Foreign Terror on Americans
Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. 3-17, 2011
40 Pages Posted: 23 May 2007 Last revised: 15 May 2011
Date Written: October 1, 2008
Abstract
Americans are a major target of international terrorism. Yet, terrorists from some countries are much more likely to attack American citizens than terrorists from other countries. Similarly, anti-American terrorism from a specific foreign country is much more prevalent during certain periods than others. This article develops a rational theory of international terror¿ism, which argues that attacking foreign nationals is of strategic value to terrorists even if they ultimately aim at gaining political influence in their home country. Attacking foreigners is the more attractive to do¿mestic terrorists the more the terrorists' home government depends on military support from the foreign country. Applied to the US case, our theory predicts that more anti-American terrorism emanates from countries, which receive more US mili¿tary aid and arms transfers and in which more American military personnel are stationed, all relative to the country's own military capacity. Estimations from a directed country dyad sample over the period 1978 to 2005 support the predictions of our the¿ory for both terrorist incidents involving Americans and terrorist killings of Americans as dependent variables. These results are robust to a wide range of changes to the empirical research design.
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Calculating Tragedy: Assessing the Costs of Terrorism
By Bruno S. Frey, Simon Luechinger, ...
-
Does Terror Threaten Human Rights? Evidence from Panel Data
By Axel Dreher, Martin Gassebner, ...
-
Does Terror Threaten Human Rights? Evidence from Panel Data
By Axel Dreher, Martin Gassebner, ...
-
September 11 and Time-Varying Beta of United States Companies
-
Terrorism and the Resilience of Cities
By James Harrigan and Philippe Martin