IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/simgam/v40y2009i2p164-192.html

Games and Terrorism

Author

Listed:
  • Todd Sandler

    (University of Texas at Dallas, USA, tsandler@utdallas.edu)

  • Kevin Siqueira

    (University of Texas at Dallas, USA)

Abstract

This article provides an updated survey of recent advances in game-theoretic analyses of terrorism. In particular, it investigates the government's allocation of a fixed budget to counter attacks against potential targets. The choice between proactive and defensive countermeasures is addressed, along with the impact that domestic politics has on this choice. Other topics include the interaction between political and militant factions within terrorist groups, the role of asymmetric information, and game-theoretic analysis of suicide terrorism. Throughout, the article highlights surprising results from the application of game theory. Unanswered questions are also indicated.

Suggested Citation

  • Todd Sandler & Kevin Siqueira, 2009. "Games and Terrorism," Simulation & Gaming, , vol. 40(2), pages 164-192, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:simgam:v:40:y:2009:i:2:p:164-192
    DOI: 10.1177/1046878108314772
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1046878108314772
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1046878108314772?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jain, Sanjay & Mukand, Sharun W., 2004. "The economics of high-visibility terrorism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 479-494, June.
    2. Lapan, Harvey E. & Sandler, Todd, 1993. "Terrorism and signalling," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 383-397, August.
    3. Todd Sandler & Kevin Siqueira, 2006. "Global terrorism: deterrence versus pre-emption," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1370-1387, November.
    4. Vicki Bier & Santiago Oliveros & Larry Samuelson, 2007. "Choosing What to Protect: Strategic Defensive Allocation against an Unknown Attacker," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 9(4), pages 563-587, August.
    5. Per Baltzer Overgaard, 1994. "The Scale of Terrorist Attacks as a Signal of Resources," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 38(3), pages 452-478, September.
    6. Ronald Wintrobe, 2006. "Extremism, Suicide Terror, and Authoritarism," ICER Working Papers 8-2006, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    7. Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan, 2007. "Politics and the Suboptimal Provision of Counterterror," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 61(1), pages 9-36, January.
    8. Alan B. Krueger & Jitka Maleckova, 2003. "Education, Poverty and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 119-144, Fall.
    9. Sandler, Todd & Tschirhart, John T. & Cauley, Jon, 1983. "A Theoretical Analysis of Transnational Terrorism," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(1), pages 36-54, March.
    10. Scott Farrow, 2007. "The Economics Of Homeland Security Expenditures: Foundational Expected Cost‐Effectiveness Approaches," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 25(1), pages 14-26, January.
    11. Dominic Rohner & Bruno Frey, 2007. "Blood and ink! The common-interest-game between terrorists and the media," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 133(1), pages 129-145, October.
    12. Ethan Bueno De Mesquita, 2005. "The Quality of Terror," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(3), pages 515-530, July.
    13. Jun Zhuang & Vicki M. Bier, 2007. "Balancing Terrorism and Natural Disasters---Defensive Strategy with Endogenous Attacker Effort," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 55(5), pages 976-991, October.
    14. Garfinkel, Michelle R., 2004. "Global threats and the domestic struggle for power," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 495-508, June.
    15. Siqueira, Kevin & Sandler, Todd, 2007. "Terrorist backlash, terrorism mitigation, and policy delegation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(9), pages 1800-1815, September.
    16. Powell, Robert, 2007. "Defending against Terrorist Attacks with Limited Resources," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(3), pages 527-541, August.
    17. Ronald Wintrobe, 2006. "Extremism, suicide terror, and authoritarianism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 169-195, July.
    18. Enders, Walter & Sandler, Todd, 1993. "The Effectiveness of Antiterrorism Policies: A Vector-Autoregression-Intervention Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(4), pages 829-844, December.
