posts: 25180
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| 25180 | What is terrorism? | untitled-reusable-block-39 | wp_block | publish | <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In our overview of terrorism, we try to understand how the number of terrorist acts varies around the world and how it has changed over time. To do this, we need a clear and consistent definition of what terrorism is, and how it’s different from any other form of violence. This is not straightforward.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Terrorism <a href="https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/terrorism">is defined</a> in the Oxford Dictionary as “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” We quickly see that this definition is unspecific and subjective.{ref}Teichman, J. (1989). How to define terrorism. <em>Philosophy</em>, <em>64</em>(250), 505-517.{/ref} The issue of subjectivity in this case means that there is no internationally recognised legal definition of terrorism. Despite considerable discussion, the formation of a comprehensive convention against international terrorism by the United Nations has always been impeded by the lack of consensus on a definition.{ref}United Nations General Assembly Sixth Committee, Meetings Coverage. (2018). <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/gal3566.doc.htm"><em>Fight against International Terrorism Impeded by Stalemate on Comprehensive Convention, Sixth Committee Hears as Seventy-Third Session Begins</em></a> [Press Release].{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The key problem is that terrorism is difficult to distinguish from other forms of political violence and violent crime, such as state-based armed conflict, non-state conflict, one-sided violence, hate crime, and homicide. The lines between these different forms of violence are often blurry. Here, we take a look at standard criteria of what constitutes terrorism, as well as how it might be distinguished from other forms of violence.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>The criteria for terrorism</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Violent actions are usually categorised according to the perpetrator, the victim, the method, and the purpose.{ref}Coady, C. A. (1985). The morality of terrorism. <em>Philosophy</em>, <em>60</em>(231), 47-69.{/ref} Different definitions emphasise different characteristics, depending on the priorities of the agency involved. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In our coverage of terrorism, we rely strongly on data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), which defines terrorism as “acts of violence by non-state actors, perpetrated against civilian populations, intended to cause fear, in order to achieve a political objective."{ref}LaFree, G., Morris, N. A., & Dugan, L. (2009). Cross-national patterns of terrorism: Comparing trajectories for total, attributed and fatal attacks, 1970–2006. <em>The British Journal of Criminology</em>, <em>50</em>(4), 622-649.{/ref},{ref}Distinctions between parties are similarly vague, but are generally defined by <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul">international humanitarian law</a>.{/ref} Its definition excludes violence initiated by governments (state terrorism) and open combat between opposing armed forces, even if they’re non-state actors. In our definitions section <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism#definitions">we provide</a> the GTD’s more detailed definition, in addition to others such as that of the United Nations. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>A few key distinguishing factors are common to most definitions of terrorism, with minor variations. The following criteria are adapted from the definition given by Bruce Hoffman in <em>Inside Terrorism</em>.{ref}Hoffman, B. (2006). <em>Inside Terrorism</em>. Columbia University Press.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>To be considered an act of terrorism, an action must be <strong>violent, or threaten violence</strong>. As such, political dissent, activism, and nonviolent resistance do not constitute terrorism. There are, however, many instances around the world of authorities restricting individuals’ freedom of expression under the pretext of counter-terrorism measures. Human rights groups, such as <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/">Amnesty International</a> and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/topic/free-speech">Human Rights Watch</a>, publish reports on such cases of censorship.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The inclusion of <strong>damage to private and public property</strong> in the definition of terrorism is a point of contention, but it is generally accepted in legal and statistical contexts.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>An action must also be carried out for <strong>political, economic, religious, or social purposes</strong> to count as terrorism. For example, the terrorist organisation Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has clearly stated its political goal to establish itself as a caliphate. Likewise, attacks perpetrated by white extremists have discernable sociopolitical motivations, and so are considered acts of terrorism. By contrast, violent acts committed without a political, economic, religious or social goal are not classified as terrorism, but instead as ‘violent crimes’</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>To be classified as terrorism, actions must be <strong>designed to have far-reaching psychological repercussions beyond the immediate victim or target</strong>. In other words, an action must aim to create terror through “its shocking brutality, lack of discrimination, dramatic or symbolic quality and disregard of the rules of warfare”.{ref}Schmid, A. P. (2012). The revised academic consensus definition of terrorism. <em>Perspectives on Terrorism</em>, <em>6</em>(2).