Terrorism, Ideology and Target Selection∗

How do ideological motivations influence terrorists’ choice of targets? While the ideological determinants of target selection have been the topic of anedoctal conjecture, no rigorous empirical work has been done to answer this question. Furthermore, no research has addressed the role of ideology in terrorist decision-making under strategic constraints. To address this gap in the literature, I present a theoretical and empirical model. Using novel data on Western European terrorism from 1965 to 2005 and a multinomial logistic extension of statistical backwards induction, I find that ideology is the only consistent predictor of target selection under strategic constraints. These results are particularly robust for nationalist/separatist groups, even when excluding domestic terrorism in the United Kingdom and Spain. I also find strong evidence that government responses are affected by recent tactical success and institutional path dependence. ∗I thank Kristopher Ramsay, Jacob Shapiro David Carter for helpful comments on the puzzle and research design. I also thank Danielle Jung, Brian Jackson, Patrick Johnson, Howard Shatz, In Song Kim, Luis de la Calle and Raymond Hicks for their help compiling and assessing data used for this project. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. 2012152169. All errors remain my own.