 Does Country-Level Social Disorganization Increase Terrorist Attacks?Susan Fahey and Gary LaFree Terrorism and Political Violence, 2015, vol. 27, issue 1, 81-111 Abstract: This study examines the effects of a measure of country-level social disorganization on levels of terrorist attacks and fatalities in 101 countries from 1981 to 2010. We measure social disorganization as the presence of state instability: revolutionary and ethnic war, adverse regime change, and genocide. The classic social disorganization perspective posits that individuals experiencing these types of rapid social change will be freed from the institutional and informal restraints that bind them to society, and keep them conforming to social norms and laws. We examine the extent to which this reasoning applies to the number of terrorist attacks and fatalities from terrorist attacks occurring in countries. To control for the possibility that better functioning states are better able to prevent terrorist attacks, we include two measures of state capacity. We find that controlling for state capacity and a wide variety of other variables, social disorganization is consistently associated with increases in terrorist attacks and fatalities. We consider implications of the results for future research and policy. Date: 2015 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ftpvxx:v:27:y:2015:i:1:p:81-111 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2014.972156 Access Statistics for this article Terrorism and Political Violence is currently edited by James Forest More articles in Terrorism and Political Violence from Taylor & Francis Journals |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.