TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2020//
TI  - The global law of terror organization lifespan
JO  - Terrorism and political violence
A1  - Goldman, Shlomo Ogen
A1  - Bar, Leah
SP  - 1636
EP  - 1665
VL  - 32
IS  - 8
N2  - The study addresses the question of whether there is a global pattern of terror organization (TO) lifespan. Based on two datasets which include hundreds of organizations, we show that there is a global statistical law of TO lifespan distribution. This distribution describes populations of TOs in different contexts of periods, geographical locations, ideologies, etc. The data as a whole, as well as its subpopulations, seem to emerge from an exponential distribution, which is formulated as a mathematical model. This model enables the prediction of TOs' global population decay rate. The findings were obtained by introducing a novel procedure, which formulates and validates this mathematical law for discrete empirical data. We suggest that human behavior generating informational cascades and a positive feedback loop, which influence the number of core members in a TO, may be the source of this global pattern.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0954-6553
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2018.1498787
ID  - ref1
ER  -