The Political Economy of Terrorism presents a widely accessible political economy approach to the study of terrorism. It applies economic methodology – theoretical and empirical – combined with political analysis and realities to the study of domestic and transnational terrorism. In so doing, the book provides both a qualitative and quantitative investigation of terrorism in a balanced up-to-date presentation that informs students, policy makers, researchers and the general reader of the current state of knowledge. Included are historical aspects, a discussion of watershed events, the rise of modern-day terrorism, examination of current trends, the dilemma of liberal democracies, evaluation of counterterrorism, analysis of hostage incidents and much more. The new edition expands coverage of every chapter, adds a new chapter on terrorist network structures and organization, accounts for changes in the Department of Homeland Security and the USA Patriot Act and insurance against terrorism. Rational-actor models of terrorist and government behavior and game-theoretic analysis are presented for readers with no prior theoretical training. Where relevant, the authors display graphs using data from International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist Events (ITERATE), the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), and other public-access data sets.

‘Professors Enders and Sandler are two of the most important scholars studying terrorism today, and the second edition of their book, The Political Economy of Terrorism, is an outstanding and in-depth overview of this subject, covering contributions from economics, political science, and related disciplines that I plan to use in my honors course on terrorism, counterterrorism, and weapons of mass destruction.’

Michael D. Intriligator - University of California, Los Angeles

‘Long before terrorism became a fashionable field of academic study, Enders and Sandler contributed numerous dispassionate analyses emphasizing the choices terrorists (and governments) make given their objectives and payoffs from alternative options. Joining such game theory models with statistical investigations of terrorism and counterterrorism, the authors have brought together their best research with the findings of other leading scholars to produce a remarkably scientific study of terrorism and what to do about it.’

Edward H. Kaplan - Yale University

‘There is perhaps no policy issue more in need of hard empirical evidence and objective analysis than terrorism. Walter Enders and Todd Sandler provide both in a comprehensive treatment that convincingly demonstrates that terrorists are often surprisingly rational while our approaches to terrorism are often less so.’

Gary LaFree - Director, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), University of Maryland

‘Enders and Sandler remain among the very best social scientists doing systematic comparative study on terrorism. This new edition is an essential statement of contemporary theory, evidence, and policy implications.’

Bruce Russett - Yale University