Max Abrahms

Why Terrorism Does Not Work

This is the first article to analyze a large sample of terrorist groups in terms of their policy effectiveness. It includes every foreign terrorist organization (FTO) designated by the U.S. Department of State since 2001. The key variable for FTO success is a tactical one: target selection. Terrorist groups whose attacks on civilian targets outnumber attacks on military targets do not tend to achieve their policy objectives, regardless of their nature. Contrary to the prevailing view that terrorism is an effective means of political coercion, the universe of cases suggests that, first, contemporary terrorist groups rarely achieve their policy objectives and, second, the poor success rate is inherent to the tactic of terrorism itself. The bulk of the article develops a theory for why countries are reluctant to make policy concessions when their civilian populations are the primary target.

What Terrorists Really Want: Terrorist Motives and Counterterrorism Strategy

What do terrorists want? No question is more fundamental for devising an effective counterterrorism strategy. The international community cannot expect to make terrorism unprofitable and thus scarce without knowing the incentive structure of its practitioners. The strategic modelthe dominant paradigm in terrorism studiesposits that terrorists are political utility maximizers. According to this view, individuals resort to terrorism when the expected political gains minus the expected costs outweigh the net expected benefits of alternative forms of protest. The strategic model has widespread currency in the policy community; extant counterterrorism strategies seek to defeat terrorism by reducing its political utility. The most common strategies are to fight terrorism by decreasing its political benefits via a strict no concessions policy; decreasing its prospective political benefits via appeasement; or decreasing its political benefits relative to nonviolence via democracy promotion. Despite its policy relevance, the strategic model has not been tested. This is the first study to comprehensively assess its empirical validity. The actual record of terrorist behavior does not conform to the strategic models premise that terrorists are rational actors primarily motivated to achieving political ends. The preponderance of empirical and theoretical evidence is that terrorists are rational people who use terrorism primarily to develop strong affective ties with fellow terrorists. Major revisions in both the dominant paradigm in terrorism studies and the policy communitys basic approach to fighting terrorism are consequently in order.

The Political Effectiveness of Terrorism Revisited

Terrorists attack civilians to coerce their governments into making political concessions. Does this strategy work? To empirically assess the effectiveness of terrorism, the author exploits variation in the target selection of 125 violent substate campaigns. The results show that terrorist campaigns against civilian targets are significantly less effective than guerrilla campaigns against military targets at inducing government concessions. The negative political effect of terrorism is evident across logit model specifications after carefully controlling for tactical confounds. Drawing on political psychology, the author concludes with a theory to account for why governments resist compliance when their civilians are targeted.

Why Democracies Make Superior Counterterrorists

The conventional wisdom is that terrorists tend to target democracies because they are uniquely vulnerable to coercion. Terrorists are able to coerce democracies into acceding to their policy demands because liberal countries suffer from two inherent counterterrorism constraints: (1) the commitment to civil liberties prevents democracies from adopting sufficiently harsh countermeasures to eradicate the terrorism threat, and (2) their low civilian cost tolerance limits their ability to withstand attacks on their civilian populations. This article tests both propositions of the conventional wisdom that (a) terrorists attack democracies over other regime types because (b) liberal constraints render democracies vulnerable to coercion. The data do not sustain either proposition: illiberal countries are the victims of a disproportionate number of terrorist incidents and fatalities, and liberal countries are substantially less likely to make policy concessions to terrorists, particularly on issues of maximal importance. A plausibility probe is then developed to explain why democracies have a superior track record against terrorists. The basic argument is that liberal countries are comparatively resistant to coercion—and hence inferior targets—because they are superior counterterrorists. Liberalisms commitment to civil liberties and low civilian cost tolerance are, in the aggregate, actually strategic assets that help democracies prevail in counterterrorist campaigns, thereby reducing the incentives for terrorists to target this regime type. These findings have important implications for how democracies can defend their liberal values and physical security in the age of terrorism.

Does Terrorism Really Work? Evolution in the Conventional Wisdom since 9/11

The basic narrative of bargaining theory predicts that, all else equal, anarchy favors concessions to challengers who demonstrate the will and ability to escalate against defenders. For this reason, post-9/11 political science research explained terrorism as rational strategic behavior for non-state challengers to induce government compliance given their constraints. Over the past decade, however, empirical research has consistently found that neither escalating to terrorism nor with terrorism helps non-state actors to achieve their demands. In fact, escalating to terrorism or with terrorism increases the odds that target countries will dig in their political heels, depriving the non-state challengers of their given preferences. These empirical findings across disciplines, methodologies, as well as salient global events raise important research questions, with implications for counterterrorism strategy.

