Global Terrorism Database, 1970-1997

Resource Information

The work Global Terrorism Database, 1970-1997 represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Bowdoin College Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Global Terrorism Database, 1970-1997

Creator

• LaFree, Gary
• Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor]

Contributor

• Dugan, Laura

Author

• LaFree, Gary
• Dugan, Laura

Contributor

• Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor]

Subject

• hostage negotiations
• hostages
• terrorism
• terrorist attacks
• Terrorism
• terrorists
• terrorist kidnappings
• assassinations
• bombings
• census
• hijacking

Genre

• census

Summary

This dataset is composed of terrorist events recorded for the entire world from 1970 and 1997. The data were originally collected by the Pinkerton Global Intelligence Service (PGIS). Throughout the data collection period PGIS employed a broad definition of terrorism: the threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation. The data include "terrorist groups" identified as specific named groups as well as generic groupings like "rebels" or "student protestors." The researchers arranged with PGIS to move 58 boxes of original hard copies of the PGIS terrorism database to a secure location at the University of Maryland. A Web-based data entry system was developed to match the design of the generic incident card used by PGIS in their coding. In addition, automatic entry fields were created in the Web-based interface to be automatically applied under specific circumstances. Once data entry began, the researchers initiated the ongoing process of data verification. Over the life of the grant until the creation of the database thus far, the project had reached a verification rate of nearly 50 percent. Data in this collection contain 59,503 events (with a weighted count of 66,614). Variables provide group name, type of terrorist incident, incident date, region, country, state in the United States (if applicable), city, and location in which the attack occurred, the nature of the target, the identity, corporation, and nationality of the target (up to four targets), type of weapons used (up to four weapon types), whether the incident was considered a success, the amount of damage, and more narrowly, the amount of United States damage. Further variables classify the number of terrorists involved (total, male, female), type of vehicle involved, total number killed (persons, United States nationals, terrorists), and total number wounded (persons, United States nationals, terrorists). Further variables provide information about kidnappings (total, United States nationals), total number of days and hours held, and amount of ransom demanded and amount paid (overall, United States nationals). Variables also record information about hostages (total, United States nationals), about robberies (total property, United States property), and about hijackings (origin, where diverted, status of victims, and number of victims released). Finally, several administrative variables provide the data source, legibility of the data card, and if the incident was verified by a third party