MEASURING AND UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT OF TERRORISM

KEY FINDINGS
Terrorist activity is highly correlated
to the level of political terror and
violent conflict. Ninety-two per cent
of all attacks since 1989 occurred in
countries with high levels of political
terror.
Since 1989, 88 per cent of all terrorist
attacks occurred in countries that
were experiencing or involved in
violent conflicts.
Less than 0.6 per cent of all terrorist
attacks since 1989 occurred in
countries without any ongoing conflict
and any form of political terror.
In OECD countries socio-economic
factors such as youth unemployment,
confidence in the press, belief in
democracy, drug crime and attitudes
towards immigration correlate
significantly with the GTI. In non-OECD
countries factors such as a history of
armed conflict, ongoing conflict within
the country, corruption and a weak
business environment are more strongly
correlated.
Higher levels of political terror, lower
respect for human rights, the existence
of policies targeting religious freedoms,
group grievances, political instability and
lower respect for institutions like the UN
or the EU all correlate with higher levels
of terrorism.
Terrorism is driven by a variety of country-specific factors and individual
characteristics. Reasons that people join FARC will be different to those who join
ISIL, which will again be different to those who perpetrate lone wolf attacks. IEP
analysis finds that there are different factors statistically associated with terrorism
which are based on a country’s level of development and history. Two groups,
OECD and non-OECD countries, were analysed against a large set of socioeconomic
data and yielded different results.
GLOBAL TERRORISM INDEX 2015 | Correlates and Drivers of Terrorism
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