{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Additionally,<strong> targetting noncombatant, neutral, or randomly chosen people</strong> – generally, people not engaged in hostilities – is a necessary but not sufficient condition to constitute terrorism. The US State Department includes in the definition of ‘noncombatant’, “military personnel who at the time of the incident are unarmed and/or not on duty.” They “also consider as acts of terrorism attacks on military installations or on armed military personnel when a state of military hostilities does not exist at the site.”{ref}Quoted in U.S. Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, <em>Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003</em> (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, Publication 11124, April 2004), p. xii.{/ref} As such, actions during open combat, where a state of military hostility exists, do not constitute terrorism.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Terrorist actions must be also conducted either by an <strong>organization</strong> with an identifiable chain of command or conspiratorial cell structure (whose members wear no uniform or identifying insignia), or by <strong>individuals</strong> or a small collection of individuals directly influenced by the logical aims or example of some existent terrorist movement and its leaders (typically referred to as a ‘lone wolf’ attack).</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Finally, the action must be perpetrated by a <strong>subnational group or non-state entity</strong>. Equivalent actions perpetrated by the armed forces of nation states are given different classifications, such as ‘war crime’ or one-sided violence.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Distinguishing terrorism from other forms of violence</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Based on the criteria above, we can begin to separate terrorism from other types of violence based on some very simplified distinctions: </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li>killings perpetrated by non-state actors against civilians, which are <em>not</em> ideological in nature i.e. not motivated by a particular political, economic or social goal, are classified as <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/homicides">homicide</a>;</li><li>violence perpetrated by non-state actors against civilians, specifically based on ethnicity, sexuality, gender, or disability, without political or social intent to cause widespread fear, is classified as a hate crime; </li><li>violence involving open combat between opposing armed forces is classified as <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-conflicts-and-incidences-of-one-sided-violence">state-based armed conflict</a>, if at least one of the parties is the government of a state;</li><li>if, in the scenario above, none of the parties is the government of a state, this is classified as a <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/violent-deaths-in-conflicts-and-one-sided-violence-since-1989">non-state conflict</a>; </li><li>violence perpetrated by governments against civilians is classified as <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/violent-deaths-in-conflicts-and-one-sided-violence-since-1989">one-sided violence</a>.{ref}Some other types of violence are defined by the <a href="https://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/about-ucdp/">Uppsalla Conflict Data Program</a> (UCDP).{/ref}</li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>How terrorism and other forms of violence overlap</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>But even with these distinctions in mind, there is not always a clear-cut boundary between terrorism and other forms of conflict like civil war and violence targeting civilians.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The<a href="https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/downloads/Codebook.pdf"> GTD codebook</a> notes this: “there is often definitional overlap between terrorism and other forms of crime and political violence, such as insurgency, hate crime, and organized crime”. Given the difficulty of excluding such cases in a systematic way, this database includes them wherever they meet the basic criteria that form the definition of terrorism. However, it also flags up instances where the coders had doubts whether the event would be better characterised by one of these ‘alternative designations’. You can explore this by downloading the full GTD dataset at their <a href="https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/">website</a>. As such, there is a partial overlap between common definitions of terrorism and certain other types of conflict.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Another way in which conflict researchers distinguish between different types of violent acts is in terms of the number of victims. The <a href="https://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/about-ucdp/">Uppsalla Conflict Data Program</a> (UCDP), for instance, only includes events involving at least 25 deaths - a requirement not present in GTD. Therefore many, but not all, of the events recorded in GTD will also be counted in the UCDP data, which are the basis of our<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace#other-forms-of-large-scale-violence"> charts of non-state and one-sided violence</a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>As an example, the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York City are included as both a terrorist attack in the <a href="https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/IncidentSummary.aspx?gtdid=200109110004">GTD</a>, and an episode of one-sided violence in the <a href="https://ucdp.uu.se/#2001">UCDP</a> data, because the perpetrators were members of the organised group Al-Qaida, and it resulted in more than 25 deaths. However, the Norway attacks on 22 July 2011, in which a right-wing extremist killed or injured more than 100 people, is included in <a href="https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/IncidentSummary.aspx?gtdid=201107220011">GTD</a> as a terror attack, but is not present in UCDP data, since the attacker was acting independently, and did not represent the government of a state.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>We are therefore aware that there can be overlap between the data we present on terrorism and that which we present on conflict. This fact is a crucial point in understanding the definition of terrorism and what the term means to people. Many of the terrorist attacks that <a href="http://ourworldindata.org/terrorism#where-in-the-world-does-terrorism-occur">take place today</a> are events which many people would think of as a different form of violence or conflict. In fact, most terrorism actually happens in countries of high internal conflict, because ultimately terrorism <em>is</em> another form of conflict.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> | {
