Does poverty cause terrorism?
Following 9/11, politicians and policy experts were quick to link terrorism and poverty. Poor economic conditions, they argued, raise the risk of political coups and civil war, which in turn increase terrorist activity. In fact not long after 9/11, then U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick identified trade liberalization as a key weapon against terror. In a recent paper ($5 fee for full text) published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Harvard University’s Alberto Abadie suggests it isn’t that simple: After controlling for the level of political rights, fractionalization, and geography, Abadie concludes that per capita national income is not significantly associated with terrorism. He finds, though, that lower levels of political rights are linked to higher levels of terrorism countries with the highest levels of political rights are also the countries that suffer the lowest levels of terrorism. The relationship between terrorism and political rights isn’t linear, howev
