Fighting Terrorism through the Rule of Law?

Abstract

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.

Fighting terrorism in Africa: evidence from bundling and unbundling institutions

“…Consistent with Choi (2010) In the second strand, governance is also linked to transnational terrorism in the view that good governance consolidates the legitimacy of a political system by providing a protective shield to both foreigners and citizens on the one hand, as well as nonviolent mechanisms to dispute resolution on the other hand (Choi 2010). Hence, in the light of governance definitions we have clarified above, terrorism is very likely to be limited by, inter alia: (i) a free and fair democratic procedure for the election and replacement of political leaders (political governance); (ii) the formulation and implementation of conducive policies that deliver public commodities to citizens (economic governance) and (iii) sound respect by the State and citizens of institutions that govern interactions between them (institutional governance).…”

“…Accordingly, the negative relationship with the rule of law is in accordance with Choi (2010) who has established a negative relationship between democratic rule of law and citizens' willingness and opportunity of resorting to political violence and terrorism as means to resolving conflicts.…”

“…Governance features that contribute to this edge in democracies include: independence of judiciaries (Findley and Young 2011); respect of the rule of law (Choi 2010) and effective management of conflicts. It follows that good governance institutions could also provide an enabling environment for aggrieved citizens to support or resort to terrorism as means to conflict resolution (Li 2005).…”

“…African-specific literature has focused on understanding: geopolitical fluctuations (Straus 2012); poverty and lack of politico-economic freedom (Barros et al 2008); competition in military companies in the swift termination of conflicts (Akcinaroglu and Radziszewski 2013); the role of global warming (Price and Elu 2016) and exploratory studies on the African Union's role in fighting terrorism (Ewi and Aning 2006). Moreover, the literature on the role of governance on terrorism has either been skewed on the effect of democracy for the most part (see Lee 2013;Savun and Phillips 2009) or oriented toward a few specific dimensions like the rule of law (Choi 2010) and transparency (Bell et al 2014). Unfortunately, democracy (rule of law) is only an aspect of political (institutional) governance.…”

Fighting terrorism in Africa: Benchmarking policy harmonization

“…The advantage in financial development established by Beck et al (2013) has been confirmed within the frameworks educational performance and economic growth by Agbor (2015). In essence, the logic underpinning this classification is that, the institutional web of formal rules, informal norms and enforcement characteristics within a legal system influence how terrorism is fought by means of institutional regimes and government quality (Li, 2005;Choi, 2010;Lee et al, 2013). Classification of countries within this category is based on information from La Porta et al (2008, p. 289).…”