Terrorism via Democracy? Assessing Democracy Promotion as a Security Rationale

Abstract

Democracy promotion has been a key tenet of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Cold War and has been utilized to combat political extremism and transitional terrorist violence. This strategy assumes as democraticprocesses inhere within domestic politics and state institutions that the occurrence of terrorist acts will be less likely. As empirical data and case studies demonstrate, this assumption is misleading at best. A reviewof the literature concerning correlational studies on transnational terrorism and democracy illustrates that the presence of democracy—especially newly established, weaker democracy—often leads to terrorist violence more easily than authoritarianism where excessive rule of law preempts terrorist groups from organizing and carrying out violent political acts. The cases of India and China are reviewed to demonstrate that social and religious division, multipartism, and the tendency toward extremism are more accurate predictors of terrorist attacks. Democracy promotion is a worthy strategy and should remain one of the pillars of U.S. foreign policy, but should not be seen as a solution to the problem of transnational terrorism.