Global Terrorism Index

The Global Terrorism Index (GTI) is a report published annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), and was developed by IT entrepreneur and IEP's founder Steve Killelea.

The index provides a comprehensive summary of the key global trends and patterns in terrorism since 2000. It produces a composite score in order to provide an ordinal ranking of countries on the impact of terrorism.

It is an attempt to systematically rank the nations of the world according to terrorist activity. The index combines a number of factors associated with terrorist attacks to build an explicit picture of the impact of terrorism, illustrating trends, and providing a data series for analysis by researchers and policymakers.

The GTI is based on data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) which is collected and collated by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland. The GTD has codified over 150,000 cases of terrorism.^[1]

The GTI covers 163 countries, covering 99.7% of the worlds population.

The aim of the report is to examine trends and to help inform a positive and practical debate about the future of terrorism and the required policy responses.

The GTI was developed in consultation with the Global Peace Index expert panel.

Methodology

There is no single internationally accepted definition of what constitutes terrorism, IEP accepts the terminology and definitions agreed to by the authors of the GTD, the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) researchers and its advisory panel. The GTI therefore defines terrorism as “the threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation”^[2]. This definition recognises that terrorism it not only the physical act of an attack, but also the psychological impact it has on a society for many years after.

In order to be included as an incident in the GTD the act has to be: “an intentional act of violence or threat of violence by a non-state actor". This means an incident has to meet three criteria in order for it to be counted as a terrorist act:

1. The incident must be intentional – the result of a conscious calculation on the part of a perpetrator.
2. The incident must entail some level of violence or threat of violence — including property damage, as well as violence against people.
3. The perpetrators of the incidents must be sub-national actors. This database does not include acts of state terrorism.^[3]

GTI Scoring System

The GTI score for a country in a given year is based on a unique scoring system to account for the relative impact of incidents in the year. There are four factors counted in each country's yearly score:

• Total number of terrorist incidents in a given year
• Total number of fatalities caused by terrorism in a given year
• Total number of injuries caused by terrorism in a given year
• The approximate level of total property damage from terrorist incidents in a given year

Each of the factors is weighted differently and a five-year weighted average is applied to importantly reflect the lingering psychological effect of terrorist acts over time. The weightings shown in the table below were determined by consultation with the GPI Expert Panel:

The greatest weighting is attributed to a fatality. The property damage measure is further disaggregated into four bands depending on the measured scope of the property damage inflicted by one incident. These bandings are shown in the table below, whereby incidents causing less than US$1 million are accorded a weight of 1, between $1 million and $1 billion, and more than $1 billion. A great majority of incidents are coded in the GTD as an 'unknown' level of property damage, thus scoring nil, with 'catastrophic' events being extremely rare.

Example of a country's GTI Score

To assign a relative number to how a country has been directly impacted by terrorism in any given year, for every incident recorded, the GTI calculates a weighted sum of all indicators. To illustrate, the table below depicts a hypothetical country's score for a given year:

Economic impact of terrorism

The economic impact of terrorism is calculated using IEP’s cost of violence methodology.

The model includes both the direct and indirect costs, such as the lost life-time earnings, cost of medical treatments and property destruction from incidents of terrorism. The direct costs include those borne by the victim of the terrorist act and associated expenditure, such as medical spending. The indirect costs include lost productivity and earning as well as the psychological trauma to the victims, their families and friends.

The analysis presents conservative estimates of the economic impact of terrorism and does not include variables for which detailed appropriate data was not available. For instance, the analysis does not include the impact on business, the cost of fear from terrorism or the cost of counterterrorism.^[4]

The global economic impact of terrorism reached US$89.6 billion in 2015, decreasing by 15 per cent from its 2014 level.

There have been three peaks in the economic impact of terrorism since the year 2000 and they are linked to the three major waves of terrorism. The first large increase in the economic impact of terrorism happened in 2001, when the attacks of September 11 in New York City and Washington D.C. took place. The second peak was in 2007 at the height of the Iraq war. The 2007 increase is mainly attributed to al-Qa’ida affiliated terrorist groups and coincided with the coalition troop surge in Iraq. The third wave started in 2012 and is still continuing, with the economic impact of terrorism peaking at US$105.6 billion in 2014.^[5] The increase in the last four years was mainly driven by increases in terrorism in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.^[6]

Publications by year

Institute for Economics and Peace has published four editions of Global Terrorism Index to date. The fifth report is due to be launched in November 2017.^{[7][8][9][10]}

2012

The first edition of Global Terrorism Index was published in 2012. The study covered analysis of 158 countries.^[7]

The 2012 report found that the global impact of terrorism increased significantly from 2002 to 2007, reaching its peak in 2007, and subsequently plateauing. The biggest rise took place over the period from 2005 to 2007 when the majority of the global increase in terrorism was driven by events in Iraq. Four other countries also significantly contributed to the global rise with Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and the Philippines all experiencing increases, especially between 2007 and 2009.

