Terrorist Spectaculars: Backlash Attacks and the Focus of Intelligence

Daniel Arce and Todd Sandler

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2010, vol. 54, issue 2, 354-373

Abstract: 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 government’s counterterrorism stance and the potential for backlash attacks. In particular, spectacular attacks are pooling, rather than separating, phenomena, whereby the government cannot discern, based on past attacks, the militancy of the terrorist group. The definition for ‘‘spectacular’’ terrorist attacks is inversely related to the government’s toughness and its belief that it confronts a militant group. Policy recommendations are specified for non-event-specific intelligence in relation to the avoidance of spectacular attacks or unnecessary concessions. Intelligence must be focused on the propensity for counterterrorism to give rise to a backlash attack.

Keywords: signaling games; terrorist spectaculars; value of intelligence; backlash attacks; counterterrorism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002709355414 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:54:y:2010:i:2:p:354-373

DOI: 10.1177/0022002709355414

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().