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The political economy of freedom, democracy and transnational terrorism

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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.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, DK-1014, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard

  2. Dept. of Political Science and Public Management, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, DK-5230, Odense M, Denmark

    Mogens K. Justesen & Robert Klemmensen

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  1. Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard
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  2. Mogens K. Justesen
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  3. Robert Klemmensen
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Correspondence to Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard.

Additional information

An earlier version was presented at the Public Choice conference on The Political Economy of Terrorism, George Mason University, 24–25 May 2005, and we owe thanks for comments to the participants in that event.

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Kurrild-Klitgaard, P., Justesen, M.K. & Klemmensen, R. The political economy of freedom, democracy and transnational terrorism. Public Choice 128, 289–315 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-006-9055-7

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