Social Forces 2006 Robison 2009 26

8/3/2019 Social Forces 2006 Robison 2009 26

1/18

Ideologies of V iolence:Th e Social Origins of Islam ist and L eftist T r a n s n a t i o n a lTerrorismKristopher K. Robison, Ohio S ta te Univ ers i tyEdward M . Crenshaw, Ohio S tate U nivers ityJ. Craig Jenkins, Ohio S ta te Univ ers i ty

A bstractW e ev aluate the argume nt that Is lam is t terroris t at tacks represent a dis t inct ive "4`" w ave"o f transnational t error ism tha t has supplan ted L ef t i s t terror ism . Drawing on ITER A TEdata for 1968-2003, t h e a n n u a l co u n t of L ef t i s t at tacks h as dec l ined s ince the en d o f theCold W ar w hi le Is lam is t a t tacks hav e pers is ted and spiked upw ard in 2002-03. Pooledcross-sectional tim e-series regression dem ons trates that the gen eration of Islam ist te rrorismi s m ore de e p ly roo te d in the so c ial s t ra ins c re a te d by m ode rn iz a tion , t he c om pe t i ti onbetw een Islam and other re ligions, and the grow th of secular gov ernm ent. Lef t ist terrorismw as uniquely s t imulated by Cold W ar r iv alry (and subsequent ly decl ined thereaf ter) . B othf o r m s of transnational t er ror i sm d i sp lay a k indred na ture , ho w ev er , in tha t bo th areenco uraged by the social strains of t rans i t ional dev elopm ent and the po l it ical opportuni t iescreated by increasing political rights. M oreov er, foreign direct inve stm ent is associated w ithreduced transnational terrorism o v er t im e, calling into question th eories that stress globalorder and ant i -sy s tem ic violen ce agains t internat ional capi talism .Between 1968 and 2003 there were more than 6,100 transnational terrorist attacks, causingmore than 36,000 deaths and injuries (Mickolus, Sandler, Murdock and Flemin 2003). For theUnited States, the watershed event was the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center andthe attack on the Pentagon, which set off a new round of speculation about the genesis oftransnational terrorism. Alongside standard explanations emphasizing inequality and thesocial strains of transitional development, many now suggest globalization (Lake 2002),political repression (Hafez 2003), the cultural clash between Western and Islamist values(Huntington 1996), and the pro-Israeli stance of the United States (Pape 2005) as the majorcauses of contemporary transnational terrorism.

One salient argument conceptualizes transnational terrorism in "waves." Arguing that thecollapse of the Soviet Union undermined the legitimacy of revolutionary Marxist ideology(Chirot 1991; Snow 1996), some contend that the Iranian revolution of 1979 marked thebeginning of a "4th wave" of international terrorism rooted in Islamist ideologies (Rapoport2004; Laqueur 2001; Snow 1996). Where "3rd wave" Leftist terrorism traditionally used anational liberation framework to make appeals to the middle and lower classes of lessdeveloped countries, this new Islamist terrorism is seen as making broader multi-classappeals, using more lethal tactics justified in religious terms, and is more organizationallyW e w ould like to thank Jeremy Forbis for research assistance. The current wo rk w as supported in partby the M ershon Center for In ternational S tud ies a t the O hio S ta te U nive rs ity . A ddi t ional supportcame f rom N at ional Sc ience Foundat ion grants SES -0218367, S ES -0527631 and S ES -0216160.Direc t corresponden ce to K r is topher Ro bison, Departm ent o f S ociology, 300 B ricker Hall, 190 N.Ov al M all , Oh io State Unive rsi ty , Colum bus OH 43210. E-m ail: Ro [email protected]. The University of North Carolina Pressocial Forces, Volume 84, Number 4, June 2006 atEJILmemberaccessonOctober20,2011

http://sf.oxfordjournals.o

rg/

Download

edfrom
http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/


2/18

2010 Social Forces Volume 84 , Number 4 June 2006

consolidated (Rapoport 2004; see also Hoffman 1998; Enders and Sandler 2000; Laqueur2001; Stern 2002; Juergensmeyer 2003).

Another way of looking at this change in transnational terrorism is as a clash of civilizations(Huntington 1998). In this view, the end of the Cold War ushered in a new geopolitical era inwhich the traditional superpower clash and related debates between Marxist and capitalistideologies have been supplanted by cultural clashes defined in religious and civilizationalterms. This has generated changes in the way nationalism is used to justify terrorism. In placeof secular theories of nationalism, religion has become a new basis for nationalist ideology(Juergensmeyer 1995) and is therefore used to justify transnational terrorism.

