Hierarchy and havoc: The influence of organizational structure on the effectiveness of leadership decapitation

This paper examines the historical evolution of leadership decapitation and its impact on terrorist organizations, emphasizing the role of organizational structure. Utilizing a dataset on leadership removals from 1970 to 2016, I investigate whether centralized groups suffer greater disruption than decentralized ones following a successful decapitation strike. Though the findings of my broader examination of group centralization appear to indicate that group structure has little impact on mediating the effectiveness of leadership decapitation at reducing the violence committed by terrorist organizations, a more focused examination of individual group structures yields interesting results. The results of my analysis appear to indicate that group structure might have an impact on the effectiveness of leadership decapitation at reducing terrorist group violence. These results contribute to the debate on the efficacy of leadership decapitation as a counterterrorism strategy by highlighting the significance of organizational structure in determining its impact.