Terrorism and affinity of nations

Todd Sandler,Khusrav Gaibulloev

doi:10.1007/s11127-018-0611-8

Todd Sandler, Khusrav Gaibulloev

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-018-0611-8

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Abstract

This article investigates whether a country’s political proximity to the United States, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom exposes the country to terrorist attacks. We merge information on political proximity between countries and terrorism data to construct a panel of world countries for 1968–2014. Various measures of terrorism are included—i.e., number of transnational terrorist attacks, number of domestic terrorist attacks, and number of terrorist attacks with casualties. In addition, two measures of political proximity or affinity are employed. A host of control variables are included to account for standard determinants of terrorism. We find a clear relationship indicating that countries displaying a political affinity with key Western countries’ policy views attract more transnational and domestic terrorist attacks. The results are robust to alternative empirical specifications. Furthermore, countries’ affinity with the United States puts US citizens in greater peril from terrorist attacks in those countries.

Highlights

This article addresses an important terrorism question, first raised by Dreher and Gassebner (2008)
We broaden that question to ask: does the adoption of foreign policy stances similar to those of the United States and its three primary Western European allies (i.e., France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) raise a country’s risk of being a target of transnational and domestic terrorism? If the answer is affirmative, these at-risk countries must be vigilant to the enhanced terrorism risk as their voting behavior in, say, the UN General Assembly becomes more closely aligned with that of the United States and its prime allies
The estimates of Ideal Points Distance and Affinity are negative and positive, respectively; their opposite coefficient signs are expected because closer political proximity corresponds to lower values of Ideal Points Distance and higher values of Affinity

Summary

Introduction

This article addresses an important terrorism question, first raised by Dreher and Gassebner (2008). Does the adoption of foreign policy positions similar to those of the United States, which is a prime target of transnational terrorism, put a country at greater peril for terrorism? We broaden that question to ask: does the adoption of foreign policy stances similar to those of the United States and its three primary Western European allies (i.e., France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) raise a country’s risk of being a target of transnational and domestic terrorism? There can be a direct link between a country’s political affinity with some set of target countries and the country’s own need for greater counterterrorism efforts Limiting such political ties may reduce the country’s counterterrorism needs, as was true for Spain after the election following the March 11, 2004 Madrid commuter train bombing attack. The incoming Spanish government withdrew its support for the US-led War on Terror, which had been a demand of the terrorists, to limit its terrorism risks (Gaibulloev and Sandler 2019)

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