This perspective suggests continuities and significant differences in the "root" causes thatdrive the two kinds of transnational terrorism. Both may be essentially anti-colonial struggles,at least in the minds of the terrorists themselves. Moreover, as cultural traditionalism erodesunder the rapid onslaught of social change, social disorganization likely instigates both formsof terrorism. On the other hand, the orientation of the followers of these two ideologiestoward the state should differ. Leftist terrorists are not hostile to the idea of the secularnational state, whereas Islamist terrorists may well be. For example, the power orintrusiveness of the state may not stimulate Leftist terrorism, who might well cheer such"social progress," whereas a strong, intrusive state might spark Islamist resistance. We wouldalso expect differences in the social frames and the interpretation of symbolic global events.Specifically, the Iranian revolution might have inspired Islamist terrorism and led toproselytizing attempts to export this revolutionary model to other Muslim societies, while thecollapse of the Soviet Union might have reduced Leftist terrorism.This study examines whether there have been distinct third and fourth waves ofinternational terrorism and, second, their sociological origins. We use the ideology of thegroups that committed transnational terrorism to identify Leftist and Islamist transnationalterrorist attacks between 1973 and 2002. While several studies of transnational terrorism havefocused on the country contexts in which attacks occur, our analysis focuses on the countrycontexts that produce transnational terrorism (i.e., those countries that produced theterrorists themselves). By transnational terrorism, we mean the "premeditated use of extra-normal violence or brutality by subnational groups to obtain a political, religious or ideologicalobjective through the intimidation of a huge audience, usually not involved with the policymaking that the terrorists seek to influence." (Enders and Sandler 2002: 145-46; also Mickoluset al. 2003; Li and Schaub 2004; Li 2005) We apply a set of common variables to the twosamples to detect the social factors that drive these seemingly different forms oftransnational terrorism.

Explaining Transnational TerrorismThe existing literature on terrorism largely focuses on the ideology and psychology ofterrorists (e.g., Juergensmeyer 2003, Stern 2003), terrorist recruitment (e.g., Sageman 2004)and types of attacks (e.g., Pape 2005, Bloom 2005), or grand debates over the impoverishedvs. privileged backgrounds of individual terrorists (e.g., Krueger and Maleckov6 2003). Whilethese are useful, they do not tell us all that we might wish to know about the social, politicaland economic contexts that encourage transnational terrorist violence. Many of the currentarguments about neo-colonial dependency, U.S. military intrusion and civilizational clash canbest be tested with a macrosociological approach. We begin by applying some standardtheories of political violence to the generation of transnational terrorism, and then discussnewer perspectives involving globalization and civilizational clash. We organize these theoriesinto broad thematic "families" below.

atEJILmemberaccessonOctober20,2011


rg/

Download

edfrom


3/18

Soc ial Origins of Islamist and Leftist Terrorism 20 11Theories of Social Disorganization/StrainSome classic arguments posit that rapid development creates social disorganizat ion andstrains, thereby encouraging political violence. Terrorism (like other forms of political violence)is more likely at intermediate levels of economic development and in traditional societiesexperiencing rapid economic change (Huntington 1968, 1996). Traditional societies oftenexhibit a uniformity (or social segmentation) and internal cohesion that make conflict lesslikely (Simmel 1964; Coser 1964). Modern societies also exhibit equilibrium; they have greaterfunctional differentiation and social interdependence, affluence and less inequality. Duringtransitional development, however, rapid urbanization, growing inequalities, the presence offoreigners, the erosion of traditional social norms and the rapid growth of new institutions(such schools and urban employment) create both grievances and ideal recruiting grounds forterrorist organizations.A related issue is demographic change. While demographics alone cannot explaininternational terrorism, many say that population structure plays a role in creating grievances.Rapid population growth redistributes resources away from labor, which may increaseeconomic grievances (Goldstone 1997). Several researchers have argued that a 'youth bulge'of unattached, unemployed men encourages generalized violence and terrorism becausethey are easily recruited by radical causes (Crenshaw 1981; Huntington 1998; Hudson andDeBoer 2002). Although several studies have found some effect of GDP per capita on thetargets of international terrorism (i.e., more developed countries are more likely targets),neither development nor economic growth seem to affect the creation of attacks or theircountry location (Krueger and Laitin 2003; Lai 2004; Li and Schaub 2004), These findings,however, are based on limited time periods and samples that need further evaluation.Researchers have also noted that terrorists often have some university education (Schmidet al. 1988). In developing societies, students in formal education may be culturally caughtbetween two worlds, one traditional and the other modern. Given that schools anduniversities are often incubators for idealized views of the world, they expose the young toideologies that promote radical change and social activism. Thus formal educational systems,particularly those that are not balanced by a dynamic economy and strong civil society, mayprovide recruiting grounds for radical causes. While Kurrlid-Klitgaard et al. (2005) find noeffects of secondary schooling on international terrorism in the late 1990s, Testas (2004) findspositive effects in a subsample of Muslim majority countries.

