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ABSTRACT
This study investigates the influence of rural-urban economic disparities on the survival and tactical choices of resident terrorist groups. These disparities inflame social and ethnic group grievances and erode the state’s capacity to police its rural hinterlands, thereby motivating support for terrorists and providing resident terrorist groups with the ability to attack with impunity. Based on the Extended Data on Terrorist Groups (EDTG), survival analysis shows that rural-urban disparities foster terrorist group survival. Other empirical methods – negative binomial regressions and competing risk analysis – indicate how rural-urban disparities and other controls affect resident terrorist groups’ campaigns and prospects. With mediation tests, rural-urban inequalities are shown to benefit terrorist groups by increasing social group grievances and by limiting host state’s control over territory.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.
Notes
1. Horizontal inequalities are socioeconomic disparities between groups of people within societies. They differ from vertical inequalities in that the latter are associated with individual-level qualities.
2. Hillesund et al. (Citation2018) provide a comprehensive literature review of the relationship between horizontal inequalities and armed conflict within countries.
3. It is important to note that some other studies have failed to find income inequality to be a consistent, significant predictor of terrorism (see, for example, Abadie Citation2006; Li Citation2005; Kis-Katos, Liebert, and Schulze Citation2014; Kurrild-Klitgaard, Justesen, and Klemmensen Citation2006).
4. The notable exception is Ezcurra and Palacios (Citation2016) who examine the effects of spatial income inequality within countries on aggregate levels of terrorist attacks.
5. For the purposes of the study, social groups are defined as ethnic, racial, religious, sectarian, caste or regional communities within countries. Not included are purely socioeconomic or economic class groups.
6. The argument that weak, failing, failed or low-capacity states foster more terrorism has its critics. See, for example, Hehir (Citation2007). Coggins (Citation2015) and George (Citation2018), furthermore, provide a convincing argument that the relationship between state failure and terrorism is dependent on measurement and can be endogenous to the occurrence of civil war.
7. V-Dem variable: Access to public services distributed by urban-rural location (v2peapsgeo_ord).
8. V-Dem variable: Access to state jobs by urban-rural location (v2peasjgeo_ord).
9. V-Dem variable: Access to state business opportunities by urban-rural location (v2peasbegeo_ord).
10. Results summarized in Table A1.
11. V-Dem variable ‘v2xpe_exlsocgr’.
12. V-Dem variable ‘v2svstterr.’
13. Around 26.9 percent of groups have a peak size in EDTG.
14. The average duration of a terrorist organization in EDTG is 12.7 years. The largest peak size groups have an average duration of 16 years. The average lifespan for terrorist organizations that are missing the peak size measure is 10.2 years.
15. r2 = −.1362, p ≤ .000.
16. Results available from author.
17. As a check, I also reran all models including terrorist organization goals along with terrorist ideology. The results of these tests reproduce the main findings are summarized in Table A2 through A4.
18. Calculated using first difference marginal effects simulations. Available from author.
19. Note, coefficients rather than hazard ratios are reported in .
20. Note, because ending by police or military force was the only significant ending in the competing risks models summarized in , I only present mediation analysis results for this ending type in . As a check, I also ran mediation tests for all other ways that terrorist organizations end. None of these were significant. Results available from author.