Democracy’s Ambivalent Effect on Terrorism

Abstract

Does democracy heighten or lessen the incidence of terrorism? This question has eluded a definitive answer for over three decades. Some terrorism researchers find that democracy has dampened terrorism; others that democracy has encouraged it; still others that there is a curvilinear or more nuanced relationship between the two. In this article, we contend that democracy has differential effects on terrorism, depending on the goals of particular terrorist groups. We claim that efforts to restrict democracy, by decreasing political rights and civil liberties, will effectively constrain terrorist activity from “strategic” groups but will have the opposite effect on “universalist” groups. The reason for this variance, we argue, involves the scope of ambition and underlying motivation distinguishing these very different types of terrorist movements. Because universalist groups have abstract ambitions and non-negotiable goals, they are unlikely to be deterred by crackdowns on democracy. Alternatively, because strategic groups do not see their missions as all-or-nothing campaigns of good versus evil and instead seek limited and concrete goals, anti-democratic measures are more likely to succeed against them. Our analysis of 200 countries from 1972 to 2016 finds strong support for this claim.

Did Religious Freedom Exacerbate COVID-19? A Global Analysis

“…Previous peer-reviewed studies have shown religious freedom to be positively related to a number of public goods, including (i) development (Alon & Chase, 2005;Grim, 2008a;Shah, 2018), (ii) security (Farr, 2008;Toft et al, 2011;Grim & Finke, 2011;Inboden, 2012;Saiya, 2014;Saiya, 2015a;Saiya, 2015b;Saiya and Scime, 2015;Saiya, 2017a;Saiya, 2017b;Saiya and Fidler, 2018;Saiya and Scime, 2019;Saiya, 2019a;Saiya, 2019b;Saiya, 2020;Saiya and Manchanda, 2020a;Saiya and Manchanda, 2020b;Henne, Saiya, and Hand, 2020;Saiya, 2021;Saiya and Hand, 2022;, (iii) business (Grim et al, 2014), and (iv) even health (Grim & Grim, 2019). Thus, religious freedom is believed to not only be an integral part of the "bundled commodity" of human freedoms, it is also closely related to the general betterment of people's lives (Grim, 2008b).…”