Author ORCID Identifier
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-29-2019
Publication Title
Terrorism and Political Violence
Volume
33
Issue
1
First Page
164
Last Page
193
Abstract
Rationalist research expects that groups claim credit for terrorism. Yet, the vast majority of attacks are not claimed. Of the unclaimed attacks, about half are attributed to a specific group. What factors impact claiming decisions? While extant literature largely treats claiming as binary—either claimed or not—the present study disaggregates claiming decisions further to also consider attacks with attributions of credit but no claim, using data from 160 countries between 1998 and 2016. Both attack-level and situational factors impact claiming decisions. Disaggregating claiming behavior shows meaningful differences. Specifically, competitive environments and suicide attacks increase claims but not attributions. Higher fatalities in general increase both claims and attributions, but when the target is civilian attributions decrease with a high body count whereas claims increase. Further, while the directional impact of other variables is the same, the magnitude of their effects vary between claims and attributions. Results are robust across modeling specifications. Findings demonstrate that our understanding of claiming behaviors is limited when claiming is treated as dichotomous. This study provides further insight into factors that impact claiming decisions for terrorism. Results can address data issues in academic research and inform counterterrorism responses.
Recommended Citation
Kearns, E.M. (2019, January 29). When to take credit for terrorism? A cross-national examination of claims and attributions. Terrorism and Political Violence, 33(1), 164-193. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2018.1540982
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Terrorism and Political Violence on January 29, 2019, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2018.1540982