Correlates of Public Support for Terrorism

in the Muslim World

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita

Washington University in St. Louis

May 17, 2007 www.usip.org Working Paper-1
UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

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© 2007 by the United States Institute of Peace.

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the United

States Institute of Peace, which does not advocate specific policy positions. This is a

working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the

author at ebuenode@artsci.wustl.edu.
About This Report

This report, “Correlates of Public Support for Terrorism in the Muslim World,” was

commissioned by the United States Institute of Peace, Center for Conflict Analysis and

Prevention. Consistent with the center’s commitment to conflict prevention, this report aims to

inform the center’s ongoing work to expand the understanding of the determinants of terrorism

and its support base.

About This Series

USIP Working Papers are unedited works in progress and may appear in future USIP

publications, peer-reviewed journals, and edited volumes. This product is only distributed online

and does not have a hard copy counterpart.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

1

CONTENTS

About This Report .............................................................................................. 2

About This Series............................................................................................... 2

CONTENTS.......................................................................................................... 1

ABSTRACT.......................................................................................................... 2

1. Terrorism and Public Support.................................................................... 3

2. The Data.................................................................................................... 4

2.1 Dependent Variable: Support for Terrorism ......................................... 4

2.2 Independent Variables......................................................................... 6

3. Statistical Analysis................................................................................... 13

4. Interpreting the Results ........................................................................... 41

Appendix 1: Results of the ordered Logit .................................................... 44

REFERENCES ............................................................................................... 46

About the Author .......................................................................................... 48

ABOUT THE UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE .................................. 49

RELATED PUBLICATIONS............................................................................... 49
UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE – WORKING PAPER

Correlates of Public Support for Terrorism in the Muslim World

This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

2

ABSTRACT

Correlates of Public Support for Terrorism

in the Muslim World

ETHAN BUENO DE MESQUITA

Washington University in St. Louis

This report examines the correlates of individual-level support for terrorism in fourteen

Muslim countries. I identify a variety of factors that are correlated with support for

terrorism. These factors can be divided into a several categories: attitudes toward Islam,

attitudes toward the United States, attitudes toward politics and economics in the home

countries, and demographic factors.

The analysis uses individual-level data collected by the Pew Research Center in their

survey, What the World Thinks 2002: How Global Publics View Their Lives, Their

Countries, The World, America. These data are augmented with national-level data on

the economy, the size of the Muslim population, governance, and the level of terrorism.

I find that support for terrorism is positively correlated with anti-Americanism, the

belief that Islam should play a significant role in politics, the belief that the United States

poses a threat to Islam, and, surprisingly, the perception of free expression. Moreover,

education, perceived state of the economy, and support for democracy are not found to

have any significant relationship to support for terrorism.

The report proceeds as follows. First, I briefly discuss why understanding support for

terrorism is important for understanding the politics of terrorism and counterterrorism.

Second, I present some simple summary statistics of the Pew data set as it relates to the

analysis in this report. Third, I analyze the individual-level data more rigorously, using an

ordered logit model. Fourth, I offer interpretations of the results and discuss the problem

of making strong inferences regarding causal relationships from this study. Finally, in an

appendix, I explore the cross-country variation in the correlates of support for terrorism.

In particular, I attempt to deduce whether economic, political, and religious factors might

be correlated with this variation and discuss why this is not fully feasible with the current

data.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

3

1. Terrorism and Public Support

For a variety of reasons, public opinion and public support play a vital role in the politics of

terrorism. First, many terrorist organizations depend on the support of a surrounding population.

Without such support, the terrorists would be unable to raise funds, recruit volunteers, operate

safe houses, or avoid infiltration and capture by a militarily stronger government. The symbiotic

relationship between terrorists and the public they seek to represent is most clear in the

operation separatist and nationalist terror movements, such as the IRA in Northern Ireland

(English 2003), the FLQ in Algeria (Horne 1978), the ETA in Spain (Clark 1990), or Hamas in

the Palestinian territories (Mishal and Sela 2000).

While public support is a strategic necessity for terrorists, changing public opinion is also

one of the key goals of terrorist campaigns. Terrorism is, to borrow from the 19th century

anarchists, “propaganda of the deed.” That is, violent campaigns can, themselves, bring public

opinion around to the terrorists’ cause. Terrorism affects public opinion in a variety of ways.

