Who Supports Suicide Terrorism in Bangladesh? What the Data Say

Abstract

Bangladesh, one of the world’s largest Muslim countries, is generally viewed as a success story with a strong tradition of secular democracy. Unfortunately, this assertion rests on a weak empirical foundation. Since becoming independent from Pakistan in 1971, democracy and secularism have been consistently undermined. Moreover, since 2000 Bangladesh has experienced more than 100 incidents of Islamist terrorism. More recently, the Islamic State and Al Qaeda Indian Subcontinent have assaulted religious and ethnic minorities as well as secular and liberal activists. While these turns of events are alarming, Islamist militancy in Bangladesh remains understudied. In this paper, we address this lacuna by undertaking regression analysis of recent Pew survey data to exposit the determinants of popular support of Islamist terrorism. With this study, we hope other scholars will be motivated to turn their attention to this increasingly important state.