The Nature of the Beast: Organizational Structures and the Lethality of Terrorist Attacks

Asal, Victor; Rethemeyer, R. Karl

doi:10.1017/s0022381608080419

Cited by 316 publications

(278 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…This research thus contributes to growing literature on the determinants of behaviors of individual militant groups; the results are broadly in line with prior research into militant group activity (e.g., Asal and Rethemeyer 2008a;Piazza 2009). However, unlike prior analyses, this investigation teases out the factors that determine whether groups are associated with many fatalities because they engage in many attacks and which factors determine whether groups are truly lethal, in the sense that they cause many fatalities per attack.…”

Section: Militant Groupssupporting

confidence: 82%

“…For example, ideological factors (e.g., religion) exert a particularly strong effect on lethality but are relatively less strong 2 In a related study, Asal and Rethemeyer (2008b) study the characteristics of militant groups that do not kill. 3 The Appendix reveals that Asal and Rethemeyer's (2008a) main findings can be replicated well using the fatality data from the GTD instead of the BAAD. In addition, because the GTD is updated yearly, it is possible to extend their results, up to 2011.…”

Section: Militant Groupsmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…The determinants of militant group activity on a national level often are well understood (for a survey, see Gassebner and Luechinger 2011), but analyses of the activity and lethality of individual groups are inconclusive. Empirical literature focused on individual groups usually considers only a handful of related groups (e.g., Paserman 2006, 2008)-with the notable exception of Asal and Rethemeyer's (2008a) investigation regarding which organizational characteristics best predict the number of fatalities that militant groups actually amassed between 1998 and 2005. They find that ideological factors, such as religion, are very strong determinants of lethality, as are capacity factors, such as group size, but environmental factors, such as economic development, matter only marginally.…”

Section: Militant Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To this end, I start by classifying militant groups' strategy choices, in terms of ideology, capacity, and environment, in accordance with extant literature. The database for assessing the separate predictors integrates the Big Allied and Dangerous (BAAD) data set constructed by Asal and Rethemeyer (2008a) and the Global Terrorism Database (GTD 2011). The BAAD contains an elaborate array of militant group characteristics; the GTD contains data about the number of incidents and the number of fatalities during each incident.…”

Section: Militant Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

The activity and lethality of militant groups: Ideology, capacity, and environment

Mierau¹

2014

Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict

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What determines the activity and lethality of militant groups? To answer this question, a two-step count method disentangles activity and lethality in terms of ideology, capacity, and environmental factors. A first step assesses the determinants of group activity, measured by the number of incidents in which a group was involved. The second step considers the number of fatalities, conditional on the number of incidents.Similar factors drive militant group activity and lethality, but some links are stronger than others. Specifically, ideological factors are particularly strong determinants of lethality; capacity and environmental factors matter more for activity.

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Section: Militant Groupssupporting

confidence: 82%

Section: Militant Groupsmentioning

confidence: 81%

Section: Militant Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Militant Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The activity and lethality of militant groups: Ideology, capacity, and environment

Mierau¹

2014

Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict

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“…Why so few? Asal and Rethmeyer (2008) investigate organizational predictors of lethality. Shapiro and Siegel (2007) examine organizational constraints which limit lethality.…”

Section: Prohibitions and Sacrifices Among Religious Groups In Generalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religion, terrorism and public goods: Testing the club model

Berman

Laitin

2008

Journal of Public Economics

382

217

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Can rational models, once theological explanations are discredited, explain why certain radical religious rebels are so successful in perpetrating suicide attacks? The fundamental barrier to success turns out not to be recruiting suicide attackers; there is a rational basis for volunteering. Rather, the barrier is the danger of other operatives defecting. A club model, portraying voluntary religious organizations as efficient providers of local public goods, explains how they weed out potential defectors by requiring sacrifices as signals of commitment. They are thereby able to succeed in risky terrorist attacks. The model has testable implications for tactic choice and damage achieved by clubs and other rebel organizations. Data spanning a half-century on both terrorists and civil war insurgents, much from Middle East sources and Israel/Palestine, reveal that: a) missions organized by radical religious clubs that provide benign local public goods are both more lethal and are more likely to be suicide attacks than missions organized by other terrorist groups with similar aims and theologies; and b) suicide attacks are chosen when targets are "hard," i.e., difficult to destroy. Our results suggest benign tactics to counter radical religious terrorism and insurgency.

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Group‐level Predictors of Political and Religiously Motivated Violence

Boyd¹

2016

The Handbook of the Criminology of Terrorism

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The Nature of the Beast: Organizational Structures and the Lethality of Terrorist Attacks

Cited by 316 publications

References 39 publications

The activity and lethality of militant groups: Ideology, capacity, and environment

The activity and lethality of militant groups: Ideology, capacity, and environment

Religion, terrorism and public goods: Testing the club model

Group‐level Predictors of Political and Religiously Motivated Violence

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