Abstract:
“Lone wolf terrorism” represents an overused and clichéd phrase adding confusion to the research of political violence. In response, this dissertation introduces a new framework based on mental illness and group association which better describes terrorism conducted by Singular and Small Group Terrorists (SSGT). This new framework describes and analyzes three new categories of terrorists: Zealots, Opportunists, and Strategists. Based on this new framework, a review of current laws and policy show a significant gap and demonstrates how the SSGT framework helps impact policy development. This study then creates a new database of known SSGT providing a basis for offering five suggestions for incorporating this new framework into the activities of counter-terrorism practitioners and recommendations for future research.
