Electoral terms and terrorism

Abstract

Many terror attacks occur at the beginning of electoral terms. We present a game theoretical model with incomplete information to account for this empirical pattern. Both terrorists and governments can be of weak or strong types. We find that the risk of terror attacks is highest at the beginning of electoral terms, because striking early allows the terrorists to collect valuable information about the government's type, and also because terrorists know that even initially weak governments sometimes retaliate to show toughness closer to an upcoming election. The model's predictions are consistent with anecdotal evidence.

Mafia, elections and violence against politicians

“…To identify the effect of the electoral cycle, we exploit the specific design of Italian local elections, which are distributed on a rolling basis in a five-year cycle across cities ( Figure 4 20 This particular feature gives us two advantages. First, even though our database consists of only four years, we observe 18 electoral-period observations, which allows us to draw meaningful conclusions about attacks' recurrence within electoral cycles.…”

Shooting for the Tsars: Heterogeneous Political Volatility and Institutional Change in Russia

“…32 Autocracies and monarchies, on the other hand, are famously more stable and less affected by political instability in discrete bursts, 33 mainly due to either an ability to co-opt the rebellious 34 or via the mechanisms of repression which raise the cost of deliberate political instability, either at the individual 35 or collective level. 36 In theory, this leads to fewer incidences of political violence than in democracies, 37 but a corollary of this work makes such an outcome dependent upon the strength of the regime: intuitively, if political violence, terrorism, or large-scale unrest should occur in a weaker institutional environment, such political instability can be plausibly expected to have at least the probability of a modicum of success in changing the political order. The precise reason why terrorist attacks in a weak institutional environment may generate large responses is that repeated terrorist attacks can weaken a regime and perhaps even cause regime change.…”

Was the Nigerian 2015 presidential election a victory for Boko Haram or for democracy?

“…2 Institute for Security Studies bombings, arson attacks on electoral properties, the brutalising, maiming and killing of electoral personnel, suicide attacks, and gun violence, with the sole intention of intimidating and spreading fear among voters and electoral personnel with a view to influencing electoral outcomes or discrediting the election process itself. In a study, Roland Hodler and Dominic Rohner find that the risk of terrorist attacks is highest at the beginning of electoral terms because, as they explain, 'striking early allows the terrorists to collect valuable information about the government's type, and also because terrorists know that even initially weak governments sometimes retaliate to show toughness closer to an upcoming election'. 26 Other scholars have postulated the view that the risk of electoral terrorism is dependent on the permissibility of electoral systems. In this context, where electoral institutions are highly permissive, the risk of violent elections or electoral terrorism occurring is low.…”