Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_6995.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Communications Technology and Terrorism

Author

Listed:
  • Rafat Mahmood
  • Michael Jetter
Abstract
By facilitating the flow of information in society, communications technology (CT; e.g., newspapers, radio, television, the internet) can help terrorists to (i) spread their message, (ii) recruit followers, and (iii) coordinate among group members. However, CT also facilitates monitoring and arresting terrorists. This paper formulates the hypothesis that a society’s level of CT is systematically related to terrorism. We introduce a simple theoretical framework, suggesting that terrorism first becomes more attractive with a rise in CT, but then decreases, following an inverted U-shape. Accessing data for 199 countries from 1970-2014, we find evidence for these predictions: Terrorism peaks at intermediate ranges of CT and corresponding magnitudes are sizeable. Our estimations control for a range of potentially confounding factors, as well as country- and year-fixed effects. Results are consistent throughout a battery of robustness checks and placebo regressions. Finally, we find no evidence of a potential reporting bias explaining our findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Rafat Mahmood & Michael Jetter, 2018. "Communications Technology and Terrorism," CESifo Working Paper Series 6995, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6995
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp6995.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cameron,A. Colin & Trivedi,Pravin K., 2013. "Regression Analysis of Count Data," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107667273, September.
    2. Bruno S. Frey & Simon Luechinger & Alois Stutzer, 2007. "Calculating Tragedy: Assessing The Costs Of Terrorism," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(1), pages 1-24, February.
    3. Keefer,Philip & Loayza,Norman (ed.), 2008. "Terrorism, Economic Development, and Political Openness," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521887588, October.
    4. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Jetter, Michael, 2017. "The effect of media attention on terrorism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 32-48.
    6. Robinson, Peter M, 1988. "Root- N-Consistent Semiparametric Regression," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(4), pages 931-954, July.
    7. Kis-Katos, Krisztina & Liebert, Helge & Schulze, Günther G., 2014. "On the heterogeneity of terror," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 116-136.
    8. Claude Berrebi & Jordan Ostwald, 2011. "Earthquakes, hurricanes, and terrorism: do natural disasters incite terror?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 383-403, December.
    9. Sarah Brockhoff & Tim Krieger & Daniel Meierrieks, 2012. "Great Expectations and Hard Times — The (Nontrivial) Impact of Education on Domestic Terrorism," Working Papers CIE 47, Paderborn University, CIE Center for International Economics.
    10. James A. Piazza, 2013. "Regime Age and Terrorism: Are New Democracies Prone to Terrorism?," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(2), pages 246-263, April.
    11. Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2003. "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 75-90, February.
    12. Freytag, Andreas & Krüger, Jens J. & Meierrieks, Daniel & Schneider, Friedrich, 2011. "The origins of terrorism: Cross-country estimates of socio-economic determinants of terrorism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(S1), pages 5-16.
    13. Alberto Abadie, 2006. "Poverty, Political Freedom, and the Roots of Terrorism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 50-56, May.
    14. Khusrav Gaibulloev & Todd Sandier, 2011. "The Adverse Effect of Transnational and Domestic Terrorism on Growth in Africa," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 48(3), pages 355-371, May.
    15. Paul Schreyer, 2000. "The Contribution of Information and Communication Technology to Output Growth: A Study of the G7 Countries," OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers 2000/2, OECD Publishing.
    16. Bijan Fazlollahi & Jonathan S. Gordon, 1993. "CATCH: Computer Assisted Tracking of Criminal Histories System," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 51-62, April.
    17. Claude Berrebi & Jordan Ostwald, 2013. "Symposium - Exploiting the Chaos: Terrorist Target Choice Following Natural Disasters," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(4), pages 793-811, April.
    18. Tim Krieger & Daniel Meierrieks, 2010. "Terrorism in the Worlds of Welfare Capitalism," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 54(6), pages 902-939, December.
    19. Tim Krieger & Daniel Meierrieks, 2011. "What causes terrorism?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(1), pages 3-27, April.
    20. Ryan Bakker & Daniel W Hill Jr & Will H Moore, 2016. "How much terror? Dissidents, governments, institutions, and the cross-national study of terror attacks," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 53(5), pages 711-726, September.
    21. Kis-Katos, Krisztina & Liebert, Helge & Schulze, Günther G., 2011. "On the origin of domestic and international terrorism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(S1), pages 17-36.
    22. Wilson, Paul, 2015. "The misuse of the Vuong test for non-nested models to test for zero-inflation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 51-53.
