Hostage Events: Descriptive Profile and Analysis of Outcomes

This article presents a statistical analysis of politically motivated hostage abductions that occurred, worldwide, over a 10‐year period: 1979–1988. Sixty‐nine hijacking and barricade‐and‐hostage incidents that matched a preset list of sampling criteria were found to have occurred during said period. These were characterized according to a large number of dimensions and variables, yielding a detailed descriptive profile of politically motivated hostage incidents. The profile is portrayed in the first part of the article. The second part presents an analysis of factors that appear closely related to the manner in which hostage incidents conclude–negotiated solutions or violent endings–and that may be construed as possible determinants of the latter. An analysis of the negotiability of hostage events concludes the article.