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The question of whether democratic institutions facilitate terrorist activities is a controversial one in current scientific studies of terrorism. Although the ''rule of law'' is an essential institutional pillar of any mature democracy, its direct effect on domestic and international terrorism remains unexplored. Conceiving democratic rule of law as the coexistence of effective and impartial judicial systems and citizens' recognition of the law as legitimate, the author presents a causal explanation in which a high-quality rule of law is considered to dampen ordinary citizens' opportunity and willingness to engage in political violence, protecting democracies from becoming victims of terrorism. Built on a cross-sectional, time-series data analysis of 131 countries during the period from 1984 to 2004, the author finds that, ceteris paribus, maintaining a sound rule of law notably reduces the likelihood of any type of terrorist events. In short, the rule of law instantiated in democratic institutions provides a formidable bulwark against terrorism. Keywords rule of law, democratic institutions, domestic and international terrorismThe question of how best to combat terrorism is one of today's most highly debated topics among academics, policy makers, and politicians alike. In particular, deterring terrorism is considered an important foreign policy objective for governments.

We examine the consequences of hosting refugees for domestic and international terrorism. In line with the old saying, “no good deed goes unpunished”, we argue that the infusion of aid resources provides militant groups with opportunities for looting and for attacking foreign targets. A cross-national, time-series data analysis of 154 countries for the years 1970–2007 shows evidence that countries with many refugees are more likely to experience both domestic and international terrorism. This finding implies that while the international community should strive to reduce the number of refugees by preventing the eruption of major conflict events, individual countries should find a way of maintaining the balance between humanitarianism toward refugees and providing safe, secure environments for refugees and those that assist them.

The effect of regime type on inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) remains a matter of controversy. While some studies report a positive influence of democracy on FDI, others show a negative influence. This study reexamines this discrepancy using pooled panel data during the past 20 years and contributes to the existing literature in three ways. First, it refines the causal mechanisms underlying the democracy-related arguments of veto players, audience costs, and democratic hindrance with respect to foreign investment. Second, it introduces three accurate measures to capture each of those three causal arguments. Third, it briefly demonstrates how different measurements of the dependent variable can produce statistically spurious results. The empirical results reveal that democratic institutions are, at best, weakly associated with increases in FDI inflows (measured by FDI ⁄ GDP ratios). While multiple veto players (and, counterintuitively, democratic hindrance) may be positively associated with increases in FDI, audience costs are not linked to FDI activities. These findings have important policy implications given that developing democratic countries are trying to attract more FDI in order to achieve their economic growth and development targets.

This study evaluates the controversial issue of whether economic growth exerts a dampening effect on terrorism. Unlike previous studies, it conceptualizes economic growth into two sectors (agricultural and industrial) and categorizes terrorism into three forms (domestic, international, and suicide). It offers a modified theory of hard targets, where richer industrial, but not richer agricultural, countries are more likely to attract suicide attacks. A cross-national, time-series data analysis of 127 countries for 1970-2007 shows evidence that when countries enjoy high levels of industrial growth, they are less disposed to domestic and international terrorist events, but are more likely to experience suicide attacks. These findings indicate that economic growth is not a cure-all solution for terrorism because it may be associated in some instances with more terrorist incidents. Nonetheless, healthy economic conditions are, without doubt, beneficial to the war on terrorism because the majority of suicide attacks occur in only a few countries.