Fighting Blind

Terror Activity Is at a Historical High Despite Recent Declines in Some Regions. Globally, Terrorism Is Spreading To More Countries.

What is terrorism?

There is no universally agreed upon definition of terrorism. While a few broad elements of what defines a terrorist act (such as the intentional use of violence) are widely agreed upon, many other elements (such as whether the victims of terrorism must be noncombatants or non-governmental, or whether terrorism requires a political motive) are in open debate. For the purposes of this piece, we are using the definition of terrorism as it is operationalized by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, which is a group of academic researchers and independent experts who maintain the Global Terrorism Database (GTD). The GTD uses the following definition of a terrorist attack: The threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation. In addition, two of the following three criteria also must be met to be counted as a terrorist incident in the GTD:

1. The violent act was aimed at attaining a political, economic, religious, or social goal;

2. The violent act included evidence of an intention to coerce, intimidate, or convey some other message to a larger audience (or audiences) other than the immediate victims; and

3. The violent act was outside the precepts of international humanitarian law.

It is crucial to remember that many diverse activities are included under this definition. This includes Maoist violence in India, Ku Klux Klan violence in the United States, and violent actions by Boko Haram in Nigeria. Statistical information contained in the Global Terrorism Database is based on reports from a variety of open sources. Information is not added to the GTD unless and until the team has determined the sources are credible.

Terrorism is spreading to more countries

In 2017, there were 10,900 terrorist attacks around the world resulting in more than 26,400 deaths, including deaths of the terror suspect. While that figure follows a welcome decline in terrorism incidents over the last three years, we are currently in a time of historically high levels of terrorism. Additionally, during this period, terrorism has been spreading to more countries.

While the total number of incidents is decreasing globally, the decrease is not happening in all countries and regions. The decline is largely being driven by a very significant decrease in terrorism events and deaths in the Middle East and Africa. The count of terrorist attacks in these regions dropped by 38% and the victim count dropped by 44%.

In 2017, the number of attacks decreased in conflict zones and low-income countries, such as in the Middle East and North Africa regions, while in the regions of the world we often consider peaceful or wealthy, the level of terrorist attacks actually rose.

The following regions saw increases in terrorist attacks from 2016 to 2017:

• Central America and the Caribbean had a 33% increase in terrorist incidents, although the total attacks in this region is less than 1% of all terrorist incidents.

• In North America, terrorism incidents increased by 29% in 2017; however, the total incidents in this region is only 1% of the global total.

• The region of Australasia and Oceania had a 20% increase in terrorist incidents, although the total attacks in this region is less than 1% of all terrorist incidents.

• South America saw an 8% increase in terrorist activity and this region has 2% of the global terrorism activity.

• Finally, in Western Europe there was a 7% increase in terrorist incidents. Western Europe attacks comprise 3% of the total global attacks.

The following regions saw decreases in terrorist attacks from 2016 to 2017:

• Terrorist attacks in Central Asia were reduced by 59% and the total attacks in this region counted for less than 1% of the total global terrorist activity.

• The Middle East and North Africa saw a 38% decrease in terrorism, and yet these attacks still account for 35% of the global total.

• Eastern Europe had a decrease in terrorist activity of 18%. The total terrorist activity here comprises 1% of the global total activity.

• Terrorist attacks in East Asia were reduced by 13% and the total attacks in this region counted for less than 1% of the total global terrorist activity.

• Sub-Saharan Africa terrorism incidents were down 5% and the regional total accounts for 18% of the global terrorist activity.

• In South Asia, terrorist activity decreased by 6% and this region makes up 31% of the global terrorist activity.

• Finally, in Southeast Asia, terrorism attacks were down by 5% and the region accounts for 9% of the global total of terrorism.

Terrorism activity is closely linked to state-sanctioned violence
Terrorist activity is currently heavily concentrated in areas also affected by conflict and political violence, including the state-sanctioned use of violence. State-sanctioned killings, torture, disappearances and political imprisonment are closely linked to the level of terrorism in a country. In Chart 2 we look at the relationship between Amnesty International’s standardized ranking of state-sponsored violence and the rate of terrorist activity in countries.

Through our reporting, we show a general upward trend in the number of countries experiencing terrorism. The number of countries where there is at least one act of terrorism has broadly increased over the past ten years. Since terrorist activity is relatively very rare and tends to occur in clusters, we chose to look at the moving average of events over time rather than the simple count each year, which goes up and down due to a range of reasons often unrelated to a specific calendar date. This is important since terrorism incidents are so rare, comparing one single year to another single year can give you the wrong impression. The moving average is a widely used indicator that takes the average every five years. This means that instead of looking at the number of countries that have terrorism in one year alone, we look at the average over the past five years. This helps smooth the estimate and make trends more realistic and understandable over time. By doing this we discovered the constant upward going trend of the number of countries affected by terror. The actual, historically high numbers for 2016 and 2017 are over 100 as are the moving averages for those years. Chart 3 shows the five-year moving average, which takes into account the levels of violence in several years together to show a more realistic trend.

Public Attitudes About the Use of Violence Against Civilians

We are seeing growing acceptance of terrorism around the globe.

Next, we analyzed the data about the public attitudes toward using violence against civilians. People were asked their opinion about how justifiable they believed it was for individuals and groups to use violence against civilians, and we have highlighted those who said it was “completely justifiable.” This question of using violence against civilians has been previously used in research to analyze trends which support extremist violence.

