkovic
Who? Al Shabaab
Hist context: Somalia colonized by Italians and
British (as different protectorates)
-population mostly Muslim. Historically traders
and trading routes
-civil war in the 1990s. Changes of govt since (lack
of stability)
Kenya: former British colony (Ind 1964)
Al Shabaab = “the youth”. Portray themselves as
providing justice that the state does not.
No. of major attacks incl 2019 hotel attack in
Nairobi that killed 21. Attacked AU peacekeeping
missions in 2022-2023
Goal? Est Islamic state (but mainly in Somalia
only); against “foreign interference”
Methods: bombings, suicide attacks, armed
assaults Est to be 7,000-9,000 strong
When? 2006- in 2019
 Speckhard and Shajovic
1. Who do they talk to? Why talk to them?
2. Who? 16 AS members and their families
1. Caught and imprisoned OR turned themselves in
1. People who had already left the group
3. What makes youth vulnerable to AS recruitment?
1. lack of educational opportunities, unemployment, and
historic marginalization by successive governments of
Kenya (p.8)
4. What do they mean by “author positionality” (p.9)
1. Interviewed in prison; Kenyan security officials present
 Report
Leaving AS is punishable by death = rarely leave
Opportunities to escape can increase *if* group is weaker
2016 (earlier) study (w/ interviews)= try to leave when state
provides amnesty/support
“National Defectors Program” (govt run)
Motivation for exits through counternarratives
The motives behind the desire for exit vary between individual cases. Research conducted at the
Serendi centre in 2015 revealed that many were driven by the prospects of state amnesty, a
desire to reunite with families, improved personal safety, better living conditions, enhanced
livelihoods prospects, and so on. More recently, our Resolve Network study also revealed that
others were driven substantially by
an increased awareness of the extent to which al-Shabaab applied brutal force against l
ocal communities.
This driver is likely to be particularly prominent in Hirshabelle and Galmudug, where over the
years al-Shabaab has forcefully requested recruits from local clans in return for protection and
the enforcement of stability. In other words, it is important to recall that many individuals never
wanted to join the insurgency in the first place, but were instead pressured or coerced into
involvement.
Global Terrorism Database
Most commonly used as source of terrorism-related
statistics
Note this in articles/reports you read about terrorism
“Data for the GTD is collected and collated by the
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and
Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of
Maryland. The GTD contains over 170,000 terrorist
incidents for the period 1970 to 2020”
>90% of terrorism occurs in areas where there is ongoing
conflict
Global Terrorism Database
1. How does the GTD define terrorism?
2. Where does it get its data from?
1. Information in the GTD is drawn entirely from publicly available,
open-source materials. These include electronic news archives,
existing data sets, secondary source materials such as books and
journals, and legal documents. All information contained in the
GTD reflects what is reported in those sources.
3. What are some limitations in its data gathering?
4. Is the GTD independent? Financially supported by someone? Whom?
1. You can review these questions in/at the GTD itself: https://start.umd.edu/gtd/
 Also: how do we define “Threat of violence”
Who decides what is/is not “legitimate
warfare”?

To be counted as “terrorism” in the

GTD
GTD: each incident had to be an intentional act of violence or threat of violence by a
non- state actor. In addition two of the following three criteria had to be met to be
included.

• The act was aimed at attaining a political, economic, religious, or social goal.
• There included evidence of an intention to coerce, intimidate, or convey some
other message to a larger audience (or audiences) than the immediate victims.
• The act was outside the context of legitimate warfare activities
Think about what this excludes as well
Examples: quantitative research on
domestic terrorism
A quantitative method approach to
studying/researching domestic terrorism (next few
slides)
1st: define “domestic terrorism” for your project
Then, think about possible causes (your hypothesis)
These causes = variables that need to be operationalized
Then, find data in GTD (or another database) for the
variables
For example…
Some well-known databases for
terrorism research
http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/
Global Terrorism Database

International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist Events

(ITERATE) (fee-based)
Rand Database of Worldwide Terrorism Incidents (1968-
2009)
Terrorism in W Europe: Events Data (TWEED)
US: TEVUS (Terrorism and extremist crime in the US) and
Extremist crime database
No. of terrorist incidents-what can you
note here?
 ITERATE: For the purpose of the dataset, ITERATE defines a terrorist event as
. . . the use, or threat of use, of anxiety-inducing, extra-normal violence for political purposes by any individual or group, whether
acting for or in opposition to established governmental authority, when such action is intended to influence the attitudes and
behavior of a target group wider than the immediate victims.

...violence calculated to create an atmosphere of fear and alarm to coerce

others into actions they would not otherwise undertake, or refrain from actions
Note
similarities
they desired to take. Acts of terrorism are generally directed against civilian and
targets. The motives of all terrorists are political, and terrorist actions are differences
generally carried out in a way that will achieve maximum publicity. (RAND)
in how
each
database
defines
(codes)
terrorism

GTD: each incident had to be an intentional act of violence or threat of violence by a non- state actor. In addition two of the
following three criteria had to be met to be included.
• The act was aimed at attaining a political, economic, religious, or social goal.
• There included evidence of an intention to coerce, intimidate, or convey some
other message to a larger audience (or audiences) than the immediate victims.
• The act was outside the context of legitimate warfare activities.
Let’s take this example…here’s
an observation
Question?
What causes domestic
terrorism in India?
Hypothesis?

