Terrorism and research design: how to avoid common pitfalls and learn to spot them

In this brief essay, we revisit three problems that can plague our understanding of terrorism despite the growing availability of data about this phenomenon. First, we discuss how the lack of a common definition of terrorism and inconsistency of several data sources can pose a problem for our ability to compare different studies of the same questions as well as artificially truncate violence into different categories, thereby limiting our understanding of this phenomenon. Second, we discuss selection problems and how they can prevent us from drawing the right conclusions about terrorism (Bueno de Mesquita, 2021; King et al., 1994). Third, we revisit the endogeneity problem and how it poses a challenge to our understanding of terrorism and counterterrorism (Getmansky & Zeitzoff, 2014). We illustrate these challenges and possible ways of overcoming them using examples from recent studies of terrorism. This chapter concludes with a few questions that can guide readers of academic studies of terrorism and help them spot some of these pitfalls.