Can domestic terrorism be considered a type of civil conflict? is a question that @arcanakhalil asked yesterday. This is a thread addressing that question through my work- and it gets at defining terrorism which is a very contentious issue 1/n https://twitter.com/arcanakhalil/status/1319500911580884992

so contentious is the question that there is a forum in @IntlStudiesRev by me, De la Calle @mgfindley @JosephKYoung @LDuganResearch @glafree Sa´nchez-Cuenca “Killing Civilians or Holding Territory? How to Think about Terrorism Conceptualization Measurement, & Modeling 2/n

- @LDuganResearch @glafree focus on political violence not on the battlefield- but can strike security personnel
- De la Calle and Sa´nchez-Cuenca argue that terrorism is violence committed by actors who do not control territory
3/n

- I argue that terrorism is killing civilians on purpose.
- @mgfindley @JosephKYoung argue that that an action based approach (supported by me) or an actor based approach (by De la Calle and Sa´nchez-Cuenca) both have problems
4/n

so back to your question- I think domestic terrorism be considered a type of civil conflict - but the type of organization is defined by its primary activity. 5/n

Organizations primarily targeting security personnel are not terrorists but I see it only as a serious insurgent organization if they break the @UU_Peace 25 battle death in a year line which defines a serious civil war as one with 1000+ battle deaths in a year 6/n

I agree with this operationalization but would like to note that violent nonstate actors can use both approaches to violence. There are insurgents that do not kill civilians, some that go back &forth and some that kill them regularly & some terrorist orgs that kill soldiers 7/n

Take a look at the paper below-
Asal @brian_jphillips @kretheme @CorinaSimonelli @JosephKYoung "Carrots, Sticks, and Insurgent Targeting of Civilians," Journal of Conflict Resolution, 63 (7), 1710-1735 8/n

and if you want any of my related articles or a link to the currently available BAAD insurgency data send me an email and I would be happy to send
9 and done ;-)