James A Piazza, Thesis Supervisor Dr. Gretchen G Casper, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
political science terrorism democracy wealth
Abstract:
Scholars have suggested many potential causes of transnational terrorism. The general consensus seems to be that democracies are more likely to experience international terrorist attacks that non-democracies, but there is some debate. It is possible that democracy in and of itself is not the cause of transnational terrorism, but instead democracy in combination with another factor is linked to a higher frequency of transnational terrorism. This study tests whether democracy in combination with wealth of a country produces higher rates of international terrorism than democracy or wealth alone. Tests indicate that wealthy democracies are more likely to experience higher incidents of transnational terrorism.
