Terrorism, research and public policy: An overview

Two major problems involved in defining terrorism are reviewed: the degree to which the term conveys a negative evaluation rather than an objective description of behavior, and the possibility that the range of behaviors referred to under this term is so diverse as to make the category useless for research purposes. It is argued that a tight definition of terrorism is not necessary in order to begin to learn from prototypic examples of the category. Then a number of generalizations from recent research are considered; these are relatively simple but have not always been obvious. Together these generalizations indicate that policy‐makers might usefully consider the potential value of a ‘no‐response response’ to terrorist challenge. Finally, a number of suggestions for future terrorism research are offered.