Terrorist Ideology and Behavior: An Examination of the Behavior of Known Perpetrators

• In Event: Terrorism: Motivations, Strategy, and Messaging

Abstract

The terrorist decision-making process is the key component of understanding the types of attacks terrorists execute. Terrorist group ideology is the goal orientation of the decision-making process and determines a number of aspects of the decision-making process that expand or limit the targets groups will attack and the tactics they will use including: a group’s long-term goals, short-term objectives, an attack’s purpose, the audience, the group’s constituency, its enemies, and its message. Using a database of terrorist group ideologies of my own making, the Global Terrorism Database, and other databases, I establish the link between terrorist ideology and terrorist behavior. I first established the behaviors of terrorist perpetrators of each ideology type and evaluated ideology’s impact on terrorist behavior controlling for political violence and instability, geographic, time, and country and group-level variables.

There are three major findings: first, there is a relationship between terrorist ideology and terrorist behavior; second, some terrorist behaviors were consistent across ideologies and over time, and third, the geographic and political instability and violence context in which terrorism occurs affects terrorist behavior. Finally, the incidents committed by unknown perpetrators are geographically concentrated and their behavior patterns are similar to the general behaviors of identifiable perpetrators.

Author

• Rose Bellandi, University at Albany, SUNY