T heories of Political O rderMany argue that quasi-authoritarian and partial democracies are more prone to internal armedconflicts and civil war (Schock 1996; Marshall and Gurr 2003; Hegre et al. 2001). These statesare semi-open, creating opportunities for dissident mobilization but are sufficiently repressiveto stoke moral outrage at restrictions on political activities. Studies to date have found mixedresults. Lai (2004) found that strong autocracies produce less international terrorism, whileKrueger and Laitin (2003) found that civil liberties are negatively related to the generation ofterrorism as well as to the likelihood of becoming its target. On the other hand, Eubank andWeinberg (2001) and Li and Schaub (2004) found that stable democracies are the targets ofmore attacks. As a refinement, Li (2005) suggests that democratic participation reducesterrorism but that political rights (in the form of constraints on executive power) encouragesuch attacks. In addition, regime transitions, especially shifts to autocratic rule, generate moreattacks (Lai 2004; Eubank and Weinberg 1994, 1998). This latter idea suggests that repressivestates, especially those that combine "hard" repression (coercive violence) with claims to



rg/

Download

edfrom


4/18

2012 Social Forces Volume 84 , Number 4 June 2006popular responsiveness, are likely to incite dissident terrorism. Several studies show that theeffects of hard repression on nonviolent protest are curvilinear with intermediate levelsstimulating the most protest (Rasler 1996; Francisco 1996, 2004). However, Testas (2004)found the opposite effect on the production of international terrorist attacks in a sample of 37Muslim majority countries, which again suggests the need to differentiate ideologicaltraditions. It is also possible that both repression and opportunities generate attacks in alarger sample of countries.

Strong states (those with the fiscal and administrative capacities to control theirpopulations) typically generate sufficient economic growth to both foster legitimacy andfinance the armed force and intelligence needed to thwart potential rebellion (Goodwin 2001;Jenkins and Schock 2004). By extension, weak states that lack fiscal and administrativecapacities should be more likely to generate transnational terrorism, but this proposition hasreceived mixed results. Lai (2004) found that government expenditures as a percentage ofGDP reduces the production of international terrorism, but Li and Schaub (2004) found thatgovernment capability was positively related to the production of attacks. These argumentsneed further assessment.

Th eories of Global Ord er/Ant i-System ic ViolenceSome theories implicate neo-colonial control, international dependency, and the political-economic hegemony of core nations in international terrorism. Just as earthquakes aretelltales of continental drift, some see international terrorism as anti-systemic violence thatindicates shifts in global hegemony and economic order. Terrorism is a political tool of theweak, and as global hegemony shifts or falters, the production of transnational terrorismincreases in the poorer zones of the world-system with core countries as the major targets(Bergesen and Lizardo 2004).

These arguments have received mixed empirical support. In a cross-country time-seriesanalysis, Li and Schaub (2004) find no relationship between foreign direct investment andportfolio investment based on the country location of international terrorist attacks. YetLizardo's (2004) global aggregate time series finds that world trade and the number of tradeagreements is negatively related to anti-U.S. attacks, suggesting that, as U.S. globaldominance falters and trade crises occur, attacks against the core increase. In contrast, Sobekand Braithwaite (2005) find that greater U.S. global dominance produces more anti-U.S.attacks. Midlarsky et al. (1980) frame this as a simple question of global exposure: theincreasing spread of Western targets (foreign manufacturing plants, embassies, militarybases, tourists) creates more targets for attack. Pape (2005) contends that U.S. military basingpolicy in the Middle East is a key precipitant of anti-U.S. suicide terrorist attacks, but hisresearch is narrowly focused on some 300 acts of suicide bombing. Clearly, tests of theoriesof global order may require a more finely-grained analysis of types of transnational terrorism.

Ident ity/Civi lizat ional Th eoriesAlthough Huntington's (1996) "clash of civilizations" thesis is primarily about new fault lines inpost-Cold War international relations, he also argues that this clash, especially that between"Islam and the West," has mobilized violent attacks. Civilizations, as dense bodies of culturalunderstandings and social organization, provide a significant component of human identity asthe largest meaningful in-groups in the world. Civilizational constellations outside one's ownare viewed as the "out-group," setting the stage for confrontation. According to Huntington,



rg/

Download

edfrom


5/18

Social Origins of Islam ist and Left ist Terrorism 2013

the collapse of the globe-striding modernity project has left in its wake a reassertion of anolder cultural basis of global organization, which he terms "civilizational zones." Transnationalterrorism is one form of this struggle between civilizations, and its increase is due to decliningWestern hegemony and the resurgence of the world's other cultures. Transnational terrorismshould be concentrated in fault zones between the major world civilizations with targetsdefined by civilizational division. In arguing that declining Western hegemony encouragesthese attacks, this is similar to world-systems theory, but the "seismic shifts" are culturalrather than economic.This argument has special relevance to Islamist terrorism. According to the logic of"civilizational clash," we would expect higher production of Islamist attacks originating incountries characterized by greater competition between Islam and other religions. Moreover,radical Islamist ideologies lead us to expect that particular social changes provide the impetusfor terrorism. Unlike Leftists, who see the state as a tool of ultimate social reform, manyIslamist radicals reject the secular state and its social innovations. Among the most salient"statist" innovations is the freedom/liberation of women. As Juergensmeyer (2003: 198-202)notes, because some Islamist interpretations see gender relations as divinely ordained, thestate's tendency to elevate the status of women is a major grievance. In addition, stateintrusion into civil affairs, especially the regulation of religious activities, may be seen as aparticular threat.Unique historical events are also likely to exert strong path dependencies on thetrajectories of terrorism. Some scholars point to the successful Iranian Revolution of the late1970s as a watershed event, demonstrating to a global audience that a resurgent Islam couldovercome secular states and their superpower sponsors (Shughart 2004; Laqueur 2001;Hoffman 1998), a lesson reinforced by the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan. For Leftist terrorism,the Soviet collapse of the early 1990s also changed the geopolitics of international insurgency.The perceived failure of the global socialist program deprived many "third wave" Marxistgroups of legitimacy and the ability to play on superpower rivalry to mobilize military andpolitical support (Lewis 2003: 61; Snow 1996). Dissidents had to develop a new politicalagenda to legitimate their claims, which may have facilitated the rise of some Islamist as wellas ethno-separatist movements (Snow 1996). It also meant that many former Soviet clientstates experienced a major loss in coercive capacity and were no longer able to fend offinsurgents.

