Education, Income, and Support for Suicide Bombings: Evidence from Six Muslim Countries

Abstract

The authors examine the effect of educational attainment and income on support for suicide bombing among Muslim publics in six predominantly Muslim countries that have experienced suicide bombings: Indonesia, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, and Turkey. The authors make two contributions. First, they present a conceptual model, which has been lacking in the literature. Second, they consider attitudes toward two different targets of suicide bombings: civilians within the respondent’s country and Western military and political personnel in Iraq. The authors find that the effect of educational attainment and income on support for suicide bombings varies across countries and targets.The findings therefore draw attention to the difficulties of making generalizations about Muslim countries and the importance of distinguishing between targets of suicide bombings.