The Devil You Know: Continuing Problems with Research on Terrorism

Terrorism and Political Violence

Volumn 13, Issue 4, 2001, Pages 1-14

  Silke, Andrew ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0035738867     PISSN: 09546553     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09546550109609697     Document Type: Article

References (25)

1. Colin Robson, Real World Research (Oxford: Blackwell 1993), pp.41-42.
2. Some researchers have, however, argued that terrorism is not as difficult to research as many tend to believe. John Horgan, for example, has made a good case that there are many ways in which useful and worthwhile research on the subject can be carried out with little or no more difficulty than that faced by other researchers in the social sciences. He also points out that often even the most difficult research obstacles in the area can be overcome with patience and forethought. See John Horgan, 'Issues in Terrorism Research', The Police Journal 70 (1997), pp. 193-202.
3. Ariel Merari, 'Academic Research and Government Policy on Terrorism', Terrorism and Political Violence 3/1 (Spring 1991), pp.88-102.
4. Alex Schmid and Albert Jongman, Political Terrorism: A New Guide to Actors, Authors, Concepts, Data Bases, Theories and Literature (Oxford: North Holland 1988), p.179.[RTF bookmark start: schmid][RTF bookmark end: schmid]
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., p.138.
7. Ibid., p. 137.
8. Ibid., p.l79.
9. Ibid., p. 180.
10. Keith Macdonald and Colin Tipton, 'Using Documents', in Nigel Gilbert (ed.), Researching Social Life (London: Sage 1993), p. 191.
11. Ibid.
12. Robert Burns, Introduction to Research Methods (London: Sage 2000), p .93.
13. Chava Frankfort-Nachmias and David Nachmias, Research Methods in the Social Sciences (5th edn) (London: Arnold 1996), p.147.
14. Ibid., pp.427-28.
15. Two journals from both disciplines were reviewed. In all the cases the review period stretched from 1995 to 1999 and a random selection of eight issues from each journal title was reviewed.
16. Even this is a generous figure. In a substantial proportion of cases, the statistics were not generated by the researcher/s -instead they were copied from other sources (e.g. government reports). In contrast, such practices were very rare in the forensic psychology and criminology journals. If they did occur they were nearly always also accompanied by statistics which were generated by the researcher/s.
17. This of course refers just to the two main journals in the area. A number of other research articles on terrorism which do incorporate inferential analysis have been published elsewhere in this period. Indeed, it is possible that many of the more methodologically rigorous studies are never sent to the two mainstream journals. For example, very little has been published in the two journals on the experience of victims of terror and communities affected by it. Yet considerable research has been carried out on these topics. The authors have however then tended to report away from the primary terrorism research outlets and publish instead in more mainstream social science outlets. Why? These articles are essentially describing empirical positivist research and the authors are prioritizing. Journals which operate preferential policies of publishing only papers reporting such research (with accompanying inferential analysis) tend to be perceived as having a higher prestige in certain areas compared to journals which are less concerned about statistics and other questions of methodological rigour.
18. Andrew Silke, 'The Road Less Travelled: Trends in Terrorism Research 1990-1999', in Terrorism Prevention Branch (ed.) Global Terrorism Survey (Vienna: United Nations in press).
19. This also means that even 'easy' research can be incredibly time-consuming and difficult when compared to equivalent studies in other areas of the social sciences.
20. Silke (note 18).
21. Merari (note 3).
22. Avishag Gordon, 'Terrorism Dissertations and the Evolution of a Speciality: An Analysis of Meta-information', Terrorism and Political Violence 11/2 (Summer 1999), pp.141-50.
23. This conference is singled out here for its particular emphasis on encouraging postgraduate researchers to attend and present papers together with more established researchers.
24. The special issues tend either to be dedicated to particular forms of terrorism (either in terms of tactics or targets) or else to specific regions (e.g. South Africa, Northern Ireland). A special issue with a focus on research methodology could be very valuable.
25. Frankfort-Nachmias and Nachmias (note 13), p. 10.