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Politicians: be killed or survive

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Abstract

In the course of history, a large number of politicians have been assassinated. To investigate this phenomenon, rational choice hypotheses are developed and tested using a large data set covering close to 100 countries over a period of 20 years. Several strategies, in addition to security measures, are shown to significantly reduce the probability of politicians being attacked or killed: extended institutional and governance quality, democracy, voice and accountability, a well-functioning system of law and order, decentralization via the division of power and federalism, larger cabinet size and a stronger civil society. There is also support for a contagion effect.

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Notes

  1. This does not include several recent and significant assassinations, such as Robert Kennedy (1968), Martin Luther King (1968), Rajiv Gandhi (1999), or Piet Fortuyn (2002).

  2. The Latin word “attentatum” (i.e., attempted crime), which still exists today in several languages (e.g., in French “attentat”, in Italian “attentato”, in Spanish “attentado” or in German “Attentat”), but is not used in English, captures this aspect. Another term sometimes used is “tyrannicide”, meaning the killing of a tyrant. The word assassination refers to the Ismaili Muslim sect Hashshahin, or Assassins who, between the 8th and 14th centuries, terrorized the Abbasid elite by fearlessly executing the politically motivated murders of rulers.

  3. Facts on political assassinations have been taken from various sources (especially Iqbal and Zorn 2006, 2008; and Jones and Olken 2009). Various articles in Wikipedia on “Assassination”, “List of assassins”, “List of unsuccessful assassinations”, “List of assassinated people”, “List of people who survived assassination attempts”, “List of assassinations by car bombing”, “List of assassinated anticolonialist leaders” were also useful; the information reported there was double-checked.

  4. Just to name a few: Caligula (41 AD), Claudius (54), Vitellius (69), Galba (69), Domitian (96), Commodus (192), Didius Julianus (193), Geta (212), Caracalla (217), Elagabal (222), Maximinus Thrax (238), Pupenius (238), Balbinus (238), Volasianus (253), and Galeus (253).

  5. See, e.g., Melanson and Stevens (2005), Beyer (2003), DiJulius (2003). The following articles in Wikipedia proved helpful in gaining an overview: “Bodyguard”, “Praetorian Guard”, “Janissary”, “Imperial Guard”, “United States Secret Service”, “Royalty and Diplomatic Protection Department”.

  6. The American Secret Service also investigates a wide variety of financial fraud crimes and identity thefts and provides forensic assistance for some local law-enforcement bodies. Not all of the 5,000 Secret Service agents are directly involved directly in protecting the president.

  7. Duffy and Ricci (1992), Hamerow (1997) and Gisevius (1998).

  8. There have been political assassinations in Switzerland, but the targets have been foreigners visiting or seeking refuge in the country, and the attackers have also been foreigners. Examples are the Austrian Empress and Queen of Hungary Elisabeth (“Sisi” or “Sissi” in books and films), who was killed in 1898 by an anarchist in Geneva, and Kazem Radjavi, representative of the Iranian Resistance to the Commission on Human Rights, who was assassinated in 1990 in Coppet, near Geneva.

  9. It is debatable whether the groups active then meet the conditions outlined above for a political assassination, as these revolutionaries were often terrorist groups (such as the German RAF, the Italian Brigate Rosse, or the French Action Direct) and not one or a few individual attackers (see, e.g., Frey 2004).

  10. For simplicity’s sake, the term “political assassination” is taken to include both attempted and successful political assassinations.

  11. http://www.icrgonline.com/page.aspx?page=icrgmethods#Background_of_the_ICRG_Rating_System. We are not aware that the overall index covers also political assassinations.

  12. The ‘law’ sub-component measures the strength and impartiality of the legal system, while the ‘order’ sub-component is an assessment of popular observance of the law.

  13. We use the Weighted Conflict Index provided by Banks’ Cross-National Time-Series Data Archive without considering political assassinations. The weighted conflict index is calculated in the following manner: multiply the value of the number of General Strikes by 43, Guerrilla Warfare by 46, Government Crises by 48, Purges by 86, Riots by 102, Revolutions by 148 and Anti-Government Demonstrations by 200. Add the weighted values together and divide by eight (see Banks’ Cross-National Time-Series Data Archive codebook).

  14. The mean value of all sub-factors.

  15. We differentiate between Europe, Latin America, North America, North Africa, Sub Saharan Africa, the Pacific, Asia, the Caribbean and Australia.

  16. Nevertheless, one should keep in mind the previous discussion with regard to potential biases in our dependent variable. Due to potential manipulation, data from developing countries are less reliable than those from developed countries.

  17. See Mitchell et al. (2004).

  18. When the US president visits a foreign country, a large number of secret service agents are sent in advance. When the president arrives, he does so with a small air force, a motorcade of armor-plated cars, a communications van packed with state-of-the art devices and 250 heavily armed secret service agents, dozens of advisers and teams of sniffer dogs. See “Protecting the US president abroad” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/amewricas/4535911.stm).

  19. The current emphasis on protective measures can partly be explained by rent seeking (the same can be claimed for the reaction against terrorist threats, treated extensively in Frey 2004, Chap. 2). There are a great many organizations and persons benefiting directly from extended security measures, in particular the secret service community.

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Acknowledgements

For advice and suggestions thanks are due to three anonymous referees and one of the Public Choice’s Associate Editors and the Editor in Chief William F. Shughart II.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology, GPO Box 2434, Brisbane, QLD 4001, Australia

    Benno Torgler

  2. CREMA—Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts, Gellertstrasse 18, 4052, Basel, Switzerland

    Benno Torgler & Bruno S. Frey

  3. Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Wilfriedstrasse 6, 8032, Zurich, Switzerland

    Bruno S. Frey

  4. Warwick Business School, The University of Warwick, Scarman Road, Coventry, CV4 7Al, UK

    Bruno S. Frey

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  1. Benno Torgler
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Correspondence to Bruno S. Frey.

Appendix

Appendix

Table A.1 Summary statistics
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Table A.2 Countries
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Fig. A.1
figure 1

Assassinations per year (mean over all countries)

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Fig. A.2
figure 2

Key independent variables per year (mean)

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Torgler, B., Frey, B.S. Politicians: be killed or survive. Public Choice 156, 357–386 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-011-9908-6

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