The economics of terrorism

Abstract

From the Zealot rebellion against the Roman Empire that occurred in the first century to the Baader-Meinhof Group in the 1970s to Al-Qaeda today terrorism has evolved. A new era came within the scope of geopolitical and economic issues since the collapse of the USSR. Economic deregulation, globalization, and the growth of international organizations have been unable to prevent crises and could not explain the reasons for the growth of terrorism. Of course, economics does not explain all the reasons for terrorism as ideology, religion, and belief are all very important. Before, terrorism was based on a particular political context and struck a particular state, but now it is no more the state, but the symbol that it represents which is struck (Morin, 2001). The Twin towers symbolized power, wealth, capitalism, democracy, and domination. Today, it is a fact that the motivations of terrorists have shifted from nationalism, separatism, or Marxism to religious ideology and fundamentalism. Al-Qaeda is the perfect example of this mutation, with no state, no national territory, yet with an international network and financing. If that is the case, there are several ways to analyze terrorism. According to one definition:Terrorism is the premeditated use or threat to use violence by individuals or subnational groups against noncombatants to obtain political or social objectives through the intimidation of a large audience, beyond that of the immediate victims. (Enders & Sandler, 2007a)

Citation

Intriligator, M.D. and Coissard, S. (2008), "The economics of terrorism", Fontanel, J. and Chatterji, M. (Ed.) War, Peace and Security (Contributions to Conflict Management, Peace Economics and Development, Vol. 6), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 161-172. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1572-8323(08)06010-4