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The purpose of this contribution is to review the theoretical and empirical literature on the economic determinants of terrorism.

Review of the relevant academic literature.

This contribution shows that there is a theoretical foundation to the popular hypothesis that poor economic conditions are conducive to terrorism. A review of the empirical evidence on the economic determinants of terrorism, however, yields an inconclusive result. Some studies find that economic conditions (directly and indirectly) matter to terrorism, whereas a plurality of studies suggest that noneconomic factors are more important.

The findings of the survey indicate that it is unlikely that economic conditions are universal determinants of terrorism. By pointing at several avenues of future research (e.g., a focus on the role of ideology in terrorism), this contribution, however, argues that the opposite also does not need to be true. The influence of economic factors on terrorism should neither be overemphasized nor completely ruled out.

The contribution offers a comprehensive overview of the economy–terrorism nexus and hints at promising areas of future research.

This study aims to use interactive quantile regressions to assess the conditional role of foreign aid in reducing the potentially negative effect of terrorism on fuel exports in 78 developing countries for the period of 1984-2008.

Bilateral and multilateral aid indicators have been used, whereas terrorism includes domestic, transnational, unclear and total terrorism dynamics. Interactive quantile regressions have been used.

First, with the exception of unclear terrorism, bilateral aid can be used to mitigate the potentially negative effects of terrorism on fuel exports in bottom quantiles of the fuel export distribution. Second, multilateral aid can be used to reduce the negative effect of transnational terrorism on fuel exports exclusively in the highest (90th) quantile of fuel exports. The corresponding modifying thresholds are within policy ranges disclosed in the summary statistics.

While the policy instrument of bilateral aid is most relevant in countries with below-median fuel exports, the policy instrument of multilateral aid is effective with respect to transnational terrorism in countries with the highest levels of fuel exports.

This study contributes to the literature on the role of external flows in reducing the negative externalities of terrorism on development outcomes.

This paper aims to assess the role of foreign aid in reducing the hypothetically negative impact of terrorism on trade using a panel of 78 developing countries with data for the period 1984-2008.

The empirical evidence is based on interactive generalised method of moment estimations with forward orthogonal deviations. Bilateral, multilateral and total aid dynamics are used, whereas terrorism entails domestic, transnational, unclear and total terrorism dynamics.

The following findings have been established. First, while bilateral aid has no significant effect on trade, multilateral aid and total aid have positive impacts. Second total terrorism, domestic terrorism and transnational terrorism increase trade with increasing order of magnitude. Third, corresponding negative marginal effects on the interaction between foreign aid (bilateral and total) and terrorism display thresholds that are within range. Fourth, there is scant evidence of positive net effects. Overall, the findings broadly indicate that foreign aid is a necessary but not a sufficient policy tool for completely dampening the effects of terrorism on trade.

There is a growing policy interest in the relationship between terrorism and international development outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of inclusive human development and military expenditure in modulating the effect of terrorism on governance.

It is based on 53 African countries for the period 1998–2012 and interactive generalised method of moments is employed. Six governance indicators from the World Bank and two terrorism variables are used, namely, domestic and transnational terrorism dynamics.

The following main findings are established. There is a negative net effect on governance (regulation quality and corruption-control) when inclusive human development is used to reduce terrorism. There is a positive net impact on governance (voice and accountability and rule of law) when military expenditure is used to reduce domestic terrorism.

The authors have complemented the sparse literature on the use of policy variables to mitigate the effect of policy syndromes on macroeconomic outcomes.

The purpose of this chapter is to investigate on the relationship between terrorism, criminal organisations, and the so-called ‘new wars’.

Review of the existing literature on the ‘new wars’ and on the terrorism–crime nexus; estimate of the financial revenues gained by terrorist groups engaged in illicit activities.

Terrorist and criminal groups can develop several forms of collaboration. Whether terrorists convert to criminal activities or not depends on a variety of factors, both internal and external. In some cases these links are occasional and opportunistic, associated with the possibility of exploiting the availability of specialised competences in a stateless environment, in other cases the warring parties are directly involved and create stable relationships as a way to finance their war activities.

Lack of reliable data limits a comprehensive analysis. Nevertheless, the study has important consequences for designing and adopting more effective policies regarding terrorism, organised crime, as well as conflict resolution.

The study presents an overview of different strands of the literature on terrorism; a discussion is articulated on the interplay between ‘new wars’ and the terror–crime connection. Potentially fruitful avenues of investigation are suggested for future research.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of economic, social and political globalizations on the incidents of global terrorism.

The authors apply negative binomial regressions model because the variable is event count. The sample size covers 195 countries from 1990 to 2017.

There is strong evidence that the higher level of economic and social integrations internationally lead to a reduction in terrorist activities. However, the results relating to political globalization are inconsistent. Comparing the top 20 most affected countries with the full sample, the authors find a negative association between economic globalization and terrorism, whereas social and political globalization is found to be statistically insignificant. Finally, the evidence holds firmly pre-9/11 attacks on World Trade Centre.

This paper suffers through the lack of consensus on a unique and consistent definition of terrorism. The definition of terrorism varies across time and countries. Furthermore, there is a variation among the main databases of terrorism, which could potentially affect the reliability of findings.

This paper provides policymakers with a policy recommendation that the economic and social integration across countries should be encouraged, as it might decrease the number of terrorist events taking place worldwide. In addition, the benefits of economic development generated through global integration must be fairly distributed across societies as an effort to decrease motivation of disgruntles population to involve in terrorism.

This paper contributes empirically to the existing literature through investigating the impact of economic, social and political globalizations on the incidents of terrorism worldwide.

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)

This paper aims to explore complexities of compliance with international and customary law when faced with terrorist threats. The paper's thesis asserts that terrorism cannot be successfully repelled unless the legitimacy of international and domestic law is adhered to by states out of a sense of reciprocal obligation in accordance with the principle of pacta sunt servanda (pacts shall be respected).

This paper examines US pronouncements in order to assess strategic validity.

While the Middle East, particularly Iraq, has been the focus of the US “War on terrorism,” the paper suggests two questions: what has been the US response to terrorist threats in the Americas? Have US national security priorities post‐9/11 been unnecessarily diverted from the Americas where much needed support is promised but lacking, and instead have resources been concentrated far beyond domestic and international norms?

The paper examines the US national security priorities, concluding that they have been unproductively diverted from the Americas to the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular. The US fixation upon Middle East “regime‐change”, while neglecting to recognize the dangerous nexus and presence of organized crime and terrorist organizations in the Americas, is illustrative of how the present administration has diverted its post.

The purpose of this paper is to recognize that organized crime and terrorism do not always operate independently from each other but, at times, rely on each other to create synergistic outcomes and use the same tactics and methods to advance their goals such as the use of fraud.

Sources of information consisted of scholarly articles and articles retrieved from the web.

Findings suggest that over time the crime‐terror nexus has increased its collaborative nature and terrorists have adopted the use of fraud schemes that were initially believed to be methods used only by organized crime to finance their organizations and goals.

This paper serves as a useful guide to alert and educate anti‐fraud professionals, law enforcement and policy makers of the nexus between organized crime, terrorism and fraud and that fraud should not be viewed as a peripheral issue in the crime‐terror nexus.