ABSTRACT
Terrorism studies began as a niche area of enquiry in the early 1970s within history, political science and sociology. Such approaches explain the emergence of, and motivation for, politically violent campaigns within their socio-political context. The initial dominance of history and political science had a major path-dependent effect upon the study of terrorism. Instead of viewing a terrorist attack as a single crime, the tendency within the literature has been to explain the attack in terms of a group’s ideological position or strategic orientation. Terrorism studies, as a whole, are becoming increasingly more empirically and quantitatively oriented after years of questionable data and science. Insights from crime science into why people engage in terrorist acts have been limited, to date, for a number of reasons. Terrorists make cost–benefit decisions in much the same way as ordinary criminals. The field of crime prevention is testament to the vast potential for situationally focused crime-prevention approaches.
