Who Supports Terrorism? Evidence from Fourteen Muslim Countries

This research note explores aspects of the demand for terrorism using data from the Pew Research Center. With these data from 7, 849 adult respondents persons within 14 Muslim countries, this article explores who supports terrorism. It is shown that females, younger persons, and those who believe Islam is under threat are more likely to support terrorism. Very poor respondents and those who believe that religious leaders should play a larger role in politics are less likely to support terrorism than others. Because these affects vary throughout the countries studies, it is argued that interventions must be highly tailored, using detailed demographic and psychographic data. This research was conducted under the auspices of USIP's Research and Studies program. It is the first of several inquiries into the demand-side determinants of terrorism and the implications for terrorism mitigation efforts. Notes ‡Indicates that equal variances were not assumed. ****Indicates significant at the 0. 001 level, ***at the 0. 01 level, **at the 0. 05 level and *at the 0. 1 level. Derived from author tabulations of data from Pew Global Attitudes Survey, 2002. ‡Indicates that equal variances were not assumed ****Indicates significant at the 0. 001 level, ***at the 0. 01 level, **at the 0. 05 level and *at the 0. 1 level. Derived from author tabulations of data from Pew Global Attitudes Survey 2002. ‡Indicates that equal variances were not assumed. ****Indicates significant at the 0. 001 level, ***at the 0. 01 level, **at the 0. 05 level and *at the 0. 1 level. Derived from author tabulations of data from Pew Global Attitudes Survey 2002. ****Indicates significant at the 0. 001 level, ***at the 0. 01 level, **at the 0. 05 level, *at the 0. 1 level. Derived from author tabulations of data from Pew Global Attitudes Survey 2002. Unweighted sample size was 6, 019. ****Indicates significant at the 0. 001 level, ***at the 0. 01 level, **at the 0. 05 level and *at the 0. 1 level. Derived from author tabulations of data from Pew Global Attitudes Survey 2002. Marginal affect calculated using estimates from Model 1, evaluated at the sample means. ****Indicates significant at the 0. 001 level, ***at the 0. 01 level, at the 0. 05 level, *at the 0. 1 level. ****Indicates significant at the 0. 001 level, ***at the 0. 01 level, **at the 0. 05 level, and **at the 0. 1 level. *at the 0. 1 level. 1. See Robert A. Pape, "The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, " American Political Science Review 20 (32) (14 July 2003), p. 1; Audrey Kurth Cronin, Terrorists and Suicide Attacks (Washington: Congressional Research Service RL32058, 2003), p. 5. Available at (http: //www. fas. org/irp/crs/RL32058. pdf) ; Eli Berman and David D. Laitin, "Rational Martyrs vs. Hard Targets: Evidence on the Tactical Use of Suicide Attacks" (conference paper, University of Chicago, 26 October 2004) ; available at (http: //economics. uchicago. edu/download/RatMartyrs6. pdf) ; see Laurence R. Iannaccone, "Sacrifice and Stigma: Reducing Free-Riding in Cults, Communes, and Other Collectives, " Journal of Political Economy (1992), pp. 271–291; "Introduction to the Economics of Religion, " Journal of Economic Literature XXXVI (1998), pp. 1465–1496; "The Market for Martyrs" (working paper, 2004 Meetings of the American Economic Association, San Diego, CA, December 2003) ; available at (http: //gunston. doit. gmu. edu/liannacc/ERel/S2-Archives/Iannaccone%20-%20Market%20for%20Martyrs. pdf) ; Mark Harrison, "An Economist Looks at Suicide Terrorism" (working paper, 20 January 2004) ; available at (http: //www2. warwick. ac. uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/faculty/harrison/papers/terrorism. pdf) ; David Gold, "Some Economic Considerations in the U. S. War on Terrorism, " The Quarterly Journal III (1) (March 2004), pp. 1–14; Kai A. Konrad, "The Investment Problem in Terrorism, " Economica 71 (2004), pp. 449–459; Alan B. Krueger and Jitka Maleckova. , "Education, Poverty, Political Violence and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection? " NBER Working Paper #9074 (2002) ; Alan B. Krueger and Jitka Maleckova, "The Economics and the Education of Suicide Bombers. " The New Republic (June 2002) ; Claude Berrebi, "Evidence About the Link Between Education, Poverty and Terrorism Among Palestinians. " Princeton University Industrial Relations Sections Working Paper (2003) ; Paul Collier, "Rebellion as a Quasi-Criminal Activity, " Journal of Conflict Resolution 44 (6) (December 2000), pp. 838–852; Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, "Greed and Grievance in Civil War, " World Bank Policy Research Paper 2355 (May 2000) ; Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, "The Quality of Terror, " forthcoming in American Journal of Political Science, available at (http: //bdm. wustl. edu/PDF) /terrorquality. pdf). 