Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T23:53:15.023Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Design, Inference, and the Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2008

SCOTT ASHWORTH ,
JOSHUA D. CLINTON ,
ADAM MEIROWITZ  and
KRISTOPHER W. RAMSAY
SCOTT ASHWORTH*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
JOSHUA D. CLINTON*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
ADAM MEIROWITZ*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
KRISTOPHER W. RAMSAY*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
*
Scott Ashworth is Assistant Professor of Politics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 ([email protected]).
Joshua D. Clinton is Assistant Professor of Politics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 ([email protected]).
Adam Meirowitz is Associate Professor of Politics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 ([email protected]).
Kristopher W. Ramsay is Assistant Professor of Politics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 ([email protected]).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” Robert Pape (2003) presents an analysis of his suicide terrorism data. He uses the data to draw inferences about how territorial occupation and religious extremism affect the decision of terrorist groups to use suicide tactics. We show that the data are incapable of supporting Pape's conclusions because he “samples on the dependent variable.”—The data only contain cases in which suicide terror is used. We construct bounds (Manski, 1995) on the quantities relevant to Pape's hypotheses and show exactly how little can be learned about the relevant statistical associations from the data produced by Pape's research design.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 102 , Issue 2 , May 2008 , pp. 269 - 273
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Berman, Eli, Euben, Roxanne L., Kepel, Gilles, Laitin, David, Rasler, Karen, and Shapiro, Ian. 2007. “Understanding Suicide Terror.” Perspectives on Politics 5 (March): 117–40.Google Scholar
Bloom, Mia. 2005. Dying to Kill: Allure of Suicide Terror. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Geddes, Barbara. 1990. “How the Cases You Choose Affect the Answers You Get: Selection Bias in Comparative Politics.” Political Analysis 2 (Spring): 131–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Gary, and Lenche, Zeng. 2001a. “Explaining Rare Events in International Relations.” International Organization 55 (Summer): 693–715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Gary, and Lengche, Zeng. 2001. “Logistic Regression in Rare Events Data.” Political Analysis 9 (Spring): 137–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Gary, and Lengche, Zeng. 2002. “Estimating Risk and Rate Levels, Ratios and Differences in Case-control Studies.” Statistics in Medicine 21 (August): 1409–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
King, Gary, Keohane, Robert O., and Verba, Sidney. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manski, Charles F. 1995. Identification Problems in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Murphy, Caryle. 2005. “A Scholarly Look at Terror Sees Bootprints in the Sand.” The Washington Post 41: D01.Google Scholar
Pape, Robert A. 2003. “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.” American Political Science Review 97 (August): 343–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pape, Robert A. 2005. Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Sageman, Marc. 2004. Understanding Terror Networks. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shively, W. Phillips. 2005. The Craft of Political Research. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.