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2019-10-03 13:51:44 | 2024-02-16 14:22:56 | [
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2019-10-03 14:51:51 | 2020-04-30 14:00:13 | {} |
In our overview of terrorism, we try to understand how the number of terrorist acts varies around the world and how it has changed over time. To do this, we need a clear and consistent definition of what terrorism is, and how it’s different from any other form of violence. This is not straightforward. Terrorism [is defined](https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/terrorism) in the Oxford Dictionary as “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” We quickly see that this definition is unspecific and subjective.{ref}Teichman, J. (1989). How to define terrorism. _Philosophy_, _64_(250), 505-517.{/ref} The issue of subjectivity in this case means that there is no internationally recognised legal definition of terrorism. Despite considerable discussion, the formation of a comprehensive convention against international terrorism by the United Nations has always been impeded by the lack of consensus on a definition.{ref}United Nations General Assembly Sixth Committee, Meetings Coverage. (2018). [_Fight against International Terrorism Impeded by Stalemate on Comprehensive Convention, Sixth Committee Hears as Seventy-Third Session Begins_](https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/gal3566.doc.htm) [Press Release].{/ref} The key problem is that terrorism is difficult to distinguish from other forms of political violence and violent crime, such as state-based armed conflict, non-state conflict, one-sided violence, hate crime, and homicide. The lines between these different forms of violence are often blurry. Here, we take a look at standard criteria of what constitutes terrorism, as well as how it might be distinguished from other forms of violence. ## The criteria for terrorism Violent actions are usually categorised according to the perpetrator, the victim, the method, and the purpose.{ref}Coady, C. A. (1985). The morality of terrorism. _Philosophy_, _60_(231), 47-69.{/ref} Different definitions emphasise different characteristics, depending on the priorities of the agency involved. In our coverage of terrorism, we rely strongly on data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), which defines terrorism as “acts of violence by non-state actors, perpetrated against civilian populations, intended to cause fear, in order to achieve a political objective."{ref}LaFree, G., Morris, N. A., & Dugan, L. (2009). Cross-national patterns of terrorism: Comparing trajectories for total, attributed and fatal attacks, 1970–2006. _The British Journal of Criminology_, _50_(4), 622-649.{/ref},{ref}Distinctions between parties are similarly vague, but are generally defined by [international humanitarian law](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul).{/ref} Its definition excludes violence initiated by governments (state terrorism) and open combat between opposing armed forces, even if they’re non-state actors. In our definitions section [we provide](https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism#definitions) the GTD’s more detailed definition, in addition to others such as that of the United Nations. A few key distinguishing factors are common to most definitions of terrorism, with minor variations. The following criteria are adapted from the definition given by Bruce Hoffman in _Inside Terrorism_.{ref}Hoffman, B. (2006). _Inside Terrorism_. Columbia University Press.{/ref} To be considered an act of terrorism, an action must be **violent, or threaten violence**. As such, political dissent, activism, and nonviolent resistance do not constitute terrorism. There are, however, many instances around the world of authorities restricting individuals’ freedom of expression under the pretext of counter-terrorism measures. Human rights groups, such as [Amnesty International](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/) and [Human Rights Watch](https://www.hrw.org/topic/free-speech), publish reports on such cases of censorship. The inclusion of **damage to private and public property** in the definition of terrorism is a point of contention, but it is generally accepted in legal and statistical contexts. An action must also be carried out for **political, economic, religious, or social purposes** to count as terrorism. For example, the terrorist organisation Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has clearly stated its political goal to establish itself as a caliphate. Likewise, attacks perpetrated by white extremists have discernable sociopolitical motivations, and so are considered acts of terrorism. By contrast, violent acts committed without a political, economic, religious or social goal are not classified as terrorism, but instead as ‘violent crimes’ To be classified as terrorism, actions must be **designed to have far-reaching psychological repercussions beyond the immediate victim or target**. In other words, an action must aim to create terror through “its shocking brutality, lack of discrimination, dramatic or symbolic quality and disregard of the rules of warfare”.{ref}Schmid, A. P. (2012). The revised academic consensus definition of terrorism. _Perspectives on Terrorism_, _6_(2).