Terrorism and Freedom of Expression: An Econometric Analysis

Abstract

We apply empirical methods to examine the relationship between the frequency of terrorist incidences and freedom of expression, which we measure using Freedom House's Freedom of the Press report, and access to landline telephones, mobile phones, and the Internet. Using standard ordinary least squares econometric methods, we ultimately find that greater mobile phone access tends to increase the frequency of terrorist incidences at a diminishing rate and that greater Internet access tends to decrease the frequency of terrorist incidences at a diminishing rate. On average, the frequency of terrorist incidences is highest when societies have access to 137.89 mobile phone subscriptions for each 100 people, and lowest when the percentage of people with Internet access is at 64.79%. Based on our results, we cannot conclude that either freedom of the press or landline telephone access have any statistically significant influence on the frequency of terrorist incidences.