Below is a collection of useful readers and texts on terrorism and counter-terrorism. Note: An asterisk (*) indicates texts appropriate for secondary school modules.

Textbooks

Combs, Cindy C. 2003. Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Publishers.*

Crenshaw, Martha ed. 1994. Terrorism in Context. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Enders, Walter and Todd Sandler. 2006. The Political Economy of Terrorism. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Griset, Pamela L. and Sue Mahan eds. 2003. Terrorism in Perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.*

Gus, Martin. 2003. Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives and Issues. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.*

Hoge, James F. Jr and Gideon Rose, eds. 2005. Understanding the War on Terror. New York: Foreign Affairs.*

Howard, Russel D. and Reid Sawyer eds. 2004. Terrorism and Counterterrorism. McGraw Hill.*

Influential/Important Books

Barber, Benjamin R. 1995. Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World. New York: Random House. *

Bergen, Peter L. 2001. Holy War Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama Bin Laden. New York: Free Press.

Bloom, Mia M. 2005. Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror. New York: Columbia University Press.

Byman, Daniel. 2005. Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gunaratna. 2003. Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror. New York: Columbia University Press.

Hudson, Rex A. 1999. Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why: The 1999 Government Report on Profiling Terrorists. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press.

Huntington, Samuel P. 1996. Clash of Civilizations. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc.

Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2001. Terror in the Mind of God. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Mishal, Shaul and Avraham Sela. 2000. The Palestinian Hamas. New York: Columbia University Press.

National Commission of the Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. 2004. The 9/11 Commission Report. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.*

Pape, Robert. 2005. Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. New York: Random House.

Sageman, Marc. 2004. Understanding Terror Networks. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Stern, Jessica. 2003. Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill. New York: HarperCollins.*

Edited Volumes

Alexander, Yonah, ed. 2002. Combating Terrorism: Strategies of Ten Countries. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Bjorgo, Tore, ed. 1995. Terror from the Extreme Right. London: Frank Cass.

Donatella Della Porta, ed. 1992. Social Movements and Violence: Participation in Underground Organizations. Greenwich: JAI Press.

Gambetta, Diego, ed. 2005. Making Sense of Suicide Missions. New York: Oxford University Press.

Kegley, Charles. 2003. The New Global Terrorism. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Walter Reich, ed. 1998. Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind. Princeton: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.

Root Causes of Individual Participation

Atran, Scott. 2003. "Genesis of Suicide Terrorism." Science 299 (7):1534–9.*

Berrebi, Claude. 2003. "Evidence about the Link Between Education, Poverty, and Terrorism Among Palestinians." Princeton University Industrial Relations Sections Working Paper #477.

Burgoon, Brian. 2004. "On Welfare and Terror: Social Welfare Policies and Political-economic Roots of Terrorism." Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, ASSR Working Paper 04/07.

Horgan, John. 2003. "The Social and Psychological Characteristics of Terrorism and Terrorists." Root Causes of Terrorism: Proceedings from the International Expert Meeting. Oslo. 9–11 June 2003.

Krueger, Alan B. and Jitka Maleckova. 2003. "Education, Poverty and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?" Journal of Economic Perspectives 17 (4):119–144.

Moghadam, Assaf. 2003. "Palestinian Suicide Terrorism in the Second Intifada: Motivational and Organizational Aspects." Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 26 (2): 65–93.*

Nesser, Petter. 2004. JIHAD IN EUROPE: A survey of the motivations for Sunni Islamist terrorism in post-millennium Europe. FFI/Rapport-2004/01146.

Victoroff, Jeff. 2005. "The Mind of the Terrorist: A Review and Critique of Psychological Approaches." Journal of Conflict Resolution 49 (1):3–42.

Strategic Logic of Terrorism and Counterterrorism

Abrahms, Max. 2004. "Are Terrorists Really Rational? The Palestinian Example." Orbis 48 (3): 533–549.

Azam, Jean-Paul and Anke Hoeffler. 2002. "Violence against civilians in civil wars: looting or terror?" Journal of Peace Research 39(4): 461–85.

Blomberg, S. Brock, Gregory D. Hess, and Akila Weerapana. 2004. "Economic conditions and terrorism" European Journal of Political Economy 20: 463–478.

Bloom, Mia. 2004. "Palestinian Suicide Bombing: Public Support, Market Share, and Outbidding." Political Science Quarterly 119 (1): 61–87.

Crenshaw, Martha. 1991. "The Causes of Terrorism." Comparative Politics 13 (4): 379–399.

Crenshaw, Martha. 1990. "The logic of terrorism: Terrorist behavior as a product of strategic choice." In Origins of Terrorism. Walter Reich ed. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.

Inglehart, Ronald and Pippa Norris. 2003. "The True Clash of Civilizations." Foreign Affairs 72 (3): 62–67.*

Kalyvas, Stathis. 1999. "Wanton and Senseless?  The Logic of Massacres in Algeria."  Rationality and Society 11 (3): 243–285.

Kreuger, Alan B. and David Laitin. 2003. Kto Kogo: A Cross-Country Study of the Origins and Targets of Terrorism. New York: Russel Sage.

Kydd, Andrew and Barbara Walter. "Sabotaging the Peace: The Politics of Extremist Violence." International Organization 56 (1): 263–296.

