Forthcoming Economics & Politics
What are the main causes of international terrorism? Despite the meticulous
examination of various
candidate explanations, existing estimates still diverge in sign, size,
and significance. This paper puts
forward a novel explanation and supporting evidence. We argue that domestic
political instability provides
the learning environment needed to successfully execute international terror
attacks. Using a yearly panel
of 123 countries over 1973-2003, we find that the occurrence of civil wars
increases fatalities and the
number of international terrorist acts by 45%. These results hold for alternative
indicators of political
instability, estimators, sub-samples, sub-periods and accounting for competing
explanations.
September 2012 version (fully revised, all new results):
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