ABSTRACT
With the prevalence of lone actor terrorist attacks in the West over the past 5 years from across the ideological spectrum, a significant amount of academic literature has emerged which attempts to better understand this phenomenon. In order to adequately examine these questions, this chapter first reviews the broad methodological issues which have yet to be resolved in the academic literature surrounding how to adequately define “lone actor terrorism” and highlights the most important works that have outlined a typology or profile of such individuals. It highlights the debates underway surrounding how “alone” such lone actors really are. The chapter uses illustrative examples of lone actor terrorism affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria to animate the methodological discussion, while not downplaying the long history of lone actor terrorism or the significance and prevalence of other motivations and forms of lone actor terrorism, especially “right-wing” terrorism.
