2009/06/30 by Aaron Clauset, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch · 94 citations
Mathematics · Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Computer science #Computer security #Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance #Dynamics (music) #Economics #Human factors and ergonomics #Ideology #Law #Medical emergency #Medicine #Microeconomics #Organizational dynamics #Poison control #Political Conflict and Governance #Political science #Politics #Production (economics) #Psychology #Public relations #Terrorism #Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence #nlin.AO #physics.data-an #physics.soc-ph #stat.AP
paper · pdf · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048633
published in PLoS ONE 7(11), e48633 (Public Library of Science) · 28 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables, supplementary material
openalex publication_date 2012/11/21 · arxiv created 2012/11/22 · arxiv updated 2012/11/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We identify robust statistical patterns in the frequency and severity of violent attacks by terrorist organizations as they grow and age. Using group-level static and dynamic analyses of terrorist events worldwide from 1968-2008 and a simulation model of organizational dynamics, we show that the production of violent events tends to accelerate with increasing size and experience. This coupling of frequency, experience and size arises from a fundamental positive feedback loop in which attacks lead to growth which leads to increased production of new attacks. In contrast, event severity is independent of both size and experience. Thus larger, more experienced organizations are more deadly because they attack more frequently, not because their attacks are more deadly, and large events are equally likely to come from large and small organizations. These results hold across political ideologies and time, suggesting that the frequency and severity of terrorism may be constrained by fundamental processes.