2. The term "demand" here to refer to the public support for terrorism, which in turn is treated as a "good" produced by terrorists and their groups and consumed by the population on whose behalf they claim to act. This is in distinction to other uses of the term "demand, " which could refer to groups demand for terrorist labor. For a more thorough discussion of demand-side issues, see Christina Paxson, "Comment on Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova, 'Education, Poverty, and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection? '" (Princeton: Research Program in Development Studies, 8 May 2002). Available at (http: //www. wws. princeton. edu/rpds/da. loads/paxsonKruegercomment. pdf) and Iannaccone, "Sacrifice and Stigma. " The authors are also cognizant of the debate about defining terrorism as a "good. " For instance, some argue that terrorism is a "public good. " However, although this debate is very important to understanding terrorism and terrorist groups, this distinction is not germane to the present query. For more information about this and related analytical issues, see Iannaccone, "Sacrifice and Stigma" and Harrison, "An Economist Looks at Suicide Terrorism. " 3. See The Pew Research Center, What the World Thinks in 2002: How Global Publics View Their Lives, Their Countries, The World, America (Washington, DC: The Pew Research Center, 4 December 2002) ; available at (http: //people-press. org/reports/display. php3? ReportID= 165). 4. Such target audience specification will likely require use of demographic and even psychographic data. See for instance, R. Kim Craigin and Scott Gerwehr who argue that strategic influence campaigns require detailed psychographic and demographic intelligence about the target community. According to these authors, "Demographics include information, for example, on the age, sex, or occupation of potential audiences, whereas psychographic intelligence incorporates additional data on perceptions, interests, and opinions. " See Craigin and Gerwehr, Dissuading Terror: Strategic Influence and the Struggle Against Terrorism (Santa Monica: Rand, 2005). 5. For more information about the methodology of the survey design, sample construction, methods of fielding of the survey, as well as local partners for doing so, see The Pew Global Attitudes Project, What the World Thinks. In particular see the chapter on "Methodology. " 6. See Princeton Survey Research Associates International, Questionnaire Pew Global Attitudes Survey2002 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Survey Research Associates International, 2002). 7. Testimony of Mindy Kleinberg, The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Public Hearing (31 March 2003), available at (http: //www. 911independentcommission. org/pdf) /MindyKleinberg₀3₃1₀3. pdf) ; Bohaz Ganor, "Suicide Terrorism: An Overview" (paper, International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism: Countering Suicide Terrorism: An International Conference, Herzliya, Israel, 2000) ; Elizabeth Rubin, "The Most Wanted Palestinian, " The New York Times Magazine (30 June 2002), pp. 26–31, 42, 51–55. Bruce Hoffman, "All You Need is Love: How the Terrorists Stopped Terrorism, " The Atlantic Monthly (December 2001) ; Reuven Paz, "Programmed Terrorists: An Analysis of the Letter Left Behind by the September 11 Hijackers, " International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (13 December 2001) ; available at (http: //www. ict. org. il/articles/articledet. cfm? articleid=419) ; Steven A. Camarota, "The Open Door: How Militant Islamic Terrorists Entered and Remained in the United States, 1993–2001, " Center for Immigration Studies Working Paper 21 (Washington, D. C.: Center for Immigration Studies, 2002). Available at (http: //www. cis. org/articles/2002/Paper21/terrorism2. html. 8. See Karla J. Cunningham, "Cross-Regional Trends in Female Terrorism, " Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 26 (2003), pp. 171–195. 9. This is a highly debated area in the literature. For example, see Alan Heston and Robert Summers, PPPs and Price Parities in Benchmark Studies and the Penn World Table: Uses (prepared remarks, Eurostat Conference on the Value of Real Exchange Rates, Brussels, Belgium, 20–21 October 1997) ; available at (http: //pwt. econ. upenn. edu/papers/paperev. html). See Alan Heston, Robert Summers, and Bettina Aten, "Penn World Table Version 6. 1, " Center for International Comparisons at the University of Pennsylvania (CICUP) (October 2002). 10. Jock Young, The Exclusive Society: Social Exclusion, Crime and Difference in Late Modernity (London: Sage Publications, 1999). 11. Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1970). 12. The United States Institute of Peace, Research and Studies Program, is currently undertaking an empirical follow-on to this study. This follow-on study, executed by Ethan Bueno de Mesquita under the guidance of C. Christine Fair will augment the Pew dataset used here with other sources of data. This work will be completed in late 2006.