Terrorist Attacks and Voting Turnout in Afghanistan
Open Access
Author:
Nunez, Catherine
Area of Honors:
Political Science
Degree:
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
David Lynn Lowery, Thesis Supervisor Dr. Gretchen G Casper, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
Afghanistan Taliban United States
Abstract:
Since the start of the US-Afghan War in late 2001, one major goal of the US has been to transition Afghanistan into a democracy. Thus, one of the major obstacles to democratization in Afghanistan have been the terrorist attacks carried out by the Taliban during its presidential elections.The Taliban has targeted Afghanistan’s presidential elections because they oppose the implementation of democracy by the western states that overthrew their regime. In this study, I examine the relationship between the frequency and magnitude of terrorist attacks carried out by the Taliban and voter turnout in Afghanistan's 2004 and 2009 presidential elections. This thesis uses both a bivariate regression and multivariate regression analysis to test 3 hypothesis. My main dependent variable is voter turnout and my independent variables are the frequency of terrorist attacks and the amount of people who died in these attacks. I will also be controlling for several demographic, political, and social factors. Furthermore, both the bivariate regression and multivariate regression support my initial hypothesis suggesting a negative relationship between terrorist attacks and voter turnout in Afghanistan.