{/ref} Additionally,** targetting noncombatant, neutral, or randomly chosen people** – generally, people not engaged in hostilities – is a necessary but not sufficient condition to constitute terrorism. The US State Department includes in the definition of ‘noncombatant’, “military personnel who at the time of the incident are unarmed and/or not on duty.” They “also consider as acts of terrorism attacks on military installations or on armed military personnel when a state of military hostilities does not exist at the site.”{ref}Quoted in U.S. Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, _Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003_ (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, Publication 11124, April 2004), p. xii.{/ref} As such, actions during open combat, where a state of military hostility exists, do not constitute terrorism. Terrorist actions must be also conducted either by an **organization** with an identifiable chain of command or conspiratorial cell structure (whose members wear no uniform or identifying insignia), or by **individuals** or a small collection of individuals directly influenced by the logical aims or example of some existent terrorist movement and its leaders (typically referred to as a ‘lone wolf’ attack). Finally, the action must be perpetrated by a **subnational group or non-state entity**. Equivalent actions perpetrated by the armed forces of nation states are given different classifications, such as ‘war crime’ or one-sided violence. ## Distinguishing terrorism from other forms of violence Based on the criteria above, we can begin to separate terrorism from other types of violence based on some very simplified distinctions: * killings perpetrated by non-state actors against civilians, which are _not_ ideological in nature i.e. not motivated by a particular political, economic or social goal, are classified as [homicide](https://ourworldindata.org/homicides); * violence perpetrated by non-state actors against civilians, specifically based on ethnicity, sexuality, gender, or disability, without political or social intent to cause widespread fear, is classified as a hate crime; * violence involving open combat between opposing armed forces is classified as [state-based armed conflict](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-conflicts-and-incidences-of-one-sided-violence), if at least one of the parties is the government of a state; * if, in the scenario above, none of the parties is the government of a state, this is classified as a [non-state conflict](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/violent-deaths-in-conflicts-and-one-sided-violence-since-1989); * violence perpetrated by governments against civilians is classified as [one-sided violence](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/violent-deaths-in-conflicts-and-one-sided-violence-since-1989).{ref}Some other types of violence are defined by the [Uppsalla Conflict Data Program](https://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/about-ucdp/) (UCDP).{/ref} ## How terrorism and other forms of violence overlap But even with these distinctions in mind, there is not always a clear-cut boundary between terrorism and other forms of conflict like civil war and violence targeting civilians. The[ GTD codebook](https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/downloads/Codebook.pdf) notes this: “there is often definitional overlap between terrorism and other forms of crime and political violence, such as insurgency, hate crime, and organized crime”. Given the difficulty of excluding such cases in a systematic way, this database includes them wherever they meet the basic criteria that form the definition of terrorism. However, it also flags up instances where the coders had doubts whether the event would be better characterised by one of these ‘alternative designations’. You can explore this by downloading the full GTD dataset at their [website](https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/). As such, there is a partial overlap between common definitions of terrorism and certain other types of conflict. Another way in which conflict researchers distinguish between different types of violent acts is in terms of the number of victims. The [Uppsalla Conflict Data Program](https://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/about-ucdp/) (UCDP), for instance, only includes events involving at least 25 deaths - a requirement not present in GTD. Therefore many, but not all, of the events recorded in GTD will also be counted in the UCDP data, which are the basis of our[ charts of non-state and one-sided violence](https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace#other-forms-of-large-scale-violence). As an example, the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York City are included as both a terrorist attack in the [GTD](https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/IncidentSummary.aspx?gtdid=200109110004), and an episode of one-sided violence in the [UCDP](https://ucdp.uu.se/#2001) data, because the perpetrators were members of the organised group Al-Qaida, and it resulted in more than 25 deaths. However, the Norway attacks on 22 July 2011, in which a right-wing extremist killed or injured more than 100 people, is included in [GTD](https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/IncidentSummary.aspx?gtdid=201107220011) as a terror attack, but is not present in UCDP data, since the attacker was acting independently, and did not represent the government of a state. We are therefore aware that there can be overlap between the data we present on terrorism and that which we present on conflict. This fact is a crucial point in understanding the definition of terrorism and what the term means to people. Many of the terrorist attacks that [take place today](http://ourworldindata.org/terrorism#where-in-the-world-does-terrorism-occur) are events which many people would think of as a different form of violence or conflict. In fact, most terrorism actually happens in countries of high internal conflict, because ultimately terrorism _is_ another form of conflict. | {
