Violent and Nonviolent Strategies of Terrorist Organizations: How Do Mixed Strategies Influence Terrorist Recruitment and Lethality?

Terrorist organizations do not solely rely on violence, but also utilize a range of nonviolent activities from political engagement to social services provision. We argue that terrorist organizations that use a combination of violent and nonviolent strategies are more effective in achieving two important organizational goals than those that rely solely on violent strategies. Using the Reputation of Terror Groups Dataset (2016), we demonstrate that organizations that deploy a mix of violent and nonviolent strategies are better able to attract new recruits and carry out more lethal attacks than those that rely exclusively on violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]