    19. Sandler, Todd & Lapan, Harvey E., 1988. "The Calculus of Dissent: An Analysis of Terrorists' Choice of Targets," Staff General Research Papers Archive 10818, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    20. Eli Berman & David Laitin, 2005. "Hard Targets: Theory and Evidence on Suicide Attacks," NBER Working Papers 11740, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Arce, Daniel G. & Sandler, Todd, 2007. "Terrorist Signalling and the Value of Intelligence," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 37(4), pages 573-586, October.
    22. Gil Epstein & Ira Gang, 2007. "Understanding the development of fundamentalism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 257-271, September.
    23. Jean-Paul Azam, 2005. "Suicide-bombing as inter-generational investment," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 122(1), pages 177-198, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rehman, Faiz Ur & Nasir, Muhammad & Shahbaz, Muhammad, 2017. "What have we learned? Assessing the effectiveness of counterterrorism strategies in Pakistan," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 487-495.
    2. Todd Sandler, 2010. "Terrorism and Policy: Introduction," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 54(2), pages 203-213, April.
    3. Friedrich Schneider & Tilman Brück & Daniel Meierrieks, 2010. "The Economics of Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: A Survey (Part II)," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1050, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    4. Timothy Mathews & Anton D. Lowenberg, 2012. "The Interdependence Between Homeland Security Efforts of a State and a Terrorist’s Choice of Attack," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 29(2), pages 195-218, April.
    5. Levitin, Gregory & Hausken, Kjell, 2009. "False targets vs. redundancy in homogeneous parallel systems," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 588-595.
    6. Ulrich Hendel, 2016. "‘Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t’: mimicking behaviour of growth-oriented terrorist organizations," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(5), pages 665-687, September.
    7. Yang Jiao & Zijun Luo, 2019. "A model of terrorism and counterterrorism with location choices," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 179(3), pages 301-313, June.
    8. Anouk S. Rigterink, 2019. "The Wane of Command: Evidence on drone strikes and control within terrorist organizations," OxCarre Working Papers 218, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    9. Jean-Paul Azam, 2012. "Why suicide-terrorists get educated, and what to do about it," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 357-373, December.
    10. Todd Sandler, 2013. "Introduction: Advances in the Study of the Economics of Terrorism," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(4), pages 768-773, April.
    11. Bandyopadhyay, Subhayu & Sandler, Todd, 2023. "Voluntary participation in a terror group and counterterrorism policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 500-513.
    12. Cárceles-Poveda, Eva & Tauman, Yair, 2011. "A strategic analysis of the war against transnational terrorism," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 49-65, January.
    13. Jean-Paul Azam & Véronique Thelen, 2008. "The roles of foreign aid and education in the war on terror," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 135(3), pages 375-397, June.
    14. Nikoofal, Mohammad E. & Zhuang, Jun, 2015. "On the value of exposure and secrecy of defense system: First-mover advantage vs. robustness," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 246(1), pages 320-330.
    15. Sylvain Baumann, 2019. "Intelligence Service for a Better Information: Application to a Terrorist Threat," Post-Print hal-02949075, HAL.
    16. Levitin, Gregory & Hausken, Kjell, 2009. "Intelligence and impact contests in systems with redundancy, false targets, and partial protection," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 94(12), pages 1927-1941.
    17. Mohammad E. Nikoofal & Mehmet Gümüs, 2015. "On the value of terrorist’s private information in a government’s defensive resource allocation problem," IISE Transactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(6), pages 533-555, June.
    18. Sylvain Baumann, 2018. "Protection, Technological Transfer and Alliance against Terrorist Conflict," Post-Print hal-02949083, HAL.
    19. Bakker, Craig & Webster, Jennifer B. & Nowak, Kathleen E. & Chatterjee, Samrat & Perkins, Casey J. & Brigantic, Robert, 2020. "Multi-Game Modeling for Counter-Smuggling," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    20. William F. Shughart, 2011. "Terrorism in Rational Choice Perspective," Chapters, in: Christopher J. Coyne & Rachel L. Mathers (ed.), The Handbook on the Political Economy of War, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:simgam:v:40:y:2009:i:2:p:164-192. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.