The Source of the Matter: Comparing Suicide Attack Data

• In Event: Understanding and Responding to Suicide Terrorism

Abstract

Terrorism data collection efforts maintain a delicate balance between the quality and the quantity of the data. One area of contention for this balance lies in the use of local-language sources to create data points. The use of local sources can be expensive and time-consuming but may also uncover data points not reported by English-language sources. This study assesses the relationship between the use of local-language sources and data trends. The Global Terrorism Database (GTD), RAND, and Suicide Attack Database (SAD) are compared to identify similarities and differences across internationally-driven terrorism data collection efforts. These databases are then compared to a locally-collected Pakistani domestic suicide attack terrorism database to determine the role that the use of locally collected native-language sources may play in the number and characteristics of the resulting data points and trends.

Authors

• Joseph Oudin, University of Maryland

• Omi Hodwitz, University of Maryland

• Aaron Safer-Lichtenstein, University of Maryland