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Abstract
If international terrorism is on a rising trend, an important source of confirmation or refutation of this is time‐series data on terrorist activity. Using chiefly data collected by the RAND/MIPT consortium we show using basic statistical analysis that in the period 1968–2005 the yearly number of all international terrorist incidents shows no trend over time, but fluctuates year on year in a random manner. On the other hand some indicators do show a definite trend over time, principally the steady rise in the number of incidents that are death‐dealing in nature. A further conclusion is drawn, showing that the proportion of these incidents leading to deaths above a given level is virtually fixed.
1 This research is supported by the US Institute of Peace (USIP). The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article are those of its author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USIP. Data employed in this article can be obtained in their raw form from the author on request.
Notes
1 This research is supported by the US Institute of Peace (USIP). The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article are those of its author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USIP. Data employed in this article can be obtained in their raw form from the author on request.
2 For details see Appendix.
3 A much more ambitious explanation is due to N. Johnson et al, http://xxx.lanl.gov/ftp/physics/papers/0605/0605035.pdf. They relate the lethality of an incident directly to the size of the terrorist group responsible. They further derive the distribution of the size of the group by considering that a given group has a certain probability of growing even larger and also a probability of splitting.