The War on Terror: A Data-Driven Learning Guide

Dataset

Global Terrorism Database II (1998-2004)

Data for this exercise come from the Global Terrorism Database II (1998-2004). The goal of the Global Terrorism Database II (GTD2) was to create a comprehensive and sound dataset on global terrorism that can be used to derive methodologically robust insights into the phenomenon of terrorism and how to counter it. Information in the GTD2 was drawn entirely from publicly available, open-source materials. The criteria for incident inclusion and the coding scheme used in GTD2 were developed by a Database Development Committee, which consisted of recognized experts in terrorism and data collection. In order to be considered a "terrorist incident" the event had to have been committed by non-state actors had to have been violent, and intentional. In addition the act must have met two of the following three criteria: (1) The act must have been aimed at attaining a political, economic, religious, or social goal. In terms of economic goals, the exclusive pursuit of profit did not satisfy this criterion. (2) There must have been evidence of an intention to coerce, intimidate, or convey some other message to a larger audience (or audiences) than the immediate victims. (3) The action must have been outside the context of legitimate warfare activities, i.e. the act must have been outside the parameters permitted by international humanitarian law (particularly the admonition against deliberately targeting civilians or noncombatants). Data in this collection contain 7,154 events. The main variable categories presented in these data include: identification numbers, incident date, incident location, incident information, attack information, target information, perpetrator information, perpetrator statistics, perpetrator claim of responsibility, weapon information, casualty information, consequences, hostage/kidnapping, additional information, and source information.

Variables used in this exercise include:

• Region of Attack (REGION)
• Year of Attack (YEAR)
• Goal of attack: Political, Economic, Religious, or Social Goal (CRITERION1)
• Intent of the Attack: Coerce, Intimidate or Publicize (CRITERION2)
• Outside International Humanitarian Law? (CRITERION3)
• Psychosocial Consequences (PSYCHOSOCIAL)
• Attack Type - Alternative Categorization (ATTACK_TYPE0)
• Target of Attack (TARGET_TYPE)

Goal & Concept - Dataset - Application - Interpretation & Summary - Bibliography