Project Details
While researchers are learning a great deal about what motivates individuals to resort to violence and terror, it is equally important to gain increased understanding of how some individuals come together in groups and organizations to pursue joint objectives through the adoption of such tactics as violence and terror. How do such organizations form, what holds them together, how do they choose tactics and targets, what are their vulnerabilities, and how do they ultimately desist and dissolve? In addressing these and other central questions, it is essential that we have access to reliable and current data on a variety of types of organizations, both violent and non-violent, across the gamut of left, right, religious, and ethnic organizations. Furthermore, researchers need data that can help identify the characteristics of organizations that resort to violence, and how they differ from those of organizations that adopt more legitimate means for addressing grievances.