ABSTRACT BRUGH, CHRISTINE SHAHAN. Heterogeneity across Terrorism Contexts and Actors: Improving the Evidence Base Supporting Counterterrorism Strategy. (Under the direction of Dr. Joseph Simons-Rudolph and Dr. Sarah L. Desmarais). Though the research on terrorism has grown vastly since the September 11th terrorist attacks, the field still grapples with critical questions regarding who is likely to perpetrate terrorist acts and how to intervene to prevent terrorist violence (Desmarais, Simons-Rudolph, Brugh, Schilling, & Hoggan, 2017). Annual global deaths from terrorism remain in the tens of thousands (Miller, 2018), making the study of terrorism is crucially important for effective, evidence-based counterterrorism strategy. As the methods used to study terrorism have become increasingly diverse, the consensus among researchers has moved away from a “one-size-fits all” approach to explain why individuals participate in terrorism to an understanding that terrorist participation must be studied with respect to individual differences, diverse community contexts, and changing sociopolitical circumstances (LaFree & Freilich, 2017). To that end, this dissertation examines heterogeneity across actors and contexts by 1) summarizing the extant literature on terrorism, 2) studying terrorism-involved women, and 3) comparing the characteristics of U.S. and European lone actor terrorists. In the first manuscript, the state of terrorism research is summarized using a systematic review approach. In the largest aggregate review of the research to date, 12,000 articles were screened, revealing trends and gaps in the extant literature base. Existing literature is predominately theoretical and written by authors from the United States. Articles often lacked specificity regarding the type of terrorist, action, or ideology of interest. Findings from the 50 empirical articles show nine factors with some support for an association with terrorism involvement. However, only 24 articles reported inferential statistics, six of which performed comparisons between known terrorists and nonterrorist control groups. In the second manuscript, I examine the characteristics and outcomes of women involved in jihadism-inspired terrorism. Existing literature on women in terrorism shows support for differences in drivers of terrorist action and organizational roles (González et al., 2014; Jacques & Taylor, 2009). Our study was the first to test for differences in terrorism-related outcomes and to use a matched comparison group approach to develop samples of women and men. Results showed that women’s involvement in terrorism is a more recent phenomenon. Women also more often had no recent employment and less often had histories of criminal activity. Further analyses showed that women were often successful on their first foreign fighting attempt, often associated with terrorist organizations, and less often were involved in terrorist plots. In the third manuscript, I explore the utility of an existing risk assessment framework for lone actor terrorism. Building off of literature which suggests that drivers of lone actor terrorist action may differ between the United States and Europe (Nesser & Stenersen, 2014), I compared U.S. and European lone actors on the prevalence of assessment items. Results showed that the only about half of the assessment items were generally feasible to code based on publicly available information, and that two of the items may be more suitable for use with U.S. than European populations. Taken together, these results show the promise, but also the limitations, of research on subpopulations of terrorism-involved individuals using public information. Reported in the literature review, considering heterogeneity and performing research with specificity on actors and outcomes is necessary to advance the science. The second manuscript shows that further exploration of gender differences in terrorism is a promising direction for future study, recommending comparative studies with non-terrorist general population groups and gender- informed counterterrorism strategy. The final study shows that risk assessment of terrorism must also consider heterogeneity, as some items may pertain to individuals within specific sociopolitical contexts. Though these advances have been made through use of public information, accessing more robust data or terrorism-involved individuals themselves is a critical next step. © Copyright 2019 by Christine Shahan Brugh All Rights Reserved Heterogeneity across Terrorism Contexts and Actors: Improving the Evidence Base Supporting Counterterrorism Strategy by Christine Shahan Brugh A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Psychology Raleigh, North Carolina 2019 APPROVED BY: _______________________________ _______________________________ Dr. Joseph Simons-Rudolph Dr. Sarah L. Desmarais Committee Co-Chair Committee Co-Chair _______________________________ _______________________________ Dr. Mark Wilson Dr. William Boettcher ii BIOGRAPHY Christine Shahan Brugh was born and raised in Hagerstown, Maryland. She completed her Bachelor’s Degree at American University in 2014, majoring in Interdisciplinary Studies: Communications, Legal Institutions, Economics, and Government. She minored in Psychology and Physics. While at American University, Christine completed internships with the Campaign for Youth Justice and the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. She also served as a research assistant in the Behavioral Pharmacology and Health Promotion Laboratory on campus, assisting with studies on nicotine and caffeine use and withdrawal. Christine joined the Applied Social and Community Psychology program at North Carolina State University in fall 2014. During her time at NC State, she became interested in applying the research techniques from her courses to terrorism through her experience as a graduate research assistant, funded through the Laboratory for Analytic Sciences. Christine also served as a graduate affiliate with the Center for Family and Community Engagement at NC State, where she assisted with the evaluation of a parenting program in North Carolina for fathers with children involved in Child Protective Services. Christine completed an internship at RTI International in the Center for Justice, Safety, and Resilience where she contributed to evaluating an employment-focused reentry program and analysis of qualitative data from interviews with former white supremacists. After graduation, she will be continuing her training as a postdoctoral research scholar with the Laboratory for Analytic Sciences at North Carolina State University. Christine currently lives in North Carolina with her three W’s: Wade, Willow, and Wallace. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to express my immense appreciation to my committee co-chairs, Joseph Simons-Rudolph and Sarah Desmarais. Through your mentorship I have experienced tremendous personal and professional growth, and truly would not be where I am today without your support. I am so grateful to have had you as advisors along the path to my PhD – thank you. I would further like to extend a special thanks to my committee members, Mark Wilson and Bill Boettcher, for your insightful questions, encouragement, and enthusiasm for this work. Being a part of the Applied Social and Community Psychology program at NC State has challenged me to be the best researcher possible while also staying true to my values. For that, I would like to thank the faculty, my cohort, and my peers in the Applied Social and Community Psychology program. I feel fortunate for all the experiences I have had as a part of this community. Finally, I would like to thank my parents for always encouraging me to pursue higher education. You kept me going through my undergraduate degree and your support made it possible to fulfill my goal of earning a PhD. You really have seen me through it all – and somehow never once doubted my ability to achieve more than I even thought was possible for myself. Now, since you’ve read this far, keep reading to the end! Love you all. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... v LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... vi Chapter 1: Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 Defining Terrorism and its Impact ..................................................................................... 1 Theories of Terrorism ........................................................................................................ 3 Current Approaches in the Study of Terrorism.................................................................. 5 Overview of the Research Chapters ................................................................................... 9 Chapter 2: The State of the Scientific Knowledge Regarding Factors Associated with Terrorism .................................................................................................................................... 12 Abstract ............................................................................................................................ 12 Methods...........................................................................................................................