Only 20 nations scored a zero for terrorist impact over the 2002-2011 period, indicating the impact of terror, while heavily concentrated in some places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, was widely distributed around the world.

The countries most heavily affected by terrorism in 2011 were, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Yemen.

2014

The second edition of Global Terrorism Index was published in November 2014. The study covered analysis of 162 countries.^[8]

In 2013 terrorist activity increased substantially with the total number of deaths rising from 11,133 in 2012 to 17,958 in 2013, a 61 per cent increase. Over the same period, the number of countries that experienced more than 50 deaths rose from 15 to 24. This highlighted that not only was the intensity of terrorism increasing, its breadth was increasing as well.

The countries most heavily affected by terrorism in 2013 were, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria.

2015

A world map indicating the GTI by country (based on 2015 data)

The third edition of Global Terrorism Index was published in November 2015. The study covered analysis of 162 countries.^[9]

Terrorist activity increased by 80 per cent in 2014 to its highest recorded level. The largest ever year-on-year increase in deaths from terrorism was recorded in 2014, rising from 18,111 in 2013 to 32,685 in 2014. The number of people who have died from terrorist activity has increased nine-fold since the year 2000. ^[11]

The rise in terrorism can largely be attributed to two groups: ISIS; and Boko Haram, the Nigerian jihadist group that pledged allegiance to ISIS in March of 2015. Combined, these groups were responsible for 51% of all terrorism-related deaths in 2014.^[12]

The countries most heavily affected by terrorism in 2014 were, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria.

2016

A world map indicating the GTI by country (2016)

The fourth edition of Global Terrorism Index was published in November 2016. The study covered analysis of 163 countries.

In OECD member countries, deaths from terrorism dramatically increased in 2015, rising by 650 per cent when compared to 2014. Twenty-one of the 34 OECD countries experienced at least one terrorist attack with the majority of deaths occurring in Turkey and France. ^[13]