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Despite considerable discussion, the formation of a comprehensive convention against international terrorism by the United Nations has always been impeded by the lack of consensus on a definition.{ref}United Nations General Assembly Sixth Committee, Meetings Coverage. (2018). <a href=\"https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/gal3566.doc.htm\"><em>Fight against International Terrorism Impeded by Stalemate on Comprehensive Convention, Sixth Committee Hears as Seventy-Third Session Begins</em></a> [Press Release].{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The key problem is that terrorism is difficult to distinguish from other forms of political violence and violent crime, such as state-based armed conflict, non-state conflict, one-sided violence, hate crime, and homicide. The lines between these different forms of violence are often blurry. Here, we take a look at standard criteria of what constitutes terrorism, as well as how it might be distinguished from other forms of violence.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>The criteria for terrorism</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Violent actions are usually categorised according to the perpetrator, the victim, the method, and the purpose.{ref}Coady, C. A. (1985). The morality of terrorism. <em>Philosophy</em>, <em>60</em>(231), 47-69.{/ref} Different definitions emphasise different characteristics, depending on the priorities of the agency involved. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>In our coverage of terrorism, we rely strongly on data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), which defines terrorism as \u201cacts of violence by non-state actors, perpetrated against civilian populations, intended to cause fear, in order to achieve a political objective.”{ref}LaFree, G., Morris, N. A., & Dugan, L. (2009). Cross-national patterns of terrorism: Comparing trajectories for total, attributed and fatal attacks, 1970\u20132006. <em>The British Journal of Criminology</em>, <em>50</em>(4), 622-649.{/ref},{ref}Distinctions between parties are similarly vague, but are generally defined by <a href=\"https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul\">international humanitarian law</a>.{/ref} Its definition excludes violence initiated by governments (state terrorism) and open combat between opposing armed forces, even if they\u2019re non-state actors. In our definitions section <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism#definitions\">we provide</a> the GTD\u2019s more detailed definition, in addition to others such as that of the United Nations. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>A few key distinguishing factors are common to most definitions of terrorism, with minor variations. The following criteria are adapted from the definition given by Bruce Hoffman in <em>Inside Terrorism</em>.{ref}Hoffman, B. (2006). <em>Inside Terrorism</em>. Columbia University Press.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To be considered an act of terrorism, an action must be <strong>violent, or threaten violence</strong>. As such, political dissent, activism, and nonviolent resistance do not constitute terrorism. There are, however, many instances around the world of authorities restricting individuals\u2019 freedom of expression under the pretext of counter-terrorism measures. Human rights groups, such as <a href=\"https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/\">Amnesty International</a> and <a href=\"https://www.hrw.org/topic/free-speech\">Human Rights Watch</a>, publish reports on such cases of censorship.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The inclusion of <strong>damage to private and public property</strong> in the definition of terrorism is a point of contention, but it is generally accepted in legal and statistical contexts.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>An action must also be carried out for <strong>political, economic, religious, or social purposes</strong> to count as terrorism. For example, the terrorist organisation Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has clearly stated its political goal to establish itself as a caliphate. Likewise, attacks perpetrated by white extremists have discernable sociopolitical motivations, and so are considered acts of terrorism. By contrast, violent acts committed without a political, economic, religious or social goal are not classified as terrorism, but instead as \u2018violent crimes\u2019</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To be classified as terrorism, actions must be <strong>designed to have far-reaching psychological repercussions beyond the immediate victim or target</strong>. In other words, an action must aim to create terror through \u201cits shocking brutality, lack of discrimination, dramatic or symbolic quality and disregard of the rules of warfare\u201d.{ref}Schmid, A. P. (2012). The revised academic consensus definition of terrorism. <em>Perspectives on Terrorism</em>, <em>6</em>(2).{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally,<strong> targetting noncombatant, neutral, or randomly chosen people</strong> \u2013 generally, people not engaged in hostilities \u2013 is a necessary but not sufficient condition to constitute terrorism. The US State Department includes in the definition of \u2018noncombatant\u2019, \u201cmilitary personnel who at the time of the incident are unarmed and/or not on duty.\u201d They \u201calso consider as acts of terrorism attacks on military installations or on armed military personnel when a state of military hostilities does not exist at the site.\u201d{ref}Quoted in U.S. Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, <em>Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003</em> (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, Publication 11124, April 2004), p. xii.{/ref} As such, actions during open combat, where a state of military hostility exists, do not constitute terrorism.