Does Terrorism Ever Work? The 2004 Madrid Train Bombings

Max Abrahmss argument that terrorism rarely works is compelling.1 He is not correct, however, that terrorist groups that primarily attack civilians never achieve their political objectives. The March 2004 Madrid train bombings offer an exception to Abrahmss thesis. The terrorist group that carried out the attack sought to compel Spain to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan and especially Iraq. The result was a partial success, because Spain did withdraw its forces from Iraq. This case study, developed below, helps to identify the uncommon conditions under which at least partial terrorist success is possible, and the findings have implications for counterterrorism policy. Two additional arguments follow from this case. First, Abrahmss concentration on official foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) is too narrow to capture the emerging phenomenon of ad hoc terrorist networks that do not have formal affiliation as a cell of a recognized FTO. Second, his focus on compelling governments to make policy concessions misses an important distinction between the impact of a terrorist attack on a government and on a countrys citizens. The Madrid attack never compelled the government led by the Popular Party to change policy on Spanish troops in Iraq. Instead it mobilized voters to elect a new government led by the Socialist Party because, in large part, this party campaigned on the promise to pull Spanish troops from Iraq.2 To be fair, the strengths of Abrahmss analysis outweigh its weaknesses. Contrary to some recent scholarship on terrorism, he convincingly shows that terrorist organizations rarely achieve their political objectives. Although he is not the only scholar to argue that terrorism usually fails, he is the first to analyze systematically a large number of terrorist organizations and campaigns. Further, he clarifies the conditions under which success can occur: when terrorist groups have limited objectives and, more important, when their main targets are military and not civilian. His analysis is theory informed, as he adapts correspondent inference theory to explain his observations. His article also stimulates contemplation, discussion, and new research projects-including our Madrid case study. Abrahms asserts that terrorism rarely succeeds in achieving its political objectives, especially when a terrorist organization primarily targets civilians. To support his the-

Al Qaeda's Scorecard: A Progress Report on Al Qaeda's Objectives

Terrorism scholars are divided over whether terrorism is an effective tactic. Disagreement derives from the fact that the objectives of terrorist groups are often highly contested. Nowhere is this clearer than in contemporary statements on Al Qaeda. This article explores the most common interpretations for why Al Qaeda attacked the United States on 11 September 2001, and then analyzes their empirical support. After determining the most compelling interpretation of Al Qaedas objectives, the article evaluates Al Qaedas success in achieving them since perpetrating this watershed attack. The following analysis provides a timely case study in the classic debate over whether terrorism is strategically rational behavior.

Explaining Terrorism: Leadership Deficits and Militant Group Tactics

Certain types of militant groups—those suffering from leadership deficits—are more likely to attack civilians. Their leadership deficits exacerbate the principal-agent problem between leaders and foot soldiers, who have stronger incentives to harm civilians. We establish the validity of this proposition with a tripartite research strategy that balances generalizability and identification. First, we demonstrate in a sample of militant organizations operating in the Middle East and North Africa that those lacking centralized leadership are prone to targeting civilians. Second, we show that when the leaderships of militant groups are degraded from drone strikes in the Afghanistan-Pakistan tribal regions, the selectivity of organizational violence plummets. Third, we elucidate the mechanism with a detailed case study of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a Palestinian group that turned to terrorism during the Second Intifada because pressure on leadership allowed low-level members to act on their preexisting incentives to attack civilians. These findings indicate that a lack of principal control is an important, underappreciated cause of militant group violence against civilians.

Al Qaeda's Miscommunication War: The Terrorism Paradox

The Bush administrations response to the September 11 attacks has rendered more urgent Al Qaedas stated objective to eject the United States from the Middle East. The aim here is not to evaluate the direction of the war on terrorism, but to explore why Al Qaeda has been so unsuccessful in capitalizing on its political violence. The article begins with the premise that terrorism is a communication strategy. It contends that Al Qaedas policy failures are due to its inability to convince Bush that it would refrain from attacking Americans if the United States moderated its Middle East policies. Borrowing from the literature in political psychology and perception and misperception in international relations, the article offers several explanations for Al Qaedas ineffectiveness in getting this message across. The article concludes by deriving general observations about the limitations of terrorism as a form of political communication.

Does Terrorism Pay? An Empirical Analysis

Does terrorism help perpetrators to achieve their demands? Few research questions about terrorism generate as much controversy. This study contributes to the debate in two main ways. First, we identify major limitations within the burgeoning literature on the effectiveness of terrorism. Specifically, we highlight the main methodological problems vexing empirical assessments of whether terrorism promotes government concessions. Second, we present a research design that circumvents those recurrent methodological shortcomings. In short, we find no empirical evidence to suggest that terrorism pays. In fact, multiple variants of the tactic in hostage standoffs impede the perpetrators from coercing government compliance. The negative effect of terrorism on the odds of compliance is significant and substantial across logistic and multilevel logistic model specifications, particularly when civilians are killed or wounded in the coercive incident. These findings have important implications for both scholars and practitioners of counterterrorism.