Methods

M easuring L eft i st and Islam ist Transnational TerrorismTo capture the structural sources of Leftist and Islamist transnational terrorism, we examinethe number of transnational terrorist attacks by groups affiliated with these ideologiesrecorded in the ITERATE database (Mickolus et al. 2003) between 1973 and 2002. We focuson actual attacks, such as bombings, hijackings, hostage-taking, small arms and chemicalattacks, and other uses of coercive force. We exclude hoaxes and threats because it isimpossible to evaluate the credibility of these threats. Most of these likely reflect lower levelsof insurgent organization. To qualify as a transnationa /terrorist attack, the attack must involvemultiple nationalities (defined in terms of country of origin) in terms of its victims, the primaryactors, and/or the location of the attack relative to the actor and target. They must also beconducted by an autonomous non-state actor (i.e., a group that is not directly controlled by asovereign state), have political goals, make use of extra-normal violence, and at least



rg/

Download

edfrom


6/18

2014 Social Forces Volume 84 , Number 4 June 2006ostensibly be designed so as to induce anxiety among various targets, including the generalpublic (Mickolus et al. 2004: 2).

We coded all ITERATE groups in terms of their primary ideology and selected those with aMarxist or general leftist orientation and those following an Islamist ideology. Figure 1 shows thecount of annual attacks produced by this coding into Leftist and Islamist ideology. Ideology isidentified by the group discourse outlining its major goals, self-justification and avowedcollective identity. We relied on multiple sources for information on group ideology, including thepublished volumes of ITERATE (Mickolus et al. 2003 and various years); the TerrorismKnowledge Base website (www.tkb.org); the Information Project, a website maintained byinternational journalists that lists more than 4,600 groups (www.theinformationproject.org);Amnesty International (www.amnesty.org); the Global Security Project (www.globalsecurity.org);and general internet searches for press releases and scholarly publications. (The list of some1,200 ITERATE groups and their dominant ideologies is available from the authors). A smallhandful of groups (N = 3) justify themselves using both Leftist and Islamist rhetoric, callingsimultaneously for a class revolution as well as Islamist rule. In these cases, we identified aprimary or dominant ideology, which is used in Figure 1. In the regression analysis below, wealso examined whether classifying these groups by their secondary ideology made a difference,finding the same pattern of statistically significant predictors. We therefore show regressionresults using primary ideology.

Our classification of ideology depends on the identity of the group, thus a key question ishow accurately the ITERATE project captures group identity. In most cases, terrorist groupsmake their goals known to the general public by a communique to the press or governmentofficials. The goal is to alert the public as to their goals and the justice of their cause. TheITERATE project uses multiple news sources and published documents, including thosereleased by police and government officials, to establish group identities. Fifty-five percent ofall international terrorist attacks in the ITERATE data set are linked to a named group or one withsufficient information to assess the ideological makeup of the group. We excluded unidentifiedattacks (e.g, groups listed as "unknowns," "no group involved" and various "indeterminate[nationality]") from our data. These attacks are likely to be conducted by less organized groups,often "lone wolves" and small groups that dissolve or are arrested after one or a few attacks.

Islamist groups treat Islamic faith as their primary justification for social change. Theyadvocate the implementation of sharia law and the theocratic governance of society by a bodyof religious clerics in place of a secular regime (democratic or otherwise).' In the final count, 7percent of all transnational terrorist attacks in ITERATE between 1968 and 2002 wereconducted by Islamist groups.

Leftist organizations draw on Marxist and various neo-Marxist theories to justify theirrevolutionary strategy. A few groups are anarchist or anarchist-syndicalist or environmentally-oriented leftist groups that espouse the destruction of global capitalism. These groups areunited by their anti-capitalist orientation and insistence on the need for a social revolution thatfrees the exploited (i.e., workers/peasants, other oppressed peoples, animals and theenvironment) from the capitalist system to become participants in a communal/collectivist orsocialist-communist economic system. Seventeen percent of all transnational I T E R A T Eattacks between 1968 and 2002 were conducted by Leftist groups. Table 1 providesdescriptive statistics for our measures.

