The future of terrorism research: a review essay

Abstract

This essay sets forth a research agenda to begin filling some key gaps in terrorism studies. Since the September 2001 Al Qaeda attacks against the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon that claimed over 3000 lives, interest in terrorism research has increased. After these attacks, the United States and other governments prioritized the scientific study of the causes of and responses to terrorism. Importantly though, our review of the terrorism literature demonstrates that despite this progress, intriguing questions remain underexplored or altogether unexplored. This essay identifies four gaps in terrorism studies: (1) employing non-terrorist comparison groups, (2) broadening the dependent variable (focus of study), (3) exploring exceptions/anomalies to “established” findings, and (4) engaging measurement issues. We discuss these issues and outline a research agenda that could begin to fill these gaps.

Keywords:

• terrorism research
• political violence research
• extremist crime research
• measurement issues

Notes

1. This section’s material on targets/incidents draws from a presentation we gave at National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) and a report previously submitted to START (Freilich, Chermak, Lynch, & Parkin, 2008).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joshua D. Freilich

Joshua D. Freilich (JD; PhD) is a professor in the Criminal Justice Department; and the Criminal Justice PhD Program at John Jay College, and the Graduate Center, CUNY. He is the creator and co-director of the US Extremist Crime Database (ECDB) study. Freilich is a member of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) and is on its Executive Committee. His research has been published in leading criminology, terrorism studies, and psychology and the law journals and has been funded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and START.

Steven M. Chermak

Steven M. Chermak (Ph.D., State University of New York at Albany) is a professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. Dr. Chermak is also a lead investigator affiliated with The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terror (START). Dr. Chermak’s terrorism research has focused on four general areas. He has published two books, seven edited books, and numerous research reports. His research has appeared in a number of journals including Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Criminology and Public Policy, Justice Quarterly, Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, Journal of Criminal Justice, Criminal Justice Policy Review, and the Journal of Crime, Conflict, and the Media.

Jeff Gruenewald

Jeff Gruenewald (PhD) is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Arkansas. His current research interests include the comparative nature of far-right and Al-Qaeda-inspired homegrown terrorism, lone wolf offending, and temporal patterns of domestic terrorism in the United States.