Does democracy or personal freedom affect the flow and return of IS foreign fighters?

Abstract

A considerable number of foreign fighters who joined the Islamic State (IS) came from developed countries enjoying high levels of democracy and personal freedom. Even after the demise of the Islamic State, the IS "returnees" remain a source of severe security risk globally. Many countries, especially those with a considerable number of IS fighters and returnees, face the challenge of striking the right balance between protecting national security against IS terrorism and preserving fundamental democratic institutions. This paper examines the effect of democracy and personal freedom on foreign fighters joining IS in Syria and Iraq. We also examine whether democracy and/or personal freedom affect the fraction of IS fighters returning home. Whereas the effect of democracy appears to be inconclusive, our cross-country regressions show that countries with a higher level of personal freedom (i) had a significantly larger fraction of their population joining IS, and (ii) receive a significantly larger percentage share of returning IS fighters. Our results are robust across different model specifications and account for possible collinearity concerns.