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Terrorist actions must be also conducted either by an <strong>organization</strong> with an identifiable chain of command or conspiratorial cell structure (whose members wear no uniform or identifying insignia), or by <strong>individuals</strong> or a small collection of individuals directly influenced by the logical aims or example of some existent terrorist movement and its leaders (typically referred to as a \u2018lone wolf\u2019 attack).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, the action must be perpetrated by a <strong>subnational group or non-state entity</strong>. Equivalent actions perpetrated by the armed forces of nation states are given different classifications, such as \u2018war crime\u2019 or one-sided violence.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Distinguishing terrorism from other forms of violence</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Based on the criteria above, we can begin to separate terrorism from other types of violence based on some very simplified distinctions: </p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>killings perpetrated by non-state actors against civilians, which are <em>not</em> ideological in nature i.e. not motivated by a particular political, economic or social goal, are classified as <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/homicides\">homicide</a>;</li><li>violence perpetrated by non-state actors against civilians, specifically based on ethnicity, sexuality, gender, or disability, without political or social intent to cause widespread fear, is classified as a hate crime; </li><li>violence involving open combat between opposing armed forces is classified as <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-conflicts-and-incidences-of-one-sided-violence\">state-based armed conflict</a>, if at least one of the parties is the government of a state;</li><li>if, in the scenario above, none of the parties is the government of a state, this is classified as a <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/violent-deaths-in-conflicts-and-one-sided-violence-since-1989\">non-state conflict</a>; </li><li>violence perpetrated by governments against civilians is classified as <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/violent-deaths-in-conflicts-and-one-sided-violence-since-1989\">one-sided violence</a>.{ref}Some other types of violence are defined by the <a href=\"https://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/about-ucdp/\">Uppsalla Conflict Data Program</a> (UCDP).{/ref}</li></ul>\n\n\n\n<h4>How terrorism and other forms of violence overlap</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>But even with these distinctions in mind, there is not always a clear-cut boundary between terrorism and other forms of conflict like civil war and violence targeting civilians.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The<a href=\"https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/downloads/Codebook.pdf\"> GTD codebook</a> notes this: \u201cthere is often definitional overlap between terrorism and other forms of crime and political violence, such as insurgency, hate crime, and organized crime\u201d. Given the difficulty of excluding such cases in a systematic way, this database includes them wherever they meet the basic criteria that form the definition of terrorism. However, it also flags up instances where the coders had doubts whether the event would be better characterised by one of these \u2018alternative designations\u2019. You can explore this by downloading the full GTD dataset at their <a href=\"https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/\">website</a>. As such, there is a partial overlap between common definitions of terrorism and certain other types of conflict.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another way in which conflict researchers distinguish between different types of violent acts is in terms of the number of victims. The <a href=\"https://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/about-ucdp/\">Uppsalla Conflict Data Program</a> (UCDP), for instance, only includes events involving at least 25 deaths – a requirement not present in GTD. Therefore many, but not all, of the events recorded in GTD will also be counted in the UCDP data, which are the basis of our<a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace#other-forms-of-large-scale-violence\"> charts of non-state and one-sided violence</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As an example, the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York City are included as both a terrorist attack in the <a href=\"https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/IncidentSummary.aspx?gtdid=200109110004\">GTD</a>, and an episode of one-sided violence in the <a href=\"https://ucdp.uu.se/#2001\">UCDP</a> data, because the perpetrators were members of the organised group Al-Qaida, and it resulted in more than 25 deaths. However, the Norway attacks on 22 July 2011, in which a right-wing extremist killed or injured more than 100 people, is included in <a href=\"https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/IncidentSummary.aspx?gtdid=201107220011\">GTD</a> as a terror attack, but is not present in UCDP data, since the attacker was acting independently, and did not represent the government of a state.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We are therefore aware that there can be overlap between the data we present on terrorism and that which we present on conflict. This fact is a crucial point in understanding the definition of terrorism and what the term means to people. Many of the terrorist attacks that <a href=\"http://ourworldindata.org/terrorism#where-in-the-world-does-terrorism-occur\">take place today</a> are events which many people would think of as a different form of violence or conflict. In fact, most terrorism actually happens in countries of high internal conflict, because ultimately terrorism <em>is</em> another form of conflict.</p>\n"
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