Who Defines Terror?: A Quantitative Analysis of Interstate Deliberation on Terrorism

Course/Project title

My ESRC project uses computational and quantitative methods to examine the antecedents of international terrorism discourse. By constructing a bipartite social network representation of United Nations General Debate speeches, consisting of states in one mode and the words or concepts they express in the other, I am able to statistically estimate the relative importance and significance of state attributes and structural patterns in producing state rhetoric and communicatory styles.
Specifically, modelling this communication network with bootstrapped temporal exponential graph models (BTERGM) allows for the estimation of the likelihood that a state will utilize a particular word or concept given a number of other factors. Firstly, I quantify the likelihood that a state will use a particular word by its individual attributes, including the degree to which they participate in terrorism discourse and their engagement in global counter-terrorism efforts. Secondly, I quantify the importance of a state's social, economic, and discursive networks in driving their rhetoric. For instance, the models measure the independent effect of state trade and conflict relationships on the likelihood of a state expressing a given concept. This makes it possible to assert whether the use of a given concept or word by important trade partners or historical adversaries, respectively, make it more or less likely that a state also uses this rhetoric. Finally, the model assesses for homophily in state deliberation. This involves estimating the tendency for similar or dissimilar states to utilize identical concepts and rhetoric in their deliberation on terrorism. In particular, I estimate the effect that two states will utilize the same rhetoric given the relative similarity of their religious demographics, economic power, and political system.
This quantitative analysis is guided by socially constructivist theories of international relations, theoretical frameworks from the Critical Terrorism Studies literature, and the Copenhagen School's Securitization theory. Each of these theoretical perspectives inform the particular hypotheses that this analysis seeks to evaluate and provide a broader understanding of international terrorism discourse within which the significance of the results can be understood. Additionally, qualitative interviews with diplomatic figures can reveal the subjective interpretations, emotions, and experiences of those empirically involved in terrorism discourse that would otherwise have to be inferred from the contents of state speeches. In concert, these quantitative, theoretical, and qualitative findings should shed light on the factors of historical and contemporary importance in shaping our understanding of 'terrorism' through state deliberation.