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

Abstract

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Flexible Causal Inference for Political Science

“…Failing to account for these interests leads to bias in the estimation of the impact of alliances on conflict (Levy, 1981;Bearce, Flanagan and Floros, 2006). In the same vein, poor economic conditions are thought to increase the risk of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess and Weerapana, 2004;Freytag, Krüger, Meierrieks and Schneider, 2011;Meierrieks and Gries, 2012), but important variables such as political freedom affect both the state of the economy and the incidence of terrorism (Grier and Tullock, 1989;Krieger and Meierrieks, 2011). Even weather, often used as an instrumental variable because of its independence from human influence, has become endogenous to anthropogenic climate change in studies of civil conflict (see, e.g., Tir andStinnett 2012 andTheisen 2012).…”

Terrorism Driven by High Population Growth

“…These topics are basic in modern society because terrorism is growing both in rich and developing nations (Newman, 2006;Reardon, 2015). Many studies endeavour to clarify the direct and indirect determinants of terrorism (Abadie, 2005;Crenshaw, 1981;Newman, 2006;Freytag et al, 2011;McAllister and Schmid, 2011), though predictors of terrorism are often unclear factors in different societies (Krueger and Malečková, 2009). Some sources of terrorism are economic factors (Blomberg et al, 2004;Krueger and Malečková, 2003), political factors (Coggins, 2015), social factors (Krueger and Malečková, 2003), etc.…”

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

“…Indeed, this notion is consistent with the literature on the determinants of terrorism. Here, several empirical studies suggest that terrorism becomes more likely when the means of economic participation are constrained (e.g., Basuchoudhary and Shughart, 2010;Gassebner and Luechinger, 2011), ethno-religious tensions and economic discrimination prevail (e.g., Basuchoudhary and Shughart, 2010;Piazza, 2011) and socioeconomic conditions are unfavourable (Burgoon, 2006;Freytag et al, 2011;Brockhoff et al, forthcoming). Our findings indicate that these terrorism-inducing (intervening) factors are in turn rooted in by income inequality, suggesting a causal link running from inequality via more societal frustration and poor further institutional and socio-economic conditions to more terrorist activity.…”

“…Ultimately, by depressing socio-economic development and economic growth, inequality may foster terrorist activity. Indeed, some empirical studies suggest that terrorism becomes more likely when socio-economic conditions are unfavorable (Burgoon, 2006;Caruso and Schneider, 2011;Gries et al, 2011;Freytag et al, 2011;Brockhoff et al, forthcoming).…”