James A. Piazza

Rooted in Poverty?: Terrorism, Poor Economic Development, and Social Cleavages 1

ABSTRACT This study evaluates the popular hypothesis that poverty, inequality, and poor economic development are root causes of terrorism. Employing a series of multiple regression analyses on terrorist incidents and casualties in ninety-six countries from 1986 to 2002, the study considers the significance of poverty, malnutrition, inequality, unemployment, inflation, and poor economic growth as predictors of terrorism, along with a variety of political and demographic control variables. The findings are that, contrary to popular opinion, no significant relationship between any of the measures of economic development and terrorism can be determined. Rather, variables such as population, ethno-religious diversity, increased state repression and, most significantly, the structure of party politics are found to be significant predictors of terrorism. The article concludes that “social cleavage theory” is better equipped to explain terrorism than are theories that link terrorism to poor economic development.

Poverty, Minority Economic Discrimination and Domestic Terrorism

Recognizing that the empirical literature of the past several years has produced an inconclusive picture, this study revisits the relationship between poverty and terrorism and suggests a new factor to explain patterns of domestic terrorism: minority economic discrimination. Central to this study is the argument that because terrorism is not a mass phenomenon but rather is undertaken by politically marginal actors with often narrow constituencies, the economic status of subnational groups is a crucial potential predictor of attacks. Using data from the Minorities at Risk project, I determine that countries featuring minority group economic discrimination are significantly more likely to experience domestic terrorist attacks, whereas countries lacking minority groups or whose minorities do not face discrimination are significantly less likely to experience terrorism. I also find minority economic discrimination to be a strong and substantive predictor of domestic terrorism vis-à-vis the general level of economic development. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of the findings for scholarship on terrorism and for counter-terrorism policy.

Why Respecting Physical Integrity Rights Reduces Terrorism

Does respect for human rights check or promote terrorism? This question is hotly debated within policy circles. Some hold that restricting human rights is a necessary if unfortunate cost of preventing terrorism. Others conclude that such abuses aggravate political grievances that contribute to terror. The authors demonstrate that theory and data support the latter position. They hypothesize that abuse of the subset of rights known as physical integrity rights fuels terrorism by making it more difficult for government authorities to collect intelligence on terrorists and by undermining domestic and international support for their counterterrorism efforts. They test this hypothesis using a data set that includes measures of both domestic and transnational terrorist attacks and find that respect for physical integrity rights is consistently associated with fewer terrorist attacks. This suggests that those interested in curtailing terrorism should press governments to more carefully respect physical integrity rights.

Is Islamist Terrorism More Dangerous?: An Empirical Study of Group Ideology, Organization, and Goal Structure

Scholars have traditionally argued that Islamist terrorist groups tend to commit higher casualty attacks. Noting that casualty rates of attacks vary widely across Islamist terrorist groups, this study advances an alternative hypothesis that group organizational features and goal structures better explain differing casualty rates than does the overarching ideological type. Using both cross-national analysis and a case study of post-invasion Iraq, I demonstrate that there are two basic types of Islamist terrorist groups whose organizational and goal-structure features explain divergent casualty rates: “strategic groups” that function similarly to secular national-liberation and regime-change movements and “abstract/universal groups” that are affiliated with the global al-Qaeda network.

Draining the Swamp: Democracy Promotion, State Failure, and Terrorism in 19 Middle Eastern Countries

This study empirically evaluates the question of whether or not the promotion of democracy in the Middle East will reduce terrorism, both in terms of terrorist attacks sustained by Middle Eastern countries and in terms of attacks perpetrated by terrorist groups based in Middle Eastern countries. Using a series of pooled, time-series negative binomial statistical regression models on 19 countries from 1972 to 2003 the analysis demonstrates that the more politically liberal Middle Eastern states—measured both in terms of democratic processes and in terms of civil liberties protections—are actually more prone to terrorist activity than are Middle Eastern dictatorships. The study demonstrates, furthermore, that an even more significant predictor of Middle Eastern terrorist attacks is the intensity of state failures, or episodes of severe political instability that limit central government projection of domestic authority, suffered by states in the region. States that are unable to respond to fundamental challenges to political stability posed by internal political strife, ethnic conflict or the phenomenon of “stateless areas,” geographic or political spaces within states that eschew central government authority, are significantly more likely to host or sustain attacks from terrorist groups. The findings have implications for current United States antiterrorism policy toward the Middle East and provide a statistical/empirical foundation to previous studies on the relationship between terrorism and state failure.

