ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates why one should interpret the results of any analysis of terrorism data with caution. It discusses major issues that affect the analysis of terrorism data. The chapter exposes the inherent ambiguity of the concept of terrorism and explains its impact on its understanding. The chapter also illustrates discrepancies between spatial patterns of terrorist events based on data gathered from providers that use different methodologies to gather terrorism data. Terrorism is often classified into classes to highlight or compare specific aspects of it, such as its lethality or the type of targets. However, the choices made to classify data are hardly without consequences. Scholars in terrorism are unanimous. Terrorism cannot be reduced to a single explanation. Consensus on the definition of terrorism has not been reached neither in academia, nor among governments. Terrorism is commonly assumed to be politically driven unlike other crimes, which find their motivation in different reasons.