How would you use GTD to

classify events?
operationalize variables, esp
“domestic terrorism”
Let’s talk of GTD broadly first
and return to this question
shortly…
 Would
1. Dylann Roof
(Charleston) fit?
2. King David Hotel
bombing?
3. Syrian govt killing
This defines terrorism/not-terrorism civilians?
Does not tell us what
terrorism means, only
whether X event can or
cannot Howbe about
considered
terrorism
here?
This is *one*
way of
categorizing DT;
you may do it
differently
- It allows for
classifying a
This distinguishes “domestic terrorism” from large no. of
“transnational terrorism” events and
(after further
analysis) making
claims about
From Piazza, 2011 “Poverty, minority
economic discrimination, and domestic
terrorism”
Hoffman:
discussions on
Palestine and
Algeria.
 Hoffman, Chapter 2
What happened in WWII that led to the rise of
terrorism?
What happened in post WWII Palestine?
Why did Irgun resume revolution?
What was their plan? (what do T’s want?)
Military battle, long-term attrition, targeting symbols
What were their tactics?
Spectacular violence, attack from shadows, psychological targets,
urban areas, audience?
How can/did states counter these?
Road blocks, curfews, snap checks, martial law, calling groups
“terrorist”
Does T work, according to Hoffman?
 Algeria: FLN
Strategy?
Goals?
Target?
What counterterrorism tactics were used here?
Was terrorism successful or not?
 Reading: Lemieux
What do terrorists want?
Does terrorism work?
Reading cites Cronin’s research saying no terrorist organizations
that she studied was able to conquer a state, and 94% were
unable to achieve even one of their strategic goals
Compare this with what Hoffman says at the end of
Chapter 2.
So, does terrorism work?
To think about: Pick either Irgun (Palestine/Israel) or the
FLN (Algeria) from the Hoffman reading and answer these.
1. what was the group's strategy?
2. what were their goals? (ie what did they want?)
3. who/what did they target?
4. how did the state respond?
5. was the group successful?
6. Finally, in your view, should anti-colonial groups be
considered terrorist?
 Points to consider
Were anti-colonial groups “terrorist”?
Wrong question; instead ask: what tactics were being used?
Who was targeted?
What is the difference between treating terrorism as
defined by the actor rather than the act?
Act: specific actions are “terrorist” (no matter who does
them)
Actor: specific actors are “terrorist” (no matter what they do)
Much of the scholarship takes the state’s point of view-
implications of this?
State’s uses of force is left unquestioned
 Counterterrorism strategies
Questions so far?
Recap/summary
Counterterrorism strategies
Byman (overview)
The UN’s CT strategy (introduction)
Next class: history of CT
Terrorism: Definitions, research, etc
No global definition (with legal consequences)
No consistent in-state definition, even
Eg. United States
Research: quantitative (large-scale/statistical
analysis) and qualitative
(smaller-scale/fieldwork-based)
Challenges/limitations of T research
majority research from/in the West
Lack of research on far-right
Media’s disproportionate focus on Muslim
perpetrators = shapes public opinion
“Terrorism”= more serious consequences
(even if less/no violence)
State violence is understudied
 Counterterrorism
Strategies (Byman)
Introduction of reading
Discussion
Limitations?
 Summary of strategies
(1) crushing terrorist groups directly with massive force;
(2) targeting terrorist leaders for death and arrest;
(3) relying on allies to strike terrorist groups;
(4) containing the terrorist group to limit its effectiveness
and encourage internal divisions;
(5) improving defenses against terrorism;
(6) delegitimating the group’s cause;
(7) conciliating terrorists; and
(8) going after supposed root causes of terrorism.

Byman, 2019
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-
68064422
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Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron told reporters
the UK had sent a "clear message" and that it
will "continue to degrade" the Houthis' ability
to carry out attacks.
Asked whether the strikes could escalate
tensions in the Middle East, Lord Cameron said
it was the Houthis who were escalating the
situation and he was "confident" the previous
strikes had been effective.
He went on to say the Houthis' narrative that
the strikes were related to the war between
Israel and Hamas "shouldn't be accepted", and
the UK wants to see a "swift end to the
conflict" in Gaza.
Limitations of Byman?
 United Nations and CT
What can the UN do?
Post 9/11 only (UN’s CT strategy)
“Four pillars”
The United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy in the form of a
resolution and an annexed Plan of Action (A/RES/60/288) is composed of
four pillars, namely:
1. Measures to address the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism.
2. Measures to prevent and combat terrorism.
3. Measures to build States’ capacity to prevent and combat terrorism and
to strengthen the role of the United Nations system in that regard.
4. Measures to ensure respect for human rights for all and the rule of law as
the fundamental basis of the fight against terrorism.
 “Measures”
Set norms and guidelines
Urge states/other entities to act in particular
ways
Emphasize all actors have to follow IHL
Use funding to support prevention/countering
violent extremism programs
Different UN orgs
*cannot* initiate military force!