ABSTRACT
When does terrorism work? The debate over terrorism’s effectiveness has narrowly focused on changes in state policy, but that is rarely the attacker’s main objective or the tactic’s most significant impact. This article presents a robust, multi-level framework for analyzing the effectiveness of terrorism that includes all three types of effectiveness explicit in its definition: the use of violence and creation of fear (tactical) by an organization seeking to survive and strengthen itself (organizational) for political ends (strategic). The analysis here presents key conditions under which terrorism can kill or spread ideas, polarize societies, strengthen or destroy organizations and inspire fear in individuals, as well as when success in one area complements or contradicts success in another.