M easur ing Independent V ar iablesThe total population size of a country might matter in that a more populous country mightsimply produce more groups and individuals willing to engage in transnational terrorism. This



rg/

Download

edfrom


7/18

Soc ial Origins of Is lamist and Leftist T errorism 20 15

Tbe2H*CaescandMovo atE

JILmemberaccessonOctober20,2011


rg/

Download

edfrom


8/18

2 0 1 6 S ocial Forces Volume 84, N umber 4 June 2006Table 1 : D escriptive S tatistics of D ependent and Independent Variables

V a r i a b l ee a n. D e v .i na xI s lam is t Ter ror i s t A t tacks 3 0 0 6 . 1 1 . 8 1 . 0 0 2 7 . 0 0Lef t is t T er ror i s t A t tacks 3 0 0 6 . 3 6 1 . 8 3 . 0 0 3 3 . 0 0% U r b a n 3 0 0 6 5 0 . 1 8 2 3 . 8 6 4 . 1 3 9 7 . 3 9G D P / pe r c ap i ta 3 0 0 6 7 . 6 0 1 . 5 6 4 . 4 4 1 0 . 7 6G D P / pe r c ap it a S qua re 3 0 0 6 6 0 . 2 1 2 4 . 4 4 1 9 . 7 1 1 1 5 . 6 8P o l it ic a l R i gh t s (F reedom H o us e ) 3 0 0 6 4 . 5 3 2 . 1 6 1 . 0 0 7 . 0 0C iv il L ibe r t ies (F reedom H o us e ) 3 0 0 6 4 . 4 1 1 . 8 4 1 . 0 0 7 . 0 0T r a d e /G D P 3 0 0 6 7 0 . 9 9 3 8 . 6 1 6 . 3 2 2 8 2 . 4 0F ore i gn I nv es tm en t IG D P 3 0 0 6 2 . 9 3 5 . 3 6 . 0 0 1 4 5 . 2 0W e st e r n M i li ta r y D e p e n d e n cy 3 0 0 6 . 4 7 . 5 0 . 0 0 1 . 0 0I ran ian R ev o lu t i on ( > 1 9 7 9 ) 3 0 0 6 . 9 1 . 2 8 . 0 0 1 . 0 0C o l d W a r ( < 19 9 1 ) 3 0 0 6 . 5 4 . 5 0 . 0 0 1 . 0 0G o v e r n m e n t C o n s u m p t io n / G D P 3 0 0 6 1 6 . 3 0 6 . 7 9 2 . 9 8 6 4 . 3 9L o g o f % M u s l im 2 7 9 7 1 . 8 9 1 . 7 0 . 0 0 4 . 6 1L o g o f % M u s lim S q u a r e 2 7 9 7 6 . 4 5 7 . 8 9 . 0 0 2 1 . 2 7F e m a l e L a b o r F o rc e ( % ) 3 0 0 6 3 7 . 4 4 9 . 0 7 5 . 5 2 5 2 . 7 2F e m a l e L a b o r F o r ce X G o v t C o n s u m p t io n 3 0 0 6 61 0 . 49 3 0 9 . 8 8 5 7 . 4 1 29 30 . 50

also controls for logistic problems of policing large countries and other possible omittedcovariates. We use a country's total population size logged to correct for skewness.

To capture strain and social disorganization, we use the quadratic of the natural log of thegross domestic product per capita (World Bank 2004). This captures the idea that low tointermediate levels of development produce increasing social strains and disorganization butthat, as development reaches more advanced stages, such conditions ease and reduce socialdisorganization.' Second, we include a measure of the percentage of a nation's population thatis urban, assuming that this captures strains associated with urbanization (World Bank 2004).We also examined population effects (age-dependency ratio, the youth bulge) and educationaleffects (e.g., secondary school enrollments) but these variants of the disorganization/strainmodel failed to attain statistical significance (analyses available upon request).

Theories of political order are captured by three measures. The idea that political democracyprovides a conducive context for transnational terrorism is captured through two indicators:political rights and civil liberties (Freedom House 1972-2004). Political rights tap freedom ofpolitical participation and the right to political competition and representation, while civil libertiescapture freedom of the press, association and speech as regulated by the state. The latter isespecially important to religious expression and therefore key to Islamist radicals. We reversedthe original scoring for these two measures, making "7" represent the "most free" and ""thosecountries that are "least free." The third measure is the size/revenue consumption of the state,which suggests the degree of government intrusiveness in a given society. We capture this withgovernment consumption as a percent of GDP (World Bank 2004).

Globalization is represented by three variables. Economic globalization is captured by twoindicators: (1) trade openness (or imports plus exports as a percent of GDP); and (2) foreigncapital penetration, measured by direct investment as percentage of GDP (World Bank 2004).These test the idea that dependent incorporation into the global economy produces a greaterlikelihood of transnational terrorism.



rg/

Download

edfrom


9/18


To capture political globalization, we use a dummy variable indicating dependence on amajor Western power for arms supplies. The idea is that Western military presenceundermines the autonomy and legitimacy of the state, encouraging political rebellion (Boswelland Dixon 1993) and the perception that the state is an agent of foreign powers, therebyincreasing the likelihood of transnational terrorist attacks. This is measured as a dummyvariable (1 = yes; 0 = no) representing less developed countries depending on a Westerncountry for their arms supply (US ACDA 2003).