GTI ranks and scores, 2016

Rank[10][14]	Country	Score	Change in score (2015 to 2016)
1	Iraq	9.96	−0.04
2	Afghanistan	9.444	0.229
3	Nigeria	9.314	0.075
4	Pakistan	8.613	−0.027
5	Syria	8.587	0.458
6	Yemen	8.076	0.607
7	Somalia	7.548	0.012
8	India	7.484	−0.059
9	Egypt	7.328	0.751
10	Libya	7.283	0.228
11	Ukraine	7.132	0.094
12	Philippines	7.098	0.071
13	Cameroon	7.002	0.504
14	Turkey	6.738	1.272
15	Thailand	6.706	−0.249
16	Niger	6.682	3.474
17	Democratic Republic of the Congo	6.633	0.209
18	Sudan	6.66	0
19	Kenya	6.578	−0.04
20	Central African Republic	6.518	−0.229
21	South Sudan	6.497	−0.273
22	Bangladesh	6.479	0.959
23	China	6.108	−0.206
24	Lebanon	6.068	−0.122
25	Mali	6.03	0.347
26	Colombia	5.954	−0.197
27	Chad	5.83	3.663
28	Palestine	5.659	0.658
29	France	5.603	2.02
30	Russia	5.43	−0.623
31	Burundi	5.417	2.156
32	Saudi Arabia	5.404	1.678
33	Israel	5.248	−0.302
34	United Kingdom	5.08	0.012
35	Tunisia	4.963	1.452
36	United States	4.877	0.358
37	Kuwait	4.449	4.43
38	Indonesia	4.429	−0.027
39	Nepal	4.415	0.063
40	Uganda	4.327	−0.615
41	Germany	4.308	1.582
42	Algeria	4.282	−0.377
43	Greece	4.218	−0.011
44	Bahrain	4.206	−0.299
45	Myanmar	4.167	0.364
46	Sweden	3.984	1.858
47	Iran	3.949	−0.226
48	Paraguay	3.84	0.286
49	Tanzania	3.832	−0.125
50	Mexico	3.723	−0.129
51	Mozambique	3.536	−0.551
52	South Africa	3.531	1.676
53	Sri Lanka	3.486	−0.194
54	Ethiopia	3.454	−0.007
55	Ireland	3.429	0.1
56	Tajikistan	3.086	1.368
57	Peru	2.984	−0.046
58	Jordan	2.858	1.363
59	Australia	2.742	−0.026
60	Chile	2.699	−0.659
61	Malaysia	2.691	−0.341
62	Bosnia and Herzegovina	2.675	1.455
63	Burkina Faso	2.623	2.316
64	Senegal	2.598	−0.638
65	Rwanda	2.589	−0.726
66	Canada	2.518	−0.084
67	Japan	2.447	2.447
68	Finland	2.377	2.377
69	Italy	2.363	−0.205
70	Kosovo	2.205	−0.357
71	Czech Republic	2.179	0.25
72	Ivory Coast	2.177	−0.752
73	Denmark	2.152	2.061
74	Nicaragua	2.093	−0.656
75	Norway	2.077	−0.656
76	Cyprus	2.04	−0.301
77	Venezuela	1.998	0.357
78	Macedonia	1.86	0.02
79	Djibouti	1.78	−0.691
80	Brazil	1.74	−0.306
81	Madagascar	1.671	−0.67
82	Bulgaria	1.631	−0.38
83	Dominican Republic	1.562	−0.649
84	Kyrgyzstan	1.445	0.134
85	Guinea	1.403	0.942
86	Belarus	1.357	−0.698
87	Georgia	1.257	−0.677
88	Belgium	1.245	−0.684
89	Spain	1.203	−0.701
90	Honduras	1.144	−0.666
90	Guatemala	1.144	−0.666
92	Albania	1.103	−0.498
92	Estonia	1.103	1.026
94	Kazakhstan	0.934	−0.658
95	Morocco	0.892	−0.445
95	Lesotho	0.892	0.892
97	Netherlands	0.864	0.586
98	Ecuador	0.793	0.313
99	Laos	0.695	0.657
100	Eritrea	0.534	−1.082
101	Argentina	0.499	−0.491
101	Trinidad and Tobago	0.499	−0.28
103	United Arab Emirates	0.422	−0.635
104	Zimbabwe	0.413	−0.61
105	Republic of the Congo	0.365	−0.47
106	Azerbaijan	0.346	−0.433
106	Ghana	0.346	−0.433
108	Switzerland	0.288	−0.323
108	Armenia	0.288	0.173
110	Iceland	0.25	−0.249
110	Liberia	0.25	−0.249
112	Hungary	0.23	−0.231
112	New Zealand	0.23	−0.231
112	South Korea	0.23	0.23
112	Qatar	0.23	0.23
116	Austria	0.182	−0.183
117	Montenegro	0.154	−0.153
117	Uzbekistan	0.154	0.154
119	Bhutan	0.115	−0.115
119	Jamaica	0.115	−0.115
121	Serbia	0.086	−0.135
122	Guinea-Bissau	0.077	−0.077
122	Cambodia	0.077	−0.077
122	Taiwan	0.077	−0.077
125	Mauritania	0.067	−0.125
126	Portugal	0.058	−0.057
126	Croatia	0.058	−0.057
128	Bolivia	0.038	−0.039
129	Moldova	0.019	−0.019
130	Angola	0	−0.168
130	Benin	0	0
130	Botswana	0	0
130	Costa Rica	0	0
130	Cuba	0	0
130	Gabon	0	0
130	Gambia	0	0
130	Equatorial Guinea	0	0
130	Guyana	0	0
130	Haiti	0	0
130	Lithuania	0	0
130	Latvia	0	0
130	Mauritius	0	0
130	Malawi	0	0
130	Mongolia	0	0
130	Namibia	0	0
130	North Korea	0	0
130	Oman	0	0
130	Panama	0	0
130	Papua New Guinea	0	0
130	Poland	0	0
130	Romania	0	0
130	Sierra Leone	0	0
130	Singapore	0	0
130	El Salvador	0	0
130	Slovakia	0	0
130	Slovenia	0	0
130	Swaziland	0	0
130	Togo	0	0
130	Turkmenistan	0	0
130	Timor-Leste	0	0
130	Uruguay	0	0
130	Vietnam	0	0
130	Zambia	0	0

See also

• Number of terrorist incidents by country
• Global Terrorism Database
• Patterns of Global Terrorism
• Global Peace Index
• United States Peace Index
• Mexico Peace Index
• Institute for Economics and Peace
• Terrorism

References

External links

• Global Terrorism Index - Maps
• Global Terrorism Index report 2016
• START - National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, at the University of Maryland.