    23. Joseph K Young & Laura Dugan, 2011. "Veto players and terror," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 48(1), pages 19-33, January.
    24. Sandra E. Black & Lisa M. Lynch, 2001. "How To Compete: The Impact Of Workplace Practices And Information Technology On Productivity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(3), pages 434-445, August.
    25. John Scott, 2001. "Media congestion limits media terrorism," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(3), pages 215-227.
    26. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    27. Seung-Whan Choi & Idean Salehyan, 2013. "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Refugees, Humanitarian Aid, and Terrorism," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 30(1), pages 53-75, February.
    28. Konstantinos Drakos & Andreas Gofas, 2006. "In Search Of The Average Transnational Terrorist Attack Venue," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(2), pages 73-93.
    29. Bruno S. Frey & Simon Luechinger, "undated". "How to Fight Terrorism: Alternatives to Deterrence," IEW - Working Papers 137, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    30. World Bank, 2016. "World Development Indicators 2016," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 23969.
    31. Whitten-Woodring, Jenifer & Van Belle, Douglas A., 2017. "The Correlates of Media Freedom: An Introduction of the Global Media Freedom Dataset," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 179-188, January.
    32. Axel Dreher, 2006. "Does globalization affect growth? Evidence from a new index of globalization," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(10), pages 1091-1110.
    33. Konstantinos Drakos, 2007. "The size of under‐reporting bias in recorded transnational terrorist activity," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 170(4), pages 909-921, October.
    34. Collier, Paul & Hoeffler, Anke, 1998. "On Economic Causes of Civil War," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(4), pages 563-573, October.
    35. Dreher, Axel & Krieger, Tim & Meierrieks, Daniel, 2011. "Hit and (they will) run: The impact of terrorism on migration," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 42-46, October.
    36. Claude Berrebi & Jordan Ostwald, 2011. "Earthquakes, hurricanes, and terrorism: do natural disasters incite terror?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 383-403, December.
    37. Erik Brynjolfsson & Lorin M. Hitt, 2000. "Beyond Computation: Information Technology, Organizational Transformation and Business Performance," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 23-48, Fall.
    38. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2004. "Greed and grievance in civil war," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 563-595, October.
    39. Jetter, Michael, 2017. "Terrorism and the Media: The Effect of US Television Coverage on Al-Qaeda Attacks," IZA Discussion Papers 10708, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    40. Marcel P. Timmer & Bart van Ark, 2005. "Does information and communication technology drive EU-US productivity growth differentials?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 57(4), pages 693-716, October.
    41. Walter Enders & Todd Sandler & Khusrav Gaibulloev, 2011. "Domestic Versus Transnational Terrorism: Data, Decomposition, and Dynamics," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 48(3), pages 319-337, May.
    42. Walter Enders & Gary A. Hoover, 2012. "The Nonlinear Relationship between Terrorism and Poverty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 267-272, May.
    43. Matthew C. Wilson & James A. Piazza, 2013. "Autocracies and Terrorism: Conditioning Effects of Authoritarian Regime Type on Terrorist Attacks," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(4), pages 941-955, October.
    44. Dominic Rohner & Bruno Frey, 2007. "Blood and ink! The common-interest-game between terrorists and the media," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 133(1), pages 129-145, October.
    45. Sarah Brockhoff & Tim Krieger & Daniel Meierrieks, 2015. "Great Expectations and Hard Times," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 59(7), pages 1186-1215, October.
    46. Walter Enders & Gary A. Hoover & Todd Sandler, 2016. "The Changing Nonlinear Relationship between Income and Terrorism," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 60(2), pages 195-225, March.
    47. Richard Kirk, 1983. "Political terrorism and the size of government: A positive institutional analysis of violent political activity," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 41-52, January.
    48. Quan Li, 2005. "Does Democracy Promote or Reduce Transnational Terrorist Incidents?," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 49(2), pages 278-297, April.
    49. Gaibulloev, Khusrav & Piazza, James A. & Sandler, Todd, 2017. "Regime Types and Terrorism," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(3), pages 491-522, July.
    50. Pfeiffer, Christoph P., 2012. "Causalities and casualties: Media attention and terrorism, 1970–2010," Working Paper 127/2012, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg.
    51. Edward Miguel & Shanker Satyanath & Ernest Sergenti, 2004. "Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(4), pages 725-753, August.