Theories of identity and civilizational conflict suggest that Islamist terrorism may be rootedin political competition between religious groups, in particular competition between Muslimsand non-Muslims. In the developing world, religious identities have become a primary basis fornationalist mobilization in general (Juergensmeyer 1995) and for insurgent mobilization inparticular (Juergensmeyer 2003; Stern 2002). We gauge religious competition by using thequadratic of the percent of the population that is Muslim (Barrett 1982; Barrett et al. 2001). Thelinear effect should be positive, indicating that a larger Muslim population is more likely tospawn transnational terrorism, and the squared term should be negative, indicating a downturnas Muslims become numerically dominant and face less competition. We use the natural logto correct for skewness. Second, reflecting demonstration effects and transnational promotionof Islamist groups by the Iranian government and its political allies, we use a time dummyrepresenting all years from 1979 onward (1 = yes; 0 = no).

On the leftist side, we expect the Cold War years to have been the high point oftransnational terrorism. Not only did the fall of the Soviet Union de-legitimate Marxist-Leninism, it also removed the Soviets' financial and military assistance for varioustransnational terrorist groups around the world (O'Brien 1996). We therefore include a timedummy (scored 1 = yes; 0 = no) marking the years through 1990.Increased participation by women in the labor force may represent a distinctive culturalthreat to Islamist radicals. We therefore use the percent of the labor force that is female(World Bank 2004). To test the Islamist response to the state's promotion of women'sincreased status in society, we introduce an interaction term between female workforcepercentage and central government consumption.

A naly tic DesignWe use a pooled cross-sectional time-series design to capture the factors contributing to thenumber of transnational terrorist attacks produced by a country's citizens in a given country-year conducted by Leftist and Islamist groups. In contrast to other analyses that have focusedon the country location o f transnational terrorist attacks (e.g., Enders and Sandler 2002; Li andSchaub 2004; Li 2005), we focus on the country product ion of transnational terrorist attacks.The country production is more relevant if social conditions explain these attacks. Whilecountry of location overlaps in about 52 percent of our attacks, this context of the attack mayreflect more the location of the target than the social conditions stimulating the attack.

Because our data on transnational terrorist attacks are in the form of yearly counts, we usenegative binomial regression, a variant of Poisson regression, which is typically used toanalyze event counts (Barron 1992; Land, McCall and Nagin 1996; Cameron and Tivendi1998). Negative binomial regression corrects for overdispersion in the count of events, acommon condition that occurs when the variance of the count is greater than its mean.Negative binomial regression effectively controls for overdispersion by adding a stochasticcomponent to the model (Land, McCall and Nagin 1996). Tests indicate that indeed ourmeasure is overdispersed and that the Poisson method is inappropriate. Tests also indicatedthe presence of autocorrelation, which we correct for by using the General Estimating



rg/

Download

edfrom


10/18

2018 Social Forces Volume 84 , Number 4 June 2006

Equations (GEE) approach developed by Liang and Zeger (1986) and Zeger and Liang (1986).We used XTGEE in Stata 8.0, controlling for an AR1 term.

We also conduct three robustness tests, comparing our GEE results with those from aZero-Inflation Negative Binomial (orZINB) model (Cameron and Tivendi 1998: 150-2; Long andFreeze 2001: 243-262), an OLS model with panel corrected standard errors, and regularnegative binomial regression with fixed effects. All three robustness tests identified the sameset of statistically significant predictors, strengthening our confidence in the results presentedbelow. We lag all independent variables one year ahead to establish a stronger test of causalorder. In our results, we report two-tailed tests of significance. Due to missing data onindependent variables, our regression analysis is limited to 1973-2002.

ResultsTable 2 provides the results of our general linear negative binomial models applied to Islamistand Leftist transnational terrorist attacks. In models 1 and 7, we present the effects of ourstrain indicators on Islamist and Leftist terrorism respectively. Economic development has acurvilinear effect on Leftist attacks with low to intermediate levels of development generatinggreater attacks while intermediate to greater development generates fewer attacks. Theinflection point is about $3,752 per capita (about the development level of South Africa), atwhich point advanced development integrates potential radicals and thereby reduces Leftistattacks. For the main effect of development, the change in expected leftist terrorist attackcounts ranges between 5.8 and 3.9 points for every one unit increase in development, whilethe squared term ranges between -.35 and -.24. However, development does not have aconsistent effect on Islamist terrorism, attaining significance only in the last two full equations(Equations 5 and 6). This suggests that social strains associated with economic growth aremore relevant to Leftist insurgencies that engage in transnational terrorism.

Conversely, urbanization has a small but statistically significant positive association withIslamist terrorism, but has no significant effect on Leftist attacks. This suggests that socialstrains attendant on urbanization provoke a religious reaction in the form of Islamist attacksrather than Leftist attacks, militating against the ecological thesis that urbanization facilitatesattacks by providing high-density targets and communications/travel networks, which shouldaffect both forms of transnational terrorism.

