The peripheral terrorism literature: Bringing it closer to the core

Core/periphery scientific communication is important for information transfer in terrorism literature. The mutual awareness between disciplinary journals contributors in the mainstream and those in the margins of the field enhances their social interaction. The usual case is that the mainstream of a discipline is visible through such indexes as the Web of Science (SCI) and the Journal Citation Report (JCR) the second of which assigns an impact factor to the most cited journals. In terrorism subject area, however, the reverse situation exists; only the peripheral journals in this field are indexed in JCR. From a scientific communication perspective, then, the core journals of terrorism writings are relatively invisible. This study attempts to identify the core and the periphery of journals dealing with terrorism, and suggests a way to bring them closer together. The assumption is that the quality and quantity of work in this field will increase as the distance between these two poles decreases.