Terrorism, democratization, and US foreign policy

Abstract

Members of the American foreign policy establishment argue that the United States should combat transnational terrorism by encouraging democratization. Yet, empirical studies indicate that democratization may increase political violence, thereby raising the question: why would American policymakers favor democratization when the empirical record shows that this course of action is so dangerous? This study develops a game theoretic model to analyze the effect of democratization on terrorism. The model demonstrates that the United States uses the commitment problems created by democratization to solve the moral hazard problem created by supporting autocratic hosts. These empirical implications are tested using a combination of two datasets.