Next we control for globalization (Models 2-6 and 8-12). Initially, trade openness, foreigninvestment and western military dependency are all significant for both types of transnationalt e r ro r ism . Trade o penness pos i t ive ly a f f ec t s I s lam is t te r ro r ism and nega t ive ly a f f ec t s l e f t is t t e rro r i sm .This suggests that Islamist attacks are in part a response to global economic participation, whileglobal economic integration apparently reduces Leftist terrorist mobilization. Western militarydependence positively drives both forms of terrorism, supporting the idea that such dependenceundermines state legitimacy and fuels insurgency. Significantly, foreign investment negativelyaffects both forms of transnational terrorism, though the effect loses statistical significance in thefull models for Islamist terrorist attacks. This contravenes world-systems/dependency theory,suggesting that foreign investment may contribute to economic growth and improved socialwelfare, thereby reducing the grievances behind t ransna t iona l t e r ror ism . (For ev idence on ec onom icand social benefits of foreign investment, see Firebaugh 1992,1996; Firebaugh and Beck 1994; deSoysa and Oneal 1999.) The subsequent introduction of controls for government consumption andpercent female labor force eliminates the statistical significance of trade openness for both forms ofterrorism (Models 3, 4 and 10,11), while foreign investment is washed out only in the Islamistmodels. This suggests that globalization is linked to a much broader set of development processesthat, in general, tend to reduce the likelihood of producing terrorism.



rg/

Download

edfrom


11/18


Next we introduce internal political conditions. Political rights positively affect both typesof terrorism, indicating that increased political opportunities facilitate attacks by insurgents.As some have noted, political democracies are especially vulnerable to terrorist attacks ingeneral (Wilkinson 2001; Laqueur 2001), but far fewer have recognized that democracies arealso much more likely to generate different forms of political mobilization, including terrorism(Goldstone 2004). The negative effect of civil liberties for Islamist terrorism isn't significantfor Leftists, but this effect loses significance once we control for percent female labor force(Model 4), suggesting that these effects are tied up with underlying modernization processes.Government consumption of GDP stimulates Islamist terrorism but has no effect on Leftistattacks, suggesting a cultural response to the growth of the secular state (as predicted).

Next we control for the percent of the labor force that is female, religious diversity (forIslamist attacks), and global political effects (Models 4 and 10). Female labor force percentagenegatively affects Islamist attacks while having no effect on Leftist terrorism. Apparently thesimple presence of women in the labor force reduces Islamist terrorism, although this is notthe whole story (see below).

Religious diversity is positively associated with Islamist attacks. This is indicated by thestatistically significant quadratic for percent Muslim, which shows positively for the linear termand negatively for the squared term. This indicates that Muslim populations generate increasingIslamist terrorism as they move from low to intermediate societal dominance, after which therelationship attenuates. The inflection point for this downward turn is at about 70 percentMuslim, suggesting that intermediate levels of Islamist "strength" produce the most volatility.

The Cold War dummy is positive for Leftist attacks but the Iranian revolution dummy is notstatistically significant for Islamist attacks. This confirms that the Cold War generated moreLef t i s t transnational terrorism, presumably due to the legitimacy of Marxist-Leninist ideology andSoviet/Chinese sponsorship of insurgent groups. Although some Islamist attacks were inspiredand actively promoted by the Iranian government (e.g., Lebanon early 1980s), these dynamicscannot be generalized for the entire post-1979 period. This may reflect the heterogeneity ofIslamist insurgencies (the Taliban movement in Afghanistan was Sunni while Hizbullah inLebanon is Shia) as well as the limited transnational effects of the Iranian revolution. Thissignificantly qualifies Rapoport's (2004) "fourth wave" thesis, supporting the idea that, while theend of the Cold War brought a decline in Leftist transnational terrorism, the Iranian revolution didnot apparently kick off a unique "fourth wave" of Islamist terrorism. Indeed, Figure 1 aptlydemonstrates that Islamist attacks were relatively commonplace prior to 1979 and that, indeed,such attacks display peaks and valleys throughout the study period.

Models 5 and 11 add the interaction between the percent female labor force and governmentconsumption. The interaction term is statistically significant only for Islamist attacks. The maineffect of female labor force remains negative and statistically significant, indicating that as femalelabor force grows Islamist attacks decline. Nonetheless, this relationship grows increasinglypositive as central government consumption increases. It is possible (perhaps even likely) that astate's role as employer of women elevates the public profile of women and their unique socialagenda, thereby inciting a violent response on the part of Islamist activists.Ro bustness TestsWe also tested these effects using zero-inflated negative binomial regression, simplenegative binomial regression, a negative binomial regression with fixed effects, and panel-corrected standard errors regression (an adjusted OLS-based technique), finding the same setof statistically significant effects. We also added to our full model (Models 6 and 12) a year-count control (i.e. year 1 = 1, year 2 = 2, etc.), which was not statistically significant and didnot alter the statistical significance of any of our effects. This suggests that there are no lineartrended covariates that are omitted and reinforces confidence in several of our effects that are



rg/

Download

edfrom


12/18

H

O

01

C o

Co

tO

M

N

2020 Social Forces V o lu m e 8 4 , N u m b e r 4 J u ne 2 0 0 6

OMt CO VN') U) CD CV C)MOONOOMOOl0MOMM')M NM C OO MO V(N 6) O6) Ol0 ON-M L n C )rf NC O O 't UM MN N -O CD NC O --N C O N ' . (N