    52. Jetter, Michael, 2014. "Terrorism and the Media," IZA Discussion Papers 8497, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    53. Nils B. Weidmann, 2016. "A Closer Look at Reporting Bias in Conflict Event Data," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 60(1), pages 206-218, January.
    54. Victor Asal & Aaron M. Hoffman, 2016. "Media effects: Do terrorist organizations launch foreign attacks in response to levels of press freedom or press attention?," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 33(4), pages 381-399, September.
    55. Frederick Solt, 2016. "The Standardized World Income Inequality Database," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1267-1281, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bharati, Tushar & Jetter, Michael & Malik, Muhammad Nauman, 2024. "Types of communications technology and civil conflict," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    2. Choudhary, Sheraz Ahmad & Khan, Muhammad Azhar & Sheikh, Abdullah Zafar & Jabor, Mohd Khata & Nordin, Mohd Safarin bin & Nassani, Abdelmohsen A. & Alotaibi, Saad M. & Abro, Muhammad Moinuddin Qazi & V, 2020. "Role of information and communication technologies on the war against terrorism and on the development of tourism: Evidence from a panel of 28 countries," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jetter, Michael, 2017. "The effect of media attention on terrorism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 32-48.
    2. Freytag, Andreas & Krüger, Jens J. & Meierrieks, Daniel & Schneider, Friedrich, 2011. "The origins of terrorism: Cross-country estimates of socio-economic determinants of terrorism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(S1), pages 5-16.
    3. Syed Muhammad All-E-Raza Rizvi & Marie-Ange Véganzonès-Varoudakis, 2019. "Economic, social, and institutional determinants of domestic conflict in fragile States," Working Papers hal-02340977, HAL.
    4. Ezcurra, Roberto & Palacios, David, 2016. "Terrorism and spatial disparities: Does interregional inequality matter?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 60-74.
    5. Michael Jetter & Rafat Mahmood & David Stadelmann, 2024. "Income and Terrorism: Insights From Subnational Data," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 68(2-3), pages 509-533, March.
    6. Roberto Ezcurra, 2017. "Is government decentralization useful in the fight against domestic terrorism? A cross-country analysis," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(5), pages 872-897, August.
    7. Ajide, Kazeem B. & Adenuga, Juliet I. & Raheem, Ibrahim D., 2020. "Natural resource rents, political regimes and terrorism in Africa," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 50-66.
    8. Friedrich Schneider & Tilman Brück & Daniel Meierrieks, 2015. "The Economics Of Counterterrorism: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 131-157, February.
    9. Michael Jetter & David Stadelmann, 2019. "Terror per Capita," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(1), pages 286-304, July.
    10. Friedrich Schneider & Tilman Brück & Daniel Meierrieks, 2010. "The Economics of Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: A Survey (Part II)," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1050, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    11. Tim Krieger & Daniel Meierrieks, 2016. "Does Income Inequality Lead to Terrorism?," CESifo Working Paper Series 5821, CESifo.
    12. Krieger, Tim & Brockhoff, Sarah & Meierrieks, Daniel, 2012. "Great Expectations and Hard Times The (Nontrivial) Impact of Education on Domestic Terrorism," VfS Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century 62083, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. Gustavo Canavire-Bacarreza & Alejandra Montoya-Agudelo & Felipe Bedoya-Maya, 2017. "An Uphill Battle: The Relationship Between Geography and Terrorism," Documentos de Trabajo de Valor Público 15759, Universidad EAFIT.
    14. Adam, Antonis & Tsavou, Evi, 2022. "Do natural disasters fuel terrorism? The role of state capacity," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    15. Nauro F. Campos & Martin Gassebner, 2013. "International Terrorism, Domestic Political Instability, and the Escalation Effect," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 27-47, March.
    16. Ismail, Aisha & Amjad, Shehla, 2014. "Determinants of terrorism in Pakistan: An empirical investigation," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 320-331.
    17. Jetter, Michael, 2019. "The inadvertent consequences of al-Qaeda news coverage," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 391-410.
    18. Andra Filote & Niklas Potrafke & Heinrich Ursprung, 2016. "Suicide attacks and religious cleavages," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 3-28, January.
    19. Miaari, Sami & Zussman, Asaf & Zussman, Noam, 2014. "Employment restrictions and political violence in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 24-44.
    20. Krieger, Tim & Meierrieks, Daniel, 2019. "Income inequality, redistribution and domestic terrorism," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 116, pages 125-136.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    communications technology; GTD; information flows; terrorism; panel data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software
    • L96 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Telecommunications
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6995. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.