This article presents a signaling model of terrorist attacks, where the target government faces a trade-off from its counterterrorism responses and the backlash (counterreaction) that such responses incite. An endogenous characterization of terrorist spectaculars is specified, given a...

This article utilizes Bayesian Poisson changepoint regression models to demonstrate how transnational terrorists adjusted their target choices in response to target hardening. In addition, changes in the collective tastes of terrorists and their sponsorship have played a role in target selection...

A neoclassical growth model is used to empirically test for the influences of a civil war on steady-state income per capita both at home and in neighboring countries. This model provides the basis for measuring long-run and short-run effects of civil wars on income per capita growth in the host...

It is the purpose of this article to extend and to clarify the public goods approach to the study of alliances. In particular, the paper examines the nature of defense as a pure public good and draws the conclusion that some defense expenditure may be best classified as an impure public good due...

In a two-player proactive response game the level of proactive activity and the choice of terrorist target is endogenized. The targeted government first chooses its measures to weaken the terrorists, and the terrorists then choose the type of event—normal or spectacular. Unlike previous...

This article establishes the prevalence of deterrence over preemption when targeted governments can choose between either policies or employ both. There is a similar proclivity to favor defensive counter-terrorist measures over proactive policies. Unfortunately, this predisposition results in an...

Using time-series procedures, the authors investigate whether transnational terrorism changed following 9/11 and the subsequent U.S.-led “war on terror.†Perhaps surprising, little has changed in the time series of overall incidents and most of its component series. When 9/11 is...

This study applies time-series techniques to investigate the current threat posed by transnational terrorist incidents. Although the number of incidents has dropped dramatically during the post-cold war period, transnational terrorism still presents a significant threat. In recent years, each...