27 October 2004	Wednesday	12 Ramazan 1425

WASHINGTON, Oct 26: The risk of terrorism in individual nations is affected directly by a country's level of political freedom, a Harvard study released this week concludes.

Produced by Alberto Abadie, an associate professor of public policy at the Kennedy School of Government, the study demonstrates that it is the level of political freedom in a particular country, not the level of economic development - as is commonly believed - that is associated with terrorism.

Mr Abadie's study says countries with so-called intermediate levels of political freedom are more prone to terrorism than nations with either high levels of political freedom or those with highly authoritarian regimes. The combination of a relatively weak government and elevated instability - as experienced currently in Iraq and during periods of political transition in the Balkans and Russia - may produce a temporary spike in terrorist activity.

In Spain, for example, the number of deaths caused by terrorism increased sharply in the late 1970's, with the beginning of the democratic transition, and decreased gradually afterwards.

In addition, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict studies show that participants in politically motivated violence tend to originate, if anywhere, from relatively affluent sectors of the population.

The country with the lowest incidents of terrorism during 2003-04 is North Korea, a highly autocratic regime.

The study utilized risk-rating data gleaned from international risk ratings agencies to measure terrorism risk rather than the US State Department database on international terrorist incidents. "For most countries, domestic terrorism is much more important than international terrorism. Terrorist risk ratings are useful to measure the overall level of terrorism risk, both domestic and of foreign origin," Mr Abadie said.

The article provides an empirical investigation of the determinants of terrorism at the country level. In contrast with the previous literature on this subject, which focuses on transnational terrorism only, Mr Abadie uses a new measure of terrorism that encompasses both domestic and transnational terrorism.

In line with the results of some recent studies, his article shows that terrorist risk is not significantly higher for poorer countries, once the effects of other country-specific characteristics such as the level of political freedom are taken into account. The study also suggests that geographic factors are important to sustain terrorist activities.

Quoting recent studies on the subject, Mr Abadie says that among countries with similar levels of civil liberties, poor countries do not generate more terrorism than rich countries. Conversely, among countries with similar levels of civil liberties, richer countries seem to be preferred targets for transnational terrorist attacks.

Much of modern-day transnational terrorism, however, seems to generate from grievances against rich countries, says Mr Abadie. In addition, in some cases terrorist groups may decide to attack property or nationals of rich countries in order to gain international publicity. As a result, transnational terrorism may predominantly affect rich countries, the study says.

The non-monotonic nature of the relationship between political rights and terrorism can be interpreted in different ways. On the one hand, the repressive practices commonly adopted by autocratic regimes to eliminate political dissent may help keeping terrorism at bay.

On the other hand, intermediate levels of political freedom are often experienced during times of political transitions, when governments are weak, political instability is elevated, so conditions are favourable for the appearance of terrorism.

The notion that poverty generates terrorism is consistent with the results of most of the existing literature on the economics of conflicts, says Mr Abadie. Such studies, according to him, suggest that poor economic conditions increase the probability of political coups. They also show that economic variables are powerful predictors of civil war, while political variables have low explanatory power. For example, in some African countries negative exogenous shocks in economic growth increase the likelihood of civil conflict. Because terrorism is a manifestation of political conflict, these results seem to indicate that poverty and adverse economic conditions may play an important role explaining terrorism.

But Mr Abadie says that recent empirical studies have challenged the view that poverty creates terrorism. Using US State Department data on transnational terrorist attacks, two recent studies found no evidence suggesting that poverty may generate terrorism. Instead, they suggest that among countries with similar levels of civil liberties, poor countries do not generate more terrorism than rich countries. Conversely, among countries with similar levels of civil liberties, richer countries seem to be preferred targets for terrorist attacks.