The following table shows the proportion for each region accepting use of violence against civilians as measured by two recent time spans 2006-2009 and 2012-2018. Across the globe, the proportion of people who accept this type of violence as justifiable appears to be increasing. The global proportion is small, between 5 and 9% worldwide, and the margin of error is between 2.5 and 4.2%. Although these estimates should be interpreted with care and an understanding of uncertainty, we feel confident that they point to a trend of increasing public opinion in the justifiable use of violence directed at civilians.

Percent of the responses who said using violence against civilians is completely justifiable:

East Asia & Pacific: 2% increased to 4%
Europe and Central Asia: 3% increased to 5%
High Income OECD*: 2% increased to 3%
The Middle East: 5% increased to 9%
South Asia: 9% decreased to 8%
Sub-Saharan Africa: 12% increased to 14%
(All of these estimates have an average margin of error of 3.3%)

*The 34 OECD (The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) member countries are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States

Globally, we find differences among those who said violence against civilians was acceptable by gender, type of residence, and age. We did not find differences based solely on education or income. However, we did find income and education working together to create differences in opinion on this matter.

Fear of Terrorism in the Public

Fear of violent extremism continues at a very high level, but falls when a country experiences a lot of terror

Statistically speaking, it is unlikely that you know someone who has been killed through an act of terrorism. However, still statistically speaking, it is very likely that you know someone who is afraid of terrorism.

Chart 6 shows that the level of global fear surrounding terrorism increased rapidly after the September 11th 2001 attacks on the United States and has only recently started to level off. The vertical axis shows the level of fear while the horizontal axis shows the duration.

The percent of the population who view terrorism as a very big problem varies significantly by region.

In 2017 and 2018, the percentage of each region’s population who view terrorism as a big problem has an interesting relationship with the actual amount of terrorist activity within the region.

• Australasia experienced about 1% of the global terrorism events while 67% of the people said terrorism is a serious problem.

• South America experienced about 2% of the global terrorism events while 52% of the people said terrorism is a serious problem.

• North America experienced about 1% of the global terrorism events while 72% of the people said terrorism is a serious problem.

• Eastern Europe experienced about 1% of the global terrorism events while 77% of the people said terrorism is a serious problem.

• Western Europe experienced about 3% of the global terrorism events while 84% of the people said terrorism is a serious problem.

• Southeast Asia experienced about 9% of the global terrorism events while 87% of the people said terrorism is a serious problem.

• Sub-Saharan Africa experienced about 18% of the global terrorism events while 75% of the people said terrorism is a serious problem.

• South Asia experienced about 31% of the global terrorism events while 87% of the people said terrorism is a serious problem.

• The Middle East and North Africa region experienced about 35% of the global terrorism events while 79% of the people claim terrorism is a serious problem.

Orb’s statistical analysis shows that there is a non-linear relationship between concern over terrorism, patterns of terrorist events, and the deaths attributed to terrorism. As terrorist acts and deaths from terrorism increase, so does concern about terrorism among the population - up to a certain point. Our analyses show that at a certain point, the number of terrorism events no longer adds additional levels of fear within a country's public. However, the exact nature of how and why this happens needs to be explored more deeply.

On chart 8, the vertical axis is the proportion of people who feel that terrorism is a serious threat, while the horizontal axis shows the number of terrorist events in the country. On the far left of the chart, you can see the concern over terrorism rises as the number of events rise. In the middle of the chart, the concern over terrorism starts to level off as terrorist events increase. Then, the concern over terrorism starts to fall as the number of terrorist events climbs significantly.

Data Sources

The data used in this Orb Media counterterrorism story are drawn from five primary sources.

1. Data Source 1: START Global Terrorism Database. This is an in-depth, detailed database on the nature and counts of terrorism events globally since the early 1970s.

   • This dataset is used to calculate the count of terrorist acts, the count of deaths from terrorism, and the number of countries with terrorism events within their borders.

   • We are using five-year averages for most counts and percent changes. Data from individual years is also available as needed.

   • This data covers almost all countries.

2. Data Source 2: Gallup World Poll is a global attitude and opinion database containing representative randomly sampled populations from over 160 countries.

   • This dataset is used to assess the population’s attitudes toward the moral acceptability for groups to use violence targeting civilians.

   • The data includes respondents from 64 countries over the years 2005 - 2012 (not all countries for all years). The complete country list for respondents to this poll can be found here.

   • This dataset includes 259,782 responses.

3. Data Source 3: Pew Global Attitudes Survey is a randomly selected sample of respondents from a diverse set of countries.

   • This dataset is being used to assess the level of concern a population has about the threat of terrorism toward their country.

   • The data includes respondents from 55 countries over the years 2002 - 2016 (not all countries for all years). The complete country list for respondents to this poll can be found here.

   • This dataset includes 451,324 responses.

4. Data Source 4: The Global Barometer social surveys are a randomly selected sample of respondents from a diverse set of countries.

   • This dataset is used to assess the level of concern a population has about the threat of terrorism toward their country.

   • The data includes respondents from 55 countries over the years 2005 - 2017 (not all countries for all years). The complete country list for respondents to this poll can be found here.

   • This dataset includes 224,047 responses.

5. Data Source 5: Proprietary Attitudes and Opinion Survey. Orb has worked with several outlets, including Survey Monkey and IPSOS, to conduct a 2018 survey on opinions and attitudes about terrorism and violence.

   • This survey collected 23,674 responses through a combination of randomly selected and representative respondents and convenience samples of respondents.

   • This data was collected on a global scale and includes the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, Myanmar (Burma), Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Korea, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Statistical Methodology

All of the data has been weighted using rake weighting and post-stratification weights based on the most recent population-level data available to us. Bayesian hierarchical modeling and mixed-effects semi-parametric modeling were used to calculate changes and trends. The analysis was done using the R package for statistical programming version 3.5.1