About Article

This article examines the strategic utility of suicide terrorism. Suicide terrorism, we suggest, can be thought of as a form of strategic “signaling.” We define terrorism as a signaling game in which terrorist attacks are used to communicate a group’s character and objectives to a set of target audiences. This is followed by an exami nation of the utility of suicide attacks as a signaling tactic. The relative effectiveness of suicide operations is evaluated in relation to other tactical options that are tradi tionally available to terrorist organizations. We go on to examine the institutional and social context of suicide terrorism, concluding with an examination of the evo lutionary use of suicide attacks by Palestinian terrorist organizations and the Lib eration Tigers of Tamil Eelam.