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Assessing and Comparing Data Sources for Terrorism Research

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Until recently, much of the research on terrorism was theoretical, based on small-n studies. The growing availability of large-n terrorism databases has provided great opportunities for terrorism researchers to identify cases and test and develop new hypotheses that are relevant to the field. But how good is the quality of the data in these databases? And how should the researcher go about choosing between competing databases? This chapter describes the need for a framework to evaluate the quality of terrorism data. Drawing on the concept of a “criterial framework” and “best practice” criterial standards developed to bridge qualitative/quantitative and small-n/large-n divides, the chapter also proposes a set of criteria to evaluate terrorism data and uses these criteria to evaluate and compare a series of quantitative terrorism events databases.
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... Zur statistischen Bewertung terroristischer Akte liegen umfangreiche Datenbanken vor, wie z. B. Johnson (2018), Ritchie et al. (2019), EMI (2017), MIPT (2004), Universität Maryland (2021) und Sheehan (2012). Basierend auf solchen Statistiken lassen sich Häufigkeits-Schwere-Beziehungen erstellen, wie in Abb. ...
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ImRisikoEinführung Kap. 2 werdenGefahrEinführungverschiedeneGefährdungEinführung Risiken und Gefährdungen in Form von Beispielen und Zahlenangaben vorgestellt. Dabei werden länger andauernde Prozesse und kurzfristige Ereignisse gemischt. Teilweise überschneiden sich die Zuordnungen.
... Zur statistischen Bewertung terroristischer Akte liegen umfangreiche Datenbanken vor, wie z. B. Johnson (2018), Ritchie et al. (2019), EMI (2017), MIPT (2004), Universität Maryland (2021) und Sheehan (2012). Basierend auf solchen Statistiken lassen sich Häufigkeits-Schwere-Beziehungen erstellen, wie in Abb. ...
... Most of the data were collected in real time, but the data from 1998 until 2007 were collected retrospectively, and some media sources have since become unavailable, reflecting a decline in reported data from 1998-2007. 5,24 Consequently, trends over time should be interpreted with caution. ...
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... In a review of five most commonly used data sets (Sheehan, 2012), Sheenan concluded that the level of variability across datasets is high and no one dataset is completely comprehensive or exhaustive, mainly due to different definitions, coding rules and reliance on the media sources. Although availability of quantitative terrorism related data has increased (Bowie, 2018), many databases provide only regional and country-specific of data in various structures and data format, some services are based on commercial subscription fee, thus making cross-validation of data challenging if not impossible. ...
... Accurate datasets were extremely difficult to obtain until recently, since dealing with such information was considered confidential and restricted. Open source databases previously motivated by many researchers such as Sheehan et al (2012), Giroux et al (2013) et LaFree et al (2014 dedicated to terrorist activities have gained popularity and consideration in the recent decades. In this study, a subset extracted from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) is employed as in the work of Berkebile et al (2017). ...
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