Working Paper #2

Analyzing Terrorist Activities through Operational & Associational Coding of Events: Introducing the Institute for the Study of Violent Groups’ Relational Database

Author:  Daniel Mabrey

Date Released:  1 July 2010

Abstract:  The Institute for the Study of Violent Groups has developed an event coding scheme for terrorist, extremist, and criminal activities that focuses on operational minutiae to support modeling tactical and operational activities. The coding methodology includes more than 1,500 variables at multiple levels of analysis and is used extensively to support counterterrorism research, modeling, and analysis at more than 22 organizations through sponsorship from the US Department of Defense. This coding scheme has been in place since 2002 and the database contains more than 190,000 events from 2002-present describing more than 3,000 groups and 35,000 individuals. The paper will provide a detailed examination of this coding scheme –highlighting the major differences with WITS, GTD, and ITERATE – while providing examples of analyses that such a coding scheme can support.

Recommended Citation:

Mabrey, D.  “Analyzing Terrorist Activities through Operational & Associational Coding of Events: Introducing the Institute for the Study of Violent Groups’ Relational Database” Institute for the Study of Violent Groups Working Paper No. 2, 2004.  http://www.isvg.org/discover/working-papers/working-paper-2, (accessed February 2011).