Helge Liebert

Most of the existing literature on the determinants of terrorism treats terror as a uniform phenomenon and does not distinguish between different types of terror. We argue that terror of different ideological types should have different determinants as the terror groups cater to different grievances, engage in compromise to different degrees and have different organizational constraints. We explicitly address the heterogeneity of terror by classifying groups according to their ideologies and, using the Global Terrorism Database, show that the determinants of terror differ strongly between terror types.

We analyze the determinants of the origin of domestic and international terrorism in a large panel data set of 159 countries spanning from 1970 to 2007. We show that terror increases with GDP per capita, a higher polity score measuring a more open and competitive political system and experiences of domestic conflict, anarchy and regime transitions. Our evidence thus contradicts the notion that terrorism is rooted in economic deprivation or that strongly autocratic regimes breed more terrorists. Rather we show that weak or failing states are an incubator for terrorism. We also show that the causes of domestic terror and international terror are similar.