ALAN KRUEGER AND DAVID LAITINPRESENTER: KYLE MARQUARDT

14.04 .08

Кто Кого? A Cross-Country Study of the Origins and Targets of Terrorism

Background

Condos and Caves! Simplistic Policy Rationales!

“Macroeconomic shifts generally fail to map on to changes in the amount of terrorism” (2). Micro-level studies have indicated that those who

participate tend to be from better off strata Small number of studies have found little correlation

between economic factors and the incidence of terrorism

Why study the who to whom?

International Terrorism Dataset

US State Dept. “Patterns of Terrorism” 1,953 events from 1997-2002; 781 “significant” Coding problems?

Is “Patterns of Terrorism” valid? Correlates well with independent “Iterate” dataset General similarity indicative of external validity No systematic biases seen in State Department dataset And you’ve got to use something.

Table 1 (raw number of events + events per million) India highest, but on average close to mean Israel, Sierra Leone and Angola have largest number of attacks per capita 87% same origin and locale 46% same origin and target 52% same target and locale 44% same target, locale and origin

What does that mean?

Suicide Attack Dataset

Two data sets merged = 236 recorded suicide attacks in 11 countries

Coding Less ambiguous than terrorism Palestinian attacks on Israel coded as same origin,

target, locality = problem? Coding

187/210 attacks have same origin and target; relevant difference ethnicity or religion

Different from terrorism.

Event Analyses

Terrorism and suicide attacks are product of organizational strategy (Berman and Laitin; Durkheim) = how should that map onto kto-kogo?

Symbolic attacks on foreign property in terrorism only = why? Religion (11-12)

Paper uses the probability that perpetrator and target different religions Terrorism only trivially more likely to involve interreligious parties than if randomly determined Suicide attacks more likely to be inter-religious than random (esp. if you look at religious diff.

w/in country) Origin countries for terrorism and suicide different

Suicide countries richer. “A great amount of concentration and a low level of diffusion to other countries of these

technologies of warfare.” (pg. 12) KTO KOGO

In 44% terrorism, same origin, locale and target (would be 0, but India and Palestine); in less than half, same citizenship of perpetrator and target

Suicide attacks = very local 90% same perpetrators, targets and locale 90%, same target and perpetrator 92% same target and locale 95% same locale and perpetrator

Country Level: Terrorism

Weighted average of characteristics across countries

Who is a terrorist (origin countries)? Low-income countries with low GDP growth (not monotonic;

overrepresentation in poorest and third quartiles) (Colombia and India ditched)

Countries characterized by anocracy and instabilityTo whom is a terrorist a terrorist (target countries)?

Wealthier countries that are more stable, less anocratic and more democratic

“Occupying” forcesWhere is a terrorist a terrorist?

Poor, high illiteracy, high infant mortality

Country Level: Suicide Attacks

Figures for perpetrators and targets look similar because the target of most of the suicide attacks resided in the same country as perpetrator

Targets and origins tend to be from wealthier, stable and democratic countries

But doesn’t take regional differences into account

Further Statistical Analysis

Conditioned on explanatory variable; country level analysis (pg. 16) Unit of observation = person Terrorism

Origin Country’s GDP per capita is unrelated to number of terrorists originating from the country (but

looks to be u-shaped) = different from radar charts Lower level of civil liberties = higher participation

Target Increasing GDP = increasing risk of terrorism? No monotonic relationship of civil liberties to terrorism More political rights = higher risk

Suicide rates = really small sample Involvement of wealthy countries are involved (no countries in bottom quartile) = suicide

employed where standard conditions of insurgency disfavored Origins of terrorism more randomly distributed across quartiles of GDP per capita = Laitin

and Berman Sri Lanka and Israel = large influence Religious fractionalization not significant, though suicide attacks generally

inter-religious

Variables selected because significantNo surprises in light of earlier conclusionsOrigins of terrorism in political factors, while

targets more economicNo religion seems to have monopoly on

terrorism

Terrorism Regression

Kto Kogo Matrix

Every country included Two variables: income and civil liberties Income = 4x4 matrix

Country pairs based on GDP per capita quartile In each cell, number of incidents perpetrated by people from one quartile on people in

another Normalized counts by dividing the geometric mean of total population across countries in

the two income brackets =size weighted

Civil liberties = analogous but 3x3 Results = similar to 6

Terrorist who do not strike targets in their own income brackets (e.g. their own country) are much more likely to strike against targets from higher-income countries than from lower-income countries.

Lower and especially middle-level countries (in terms of civil liberties) are much more likely to be origin countries for terrorism.

Increase in source countries from middle level (b/c of repression + opening) more likely to be origin countries for terrorism b/c of new aggregation

Conclusion and Questions

International terrorism’s source more due to repression than poverty; terrorize the rich = “the feel of economic warfare” (23).

Or just mainly anti-Western warfare, when international (esp. suicide bombing)?

Intra-state terrorism not included, except in ambiguous cases = obscures regional differences within states?

How would events not included in the data sets (e.g. in Iraq, Afghanistan and former USSR) change this?

Different technologies of insurgency, terrorism and suicide attacks: Berman and Laitin: “Rational Martyrs vs Hard Targets” Fearon and Laitin: “Explaining Interethnic Cooperation” and “Ethnicity,

Insurgency and Civil War” Fearon: “Why Do Some Civil Wars Last So Much Longer Than Others?”