The political economy of freedom, democracy and transnational terrorism

Abstract

We conduct an empirical analysis of data relating measures of economic and political freedom to the occurrence of transnational terrorism 1996–2002. We use binary logistical regression models to predict the probablities that a country will experience transnational terrorist attacks and that a given terrorist originates in a particular country. We find that the extent of political rights and civil liberties is negatively related with the generation of transnational terrorists from a country, but where the former is also negatively related with the occurrence of transnational terrorism in a country, the latter exhibits a non-linear relationship. A number of alternative explanations are disconfirmed: transnational terrorism is unrelated to inequality, economic growth, education, poverty, etc., while a society's fractionalization has mixed importance, and the religious composition has no or little association with attracting or producing transnational terrorism. A more trade-oriented economy seems consistently to associate with smaller probabilities of a country experiencing and generating transnational terrorism. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006Bush doctrine, Democracy, Freedom, Rent-seeking, Transnational terrorism,

Why Muslims like democracy yet have so little of it

“…Whereas differences in attitudes may explain differences in outcomes such as levels of democracy, marginal preferences are driven by rather than drivers of differences in environments. Such arguments resonate with a broader literature that has come up in recent years propagating rational choice rather than cultural or theological explanations for the behavior of religious groups (e.g., Epstein and Gang 2007;Iannaccone and Berman 2006;Kurrild-Klitgaard et al 2006). In the spirit of this literature, our argument indicates that instead of uncritically ascribing observed behavioral and ideational differences between groups to cultural or religious beliefs, they can be better understood in terms of rational responses to different circumstances.…”

“…Some examples of this approach are the studies by Epstein and Gang (2007), Iannaccone and Berman (2006), and KurrildKlitgaard et al (2006), all of which explain the occurrence of religious fundamentalism and terrorism in terms of a rational choice framework. This work shows that lack of freedom (Kurrild-Klitgaard et al 2006), lack of effectively functioning states and markets (Iannaccone and Berman 2006), and the presence of competition between religious groups (Epstein and Gang 2007) are all conducive to religious extremism and militancy.…”

The origins of terrorism: Cross-country estimates of socio-economic determinants of terrorism

“…Theoretically, some authors have stressed the role of the political and institutional order (e.g., Ross 1993) or of identity conflicts (e.g., Huntington 1996) in influencing terrorist activity. Empirically, some studies find political and institutional factors (e.g., Krueger and Malečková 2003;Kurrild-Klitgaard, Justensen and Klemmensen 2006), political instability (Piazza 2008) and ethnic tensions (Basuchoudhary and Shughart 2010) also matter to terrorism, potentially even trumping economic factors. 5 The result of this literature review is thus that terrorism can be analyzed economically, assuming that terrorists and their support are influenced by the costs, benefits and opportunity costs of their behavior.…”

“…In the economic literature this policy approach is implicitly backed by a number of empirical analyses (e.g., Abadie 2006;Krueger and Laitin 2008;Krueger and Malecková 2003;Kurrild-Klitgaard, Justensen and Klemmensen 2006;Krueger 2008) which show that terrorism is not rooted in poor socio-economic conditions (e.g., low levels of educational attainment, low income); rather, these studies claim that terrorists are typically well-educated and have a good economic status. The authors of these studies argue that terrorism is a political creature, i.e., that it is rooted in political repression.…”

Does Income Inequality Lead to Terrorism? Evidence from the Post-9/11 Era

“…Second, with respect to the inequality-terrorism relationship, the empirical evidence is likewise mixed. While some studies find that inequality is indeed associated with more terrorism (e.g., Piazza, 2011), a majority of studies (e.g., Li, 2005;Abadie, 2006;Kurrild-Klitgaard et al, 2006;Piazza, 2006) find that income inequality does not matter.…”