NV x eN N M C ') VM O) 1-O (N 6) O O VM i! 7 lf)C ') ML ( ) N N -M Vct d'1 O N -Oy Cy Cjuu , . . _ _ N . 'J

Q )N N 7V V N -N N- OMO C OOO )C O NN )O D 1^ Cq ON N-Cq O ) OO -N-OIN. .. N u u' CD Q)NN N -aO C OaO ON NOa0 O OOO FF)V 1-ON)ON-N V N ' N '--'NC D to M0 MON-t()1 M OOOU U) M ' C ' ) -&) C D c') U) O ED CO G CD C) CD N- U) C O N- N- NO D N O N O OOO C D C '4 C O M N NV u ' N ' N N ' M

1- C D m N c ` ' )O N -N VN -O NO O O C DN C )oO C DM mM N (6) in C )V

CDy Nt^ ) c + )C O Ln C) U)C O N -O 1- CD C D -eCDU)N C )O ) OM C JC D l0 C )t^ N -O C)NE N ^ - - ^ NC DN - oT CoO C D CoO 9C O i0O NO1 O C DO ) C o V C'')C f l )^O c') 91 ^ C) (0 0 C O u)' ^ rj i N N

N

.. kCDU M(NM c ' )aOuC ' ' ) c ' )N-uN-O CD O Co6) CoM CDN COCD U)CDN .. NuN Co CD ( aO COC O O 00 O a0 ( N

a ) C- Oc m (CC .7 C L O.2 OG ) E ...m C l )- C j _ C gO 1 1 D ( 6 0 O > N,I I > OC -7 0 ^ F- Li 5 ^ oa 0 (D

Te2NevBnmaGnanMowthARfoamsanLsTosAa1

2

N 0 N0

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

1

11

1

eQ

IsamsAa

LsAa

"a

Pao(o

.1

.SO*

.7

.7

.8

.8S

.S

.2

.2

.3

.3

.3

6l>o

[28

[34

[27

[S4

[S2

[40

[0

[0

[0

[4

[S

[3

Ta%G

.0

.0

-0

-0

-0

-0

-0

-0

-0

-0

to

[39

[9

[14

[11

[10

[20

[16

[13

[13

[14

N0 0

FegDre

01

Inm%G

-3

-1

-0

-0

-0

-2

-2

-1S

-1S

-1

[32

[24

[S

[SO]

[2

[29

[28

[23S

[24

[24

WeMay

D

20

16

14

12

11

.6

.7

.S

.6

.6

(1y

[16S

[2S

[29

[28

[26

[17

[18

[12

[14

[1S

PcRgs

.4

.3

.3

s

.2

s

.3S

.3

[27S

[28

[23

[2S

[18

[24

[22

[21

CvLbe

-S

-1S

-2

-2

-0

-1

-0

-OS

[28

[7

[9

[11

[0

[7

[3

[3

GCmo

.1

.0

-1S

-1

-0

-0

.1

.1

(%G

[61S

[22

[29

[32

[0

[0

[11

[11



rg/

Download

edfrom


13/18

c C

UU

bA

Soc ial Origins of Is lam ist and Leftist Terrorism 20 21+ MN- O MN '1)0 MNMOO. O O M=NO(N 0)

CoN

NO N --7 OO O O (0 N0)OI' ' M (NN N a D)OCo.MON0 0 0 OI C O VM N N M O

C oN

(NN-(NN V) ON 0 00 0N0 (0O V-) V)N 0 0(0NN (N V) OM a 0l )N

NMOO (D C O tD NV OO C OCo O M Q)O LQ MCVf) O . G O: N - -- V ' InMU [iOI^OONN LQ O O V00ON

M N O))'' V Vlfj C (0'UMMn 00( 0 OO( N

) (D(0UM (N V) ON (0C DNNNQO CD( 0 ' .) OC oC o( N0 ) Na O .C)

0 0MNxOY O O NY >a )O ^ 2 p V ho O O O C NLc aOEJ ( 6 a 0 o7 T.L -_ NE (p yC U 0CwE7 2T O Q1L.L m .^.^ J J U) U u. U' >- U 0Z0dFm

eWoks

-0

-2

-2

-0

.0

.0

(%LFc

[29

[55

[55

[7

[7

[5

IaaRuo

-3

-3

.0

(1y>1

[10

[9

[1

L

%Mm

42

45

46

[54

[59

[57

Lo%Mm

-6

-7

-7

Se

[42

[48

[47

CdWaDm

(1ify

Documents

Social Forces 2006 Robison 2009 26