Authors
Michael G Findley, Joseph K Young
Publication date
2012/11/1
Journal
Terrorism and Political Violence
Volume
24
Issue
5
Pages
706-721
Publisher
Taylor & Francis Group
Description
We examine and test the logic that outbidding among insurgent groups results in more suicide terrorism specifically and more terrorism of any type, which has become a popular argument in recent years. A global analysis of terrorism from 1970–2004 provides scant support for the notion that outbidding increases suicide terrorism. An extension of the argument to all types of terrorist attacks provides even less support. The logic of outbidding has received considerable attention in academic and policy circles in recent years. Similar to the argument that democratic occupation increases suicide terror, our lack of empirical support suggests that considerable cross-national work is still needed to understand suicide terror adequately. We suggest some reasons why this may be the case, drawing particular attention to the problem of overgeneralizing from a limited set of cases.
Total citations
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Scholar articles
M Findley, JK Young - An Empirical Test of the Outbidding Thesis (September …, 2010