Do democracies experience an increased risk of terrorist attacks when an election draws near? Deniz Aksoy presents results from an analysis of terrorist attacks in western European democracies between 1950 and 2004. She writes that while there is evidence that terrorist attacks increase in the lead up to elections, this is only the case in countries where marginalised groups find it difficult to influence the political process, such as in states with high electoral thresholds for representation in parliament

Aksoy, Deniz

LSE Research Online

5/19/2015Terrorist attacks are linked to the timing of elections, but only instates where it is diﬃcult to inﬂuence the political processblogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2015/05/19/terrorist-attacks-are-linked-to-the-timing-of-elections-but-only-in-states-where-it-is-diﬃcult-to-inﬂuence-the-political-process/Do democracies experience an increased risk of terrorist attacks when an election draws near?Deniz Aksoy presents results from an analysis of terrorist attacks in western Europeandemocracies between 1950 and 2004. She writes that while there is evidence that terrorist attacksincrease in the lead up to elections, this is only the case in countries where marginalised groupsﬁnd it diﬃcult to inﬂuence the political process, such as in states with high electoral thresholds forrepresentation in parliament.On 11 April 2015 in Agri’s Diyadin district near the Turkish-Iranian border, a clash between Turkishsecurity forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is deﬁned as a terrorist group by NATO and severalother western countries, left ﬁve militants dead and four soldiers wounded. It was two months before the upcominglegislative elections in Turkey. Following the event, many commentators and oﬃcials accused the PKK of trying toderail the elections.Deputy Prime Minister Yalc ̧ın Akdoğan underlined the connections between the attack and the upcoming electionsand argued that the PKK was trying to pressure the electorate. Similarly, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu noted thatan earlier attack by the terrorist group DHKP-C on the Istanbul courthouse that killed a prosecutor on 31 March andthe attack in Diyadin were not randomly timed; they both aimed to inﬂuence the elections.Policy-makers in many other democracies often raise similar concerns over the connections between terrorism andelections. For example, following a deadly attack by Basque group ETA only a month before the 2008 Spanishgeneral elections, then Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero said: “The terrorists have today tried to interfere in thepeaceful manifestation of the will of the people at the polls”.The above examples raise an interesting question: Do approaching elections lead to an increase in the volume ofterrorist activity in democracies? In a recent study, I illustrate that approaching elections are not always associatedwith an increase in the volume of terrorist activity. Electoral permissiveness, a central feature of democratic electoralsystems, determines the extent to which approaching elections lead to an increase in the volume of violence.Elections and terrorism in democraciesEven though all democracies provide their citizens with peaceful opportunities to inﬂuence politics, some providemarginalised groups easier access to the political system than others. Some democracies have very permissiveelectoral institutions, which rely on highly proportional representation electoral formulas and low electoralthresholds. High levels of electoral permissiveness make it easier for a wide range of political actors, mainstream ormarginal, to enter electoral competition. Thus, permissive electoral institutions can help channel discontentedactors’ activities to the peaceful arena of electoral competition.However when electoral permissiveness is low, it is harder for marginalised discontented actors to meaningfullyparticipate in elections. For example, if the electoral system imposes a high electoral threshold (such as the 10 percent threshold in Turkey), a small political party formed by marginal groups does not have much chance of gaininglegislative representation. Consequently, while approaching elections and increasing competition motivatediscontented actors to increase their activities, obstacles they face to enter electoral competition pushes theseactors to violent means.1/4Therefore in democracies with low electoral permissiveness, increased competition around elections combined withlow levels of electoral permissiveness increases incentives to use violent tactics. Accordingly, approaching electionslead to an increase in the volume of terrorist attacks only in democracies with low levels of electoral permissiveness.Electoral permissiveness and terrorist attacksUsing data from Western European democracies between 1950 and 2004 and statistical models that includecountry ﬁxed eﬀects, I show that approaching elections are linked with an increase the volume of attacks indemocracies with the least permissive electoral systems, but not in countries with permissive electoral systems.In Figure 1, I illustrate the relationship between the number of months to an election, the eﬀective threshold, which isa measure of electoral permissiveness, and the predicted number of terrorist attacks. A move from 60 to 0 on the x-axis indicates that elections are approaching. A move from 10 to 30 on the y-axis indicates an increase in eﬀectivethreshold, thus a decrease in electoral permissiveness. Figure 1 shows that when the threshold is at low levels,approaching elections are not associated with an increase in the expected number of attacks. However, at highlevels of threshold, approaching elections are positively associated with an increase in the volume of attacks.Figure 1: Relationship between terrorist attacks, time to election, and electoral permissivenessNote: For more information see the author’s article in The Journal of Politics.2/4Figure 2 illustrates the relationship between approaching elections and the predicted number of attacks in threediﬀerent scenarios: when threshold is at its minimum value (.7), maximum value (35), and set to 31. The verticaldashed line indicates when the diﬀerences in predicted number of attacks across the three scenarios are statisticallysigniﬁcant. Whenever there are less than 28 months to elections, the diﬀerences in predicted number of attacksacross the three scenarios are statistically signiﬁcant. Negative slopes of the black dashed lines suggest that whenthreshold is high, decreasing the number of months to elections is associated with an increase in the number ofattacks.Figure 2: Relationship between upcoming elections and predicted number of terrorist attacks in threediﬀerent scenariosNote: For more information see the author’s article in The Journal of Politics.Accordingly, in the least permissive systems, approaching elections are likely to be associated with an outburst ofattacks. When the eﬀective threshold is 35, the predicted number of attacks 6 months before elections is 4.05 and itincreases to 4.39 in the month of elections, holding all the other variables at their mean values. This is around an 8.3per cent increase in the volume of attacks. However, if the eﬀective threshold is 31 then the predicted number ofattacks 6 months before elections is 2.99 and it increases to 3.17 in the month of elections. This is around a 6 percent increase in the volume of attacks.Thus, as the threshold increases the inﬂuence of approaching elections becomes more dramatic. This is evidentfrom the slope of the short-dashed line being steeper than the slope of the long-dashed line. The slope of the solidline is positive, even though it is not steep. This suggests that in countries with very low thresholds, approaching3/4elections lead to a slight decrease in the predicted number of attacks. However, based on the calculations of themarginal eﬀect of approaching elections, this eﬀect is not statistically signiﬁcant. In fact, only when the eﬀectivethreshold is above 30 are approaching elections signiﬁcantly related to an increase in the volume of attacks.Overall, this empirical analysis shows that approaching elections are not consistently associated with an increase inthe volume of domestic terrorist attacks. Among the democratic countries studied, only in those with the leastpermissive electoral institutions are approaching elections associated with an increase in the volume of attacks.Please read our comments policy before commenting .Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, norof the London School of Economics.Shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/1ecfpZp _________________________________About the authorDeniz Aksoy – Princeton UniversityDeniz Aksoy is an Associate Research Scholar in the Department of Politics at Princeton University.4/4

Terrorist attacks are linked to the timing of elections, but only in states where it is difficult to influence the political process

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