Lake, David A. 2002. "Rational Extremism: Understanding Terrorism in the Twenty First Century. International Organization 56 (1): 15–29.

Lewis, Bernard. 1990. "The Roots of Muslim Rage." Atlantic Monthly. September.

Li, Quan. 2005. "Does democracy promote or reduce transnational terrorist incidents?" Journal of Conflict Resolution 49 (2): 278–97.

Lia, Brynjar and Thomas Hegghammer. 2004. "Jihadi Strategic Studies: The Alleged Al Qaida Policy Study Preceding the Madrid Bombings." Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 27: 355–375.

McCormick, Gordon H. 2003. "Terrorist Decision Making." Annual Review of Political Science 6: 473–507.

Monroe, Kristen Renwick and Lina Hadda Kredie. 1997. "The Perspective of Islamic Fundamentalists and the Limits of Rational Choice Theory." Political Psychology 18 (1): 19–43.

Pape, Robert. 2003 "The Strategic Logic of Suicide Bombings." American Political Science Review 97 (3): 343–361.

Shapiro, Jeremy and Benedicte Suzan. 2003. "The French Experience of Counter-terrorism." Survival 45 (1): 67­–98.

Weinberg, Leonard. 1991. "Turning to Terror: The Conditions under Which Political Parties Turn to Terrorist Activities." Comparative Politics 23 (4): 423–38.

Internal Dynamics of Terrorist Groups

Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan. 2005. "Conciliation, Counterterrorism, and Patterns of Terrorist Violence". International Organization 59: 145–176.

Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan. 2005. "The Quality of Terror." American Journal of Political Science 49 (3): 515–530.

Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan. 2005. "The Terrorist Endgame: A Model with Moral Hazard and Learning." Journal of Conflict Resolution 49 (2): 237–258.

Chai, Sun-Ki. 1993. "An Organizational Economics Theory of Antigovernment Violence." Comparative Politics 26 (1):99-110.

della Porta, Donatella. 1995. Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State: A comparative analysis of Italy and Germany. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Geifman, Anna. 1992. "Aspects of Early Twentieth Century Russian Terrorism: The Socialist-Revolutionary Combat Organization." Terrorism and Political Violence 4 (2): 23–47.

Waldmann, Peter. 1992. "Ethnic and Sociorevolutionary Terrorism: A Comparison of Structure." In Donatella Della Porta, ed., Social Movements and Violence: Participation in Underground Organizations. Greenwich, JAI Press: 237–254.

Zirakzadeh, Cyrus Ernesto. 2002. "From Revolutionary Dreams to Organizational Fragmentation: Disputes over Violence within ETA and Sendero Luminoso." Terrorism and Political Violence 14 (4): 66–92.

Broad patterns and consequences of Terrorism

Blomberg, S. Brock, Gregory D. Hess, and Athanasios Orphanides. 2004. "The macroeconomic Consequences of Terrorism." CESIFO Working Paper No. 1151.

Enders, Walter and Todd Sandler (2002) "Patterns of Transnational Terrorism, 1970–1999: Alternative Time-Series Estimates." International Studies Quarterly 46: 145–65.

Information Sites

http://www.homelandsecuritydegree.com/resources/case-on-terrorism. Website providing information on terrorism, including definitions, history, and types. Contains a list of civil and criminal terror cases as well as terrorism database resources. Great overview of issues related to the discussion of terrorism and provides interesting resources. 

http://c21.maxwell.af.mil/cts-home.htm. Website of the United States Air Force Counterproliferation Center, Center for Counterterrorism Studies. Strong collection of links to Department of Defense sponsored research and other works on terrorist organizations. Subject specific links on: (1) general group information; (2) finances; (3) psychology; (4) federal resources; (5) military resources; and others. Excellent starting point for a review of the literature by and for policy makers.

http://www.ict.org.il. Website of the Institute for Counterterrorism (ICT) at the academic Interdisciplinary Center at Herzliya, Israel. Contains a web interface for access to the ICT dataset of select terrorist incidents, a database of 344 articles by ICT-affiliated researchers, and some useful links to other terrorism research centers. Heavy focus on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

http://www.nupi.no/English. Website of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. Outstanding set of links to articles on terrorism and international crime sorted by keyword. Particularly valuable for links to careful research reports produced by scholars at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment (FFI).

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/index.html. Federation of American Scientists website on "Liberation Movements, Terrorist Organizations, Substance Cartels, and Other Para-state Entities." Contains very useful group profiles of varying quality for 380+ organizations. A good place to start research on organizations.

Exemplary Syllabi

Daniel Byman. "Terrorism and Counterterrorism." Good survey of a small subset of groups of particular current interest. More policy oriented than the Crenshaw syllabus. Contains readings on WMD terrorism missing from the Crenshaw syllabus. Undergraduate.

Martha Crenshaw. "The Politics of Terrorism." Provides an excellent survey of the best case study work on a wide variety of different conflicts. Model of a high-level undergraduate course or a graduate-level empirical survey. Undergraduate.

Jacob N. Shapiro. "Terrorist Financing and State Response." Provides readings that outline the problem of terrorist financing, explain how Al Qaeda was funded, evaluate internal challenges to terrorist organizations, and evaluates challenges facing the U.S. government and international community in responding to this problem. Professional or graduate.