A Supply-Side View of Suicide Terrorism: A Cross-National Study

The recent literature on the root causes of suicide terrorism yields several testable hypotheses, most notably that suicide attacks are a strategic response by terrorist groups confronting foreign occupation by democratic states. This study does not find empirical support for this and other common hypotheses and instead demonstrates that suicide terrorism is a product of political and organizational features of the terrorists themselves. While foreign occupation, religious diversity, and group typology do predict suicide attacks, democracies are not more likely to be targets of suicide terrorism. Terrorists, however, who are nationals of nondemocracies are significantly more likely to launch suicide attacks.

Globalizing Quiescence: Globalization, Union Density and Strikes in 15 Industrialized Countries

This study examines the role played by globalization in the decline of strike rates in industrialized countries after the 1980s. Using a pooled, time-series multiple regression analysis of 15 advanced capitalist countries in North America, Western Europe and East Asia from 1952 to 2001, the author finds a relationship between globalization – measured in terms of international trade, investment and loosened international capital controls – and declining strike rates, but finds that the relationship is non-monotonic and that the level and change of union density plays an intermediary role between globalization and labor quiescence. The findings empirically validate earlier work by Tsebelis and Lange and Shalev, who also demonstrated a non-monotonic relationship between macroeconomic phenomena, labor strength and strikes.

Games Rivals Play: Terrorism in International Rivalries

The quantitative terrorism literature has largely overlooked interstate relations when evaluating predictors of transnational terrorist attacks, opting to focus on state, group, or individual-level factors to explain patterns of terrorism using analytical methods that are limited to either the origin or target of the attack. In this piece we argue that this is both incongruous with the larger conflict literature and limiting in terms of theoretical impact. Transnational terrorism in many cases is more accurately considered a component of conflicting relations between two states generally hostile towards each other, which necessitates an examination of both states. We demonstrate, by conducting a series of statistical analyses using politically relevant directed dyads, that interstate rivalries are reliable positive predictors of transnational terrorism. We find that interstate rivalries explain a great deal of variation in cross-national patterns of terrorism, a result that is robust to different rivalry ...The empirical terrorism literature has largely overlooked interstate relations when evaluating predictors of international terrorist attacks, opting to focus on state, group, or individual-level factors to explain patterns of terrorism using analytical methods that are limited to either the origin or target of the attack. In this piece we argue that this is both incongruous with the larger conflict literature and limiting in terms of theoretical impact. Terrorism is more accurately considered a component of conflictual relations between two states generally hostile towards each other, which necessitates an examination of both states. We demonstrate, by conducting a series of negative binomial regression estimates using politically-relevant directed dyads, that interstate rivalries are highly robust, positive predictors of international terrorism. We use two different rivalry measures – Klein, Goertz and Diehl (2006) and Rasler and Thompson (2006) – and find that interstate rivalries, regardless of operationalization, explain a greater degree of variation in patterns of terrorism than do established significant predictors such as regime type, regime capacity to project force, or population.

Types of Minority Discrimination and Terrorism

Qualitative research suggests that discrimination against minority groups precipitates terrorism in countries. This study adds to this body of research by determining which specific manifestations of minority discrimination—political, socioeconomic or cultural—are important and substantive predictors of terrorist activity. To do so, I conduct a series of negative binomial estimations and substantive effects simulations on a cross-national dataset of terrorist attacks and the treatment of minority groups in four specific areas: political participation and representation, economic status, religious and language rights. The results indicate that socioeconomic discrimination against minorities is the only consistently significant and highly substantive predictor of terrorism. The study concludes by discussing the implications of these findings to the scholarly literature on terrorism.

Physical Integrity Rights and Terrorism

Can states afford to protect human rights when facing a terrorist threat? Contemporary academic literature suggests that the answer to this question is no, concluding that states that afford their citizens basic political rights and civil liberties leave themselves more exposed to terrorist attacks (Piazza 2008 ; Wade and Reiter 2007 ; Pape 2003 ; Eubank and Weinberg 1994 ). American policymakers seem to agree. Both the Bush and Obama administrations regard the curtailment of physical integrity rights as a necessary element of effective counterterrorism policy. The Bush administration responded to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, with policies permitting indefinite detention, extraordinary rendition, use of physically abusive interrogation practices, and increased and largely unchecked surveillance and wiretapping of suspected terrorists. Although it banned abusive interrogation and announced plans to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, the Obama administration has maintained the practice of wiretapping, reserved the option of rendition, and dramatically increased unmanned drone attacks against suspected terrorists in Pakistan, which often results in civilian casualties. Both presidents have claimed that these policies are necessary to keep Americans safe from terrorism (Hosenball 2009; “Bush Defends Policy on Terror Detainees” 2005).