How Terrorism Spreads
"How Terrorism Spreads: Information, Emulation, and the Spatial Diffusion of Ethnic and Ethnoreligious Terrorism" & Appendix
Rice University
Abstract:
Previous research on the causes of terrorism has tended to focus on domestic determinants. Although such a closed-polity approach can be helpful to understand many causes of terrorism, existing research has generally had little to say about diff usion as a determinant of domestic terrorism or the conditions under which terrorist tactics can spread from one group to others. This study identifi es theoretically and tests empirically the mechanisms of diff usion of ethnonationalist and ethno-religious domestic terrorism. The adoption of terrorist tactics on the part of ethnic and ethno-religious groups often results from social emulation between politically similar (e.g. politically excluded) and geographically proximate groups as well as groups connected by preexisting networks (e.g. same ethnic kin-diaspora, or religious ties). The hypotheses are tested on a new dataset of ethnonationalist and ethno-religious terrorist organizations from 1970 to 2009 using spatial statistics and Bayesian spatial econometric models. The results provide strong support for the hypothesized mechanisms leading to the di ffusion of terrorist tactics and suggest that learning and emulation - in addition to domestic and contextual factor - influence dissidents' tactic choice.
Discussants:
Chad Clay, University of Georgia
Jessica Braithwaite, University of Arizona
Navin Bapat, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
David Siegel, Duke University
OPSC Coordinator: Emily Ritter, University of California - Merced
Graduate Assistant:
Peter D. Carey II (University of California Merced)