Terrorist factions use violence and credit claiming to compete for public support with rival

factions (Bloom 2004, 2005). Successful campaigns of violence signal to governments and

populations, alike, the dedication and power of terrorist groups (Lapan and Sandler 1993,

Overgaard 1994). Terrorists often use violence to attract media attention and gain publicity for

their ideological message (Wilkinson 1997). And terrorists also manipulate public opinion by

engaging in violence in order to provoke counterterrorism responses that result in a backlash

against the government by a population the terrorists claim to represent (Bueno de Mesquita

and Dickson 2006, de Figueiredo and Weingast 2001). The historian, J. Bowyer Bell, describes

the important relationship between terrorism, counterterrorism, and public opinion in his

description of the aftermath of the famous Irish “Rising” of 1916:

The Irish people, as the rebels had planned, were vitalized by the Rising and

angered by the British repression. . . Although the Easter Republic of 1916 had

been apparently buried in the smoking ruins of central Dublin, by 1918 the idea

had been resurrected as 75 of the 103 newly elected members of the

Westminster parliament pronounced themselves in Dublin the new Dail of an

independent Irish Republic" (1971, page 64).

Clearly, then, understanding the sources of public support for terrorism is vital for

understanding terrorism itself. Several scholars have studied the correlates of support for

terrorism among various populations including Basques in Spain (Clark 1990) and Palestinians
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

4

(Krueger and Maleckova 2004). Fair and Shepherd (2006) analyze the same cross-country data

studied here. However, they exclude several variables that are included in this report and also

make modeling choices that differ from those made here. Thus, this report revises and extends

results that study.

2. The Data

2.1 Dependent Variable: Support for Terrorism

The purpose of the report is to explore what individual characteristics and opinions correlate

with support for terrorism. As such, the primary dependent variable of interest in this report is

individual support for terrorism.

In order to assess individual support for terrorism, I make use of the 2002 Pew Global

Attitudes Survey. This survey was conducted in 44 countries and asked a broad array of

questions about people’s attitudes toward politics, economics, religion, globalization, the United

States, the War on Terror, etc. In fourteen countries with large Muslim populations, Pew asked

Muslim respondents the following question:

Some people think that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against

civilian targets are justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies. Other

people believe that, no matter what the reason, this kind of violence is never

justified. Do you personally feel that this kind of violence is often justified to

defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?

Individual answers to this question constitute the key dependent variable for this report.

Answers are coded 1-4, where 1 represents an answer of “never justified” and 4 represents an

answer of “often justified.”

The question was asked in Bangladesh, Ghana, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Lebanon,

Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, Uzbekistan. Other countries with

large Muslim populations either did not allow the question to be asked (Egypt) or were not

included in the survey (e.g., Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia).

The following table and figure show some summary statistics for this variable. These data

make clear that there is significant variation in attitudes toward terrorism both across and within

countries in the sample. Across countries in the sample, attitudes range from those in Lebanon,
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

5

where the average person supports terror somewhere between often and sometimes, to those

in Uzbekistan, where the average person supports terror somewhere between rarely and never.

I return to issues of interpretation and validity of this measure of support for terrorism in

section 3.

Support for Terrorism by Country

Country Mean Standard Deviation Number of Observations

Bangladesh 2.1 1.1 542

Ghana 1.9 1.0 85

Indonesia 1.9 1.0 910

Ivory Coast 2.5 1.1 89

Jordan 2.3 1.1 873

Lebanon 3.2 1.0 554

Nigeria 2.4 1.1 318

Pakistan 2.1 1.3 1592

Senegal 2.0 1.1 644

Tanzania 1.6 0.9 230

Turkey 1.4 0.9 848

Uganda 1.8 1.0 110

Uzbekistan 1.2 0.6 562

FULL SAMPLE 2.03 1.14 7952
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

6

2.2 Independent Variables

I explore how a variety of independent variables correlate with support for terrorism. These

independent variables are divided into several categories.

Attitudes toward Islam and Politics. A person’s attitude toward Islam and its role in politics

may be an important factor in willingness to support terrorism in defense of Islam. The first

question I consider measures an individual’s view of the appropriate role of Islam in politics. The

question reads:

And how much of a role do you think Islam SHOULD play in the political life of

our country—a very large role, a fairly large role, a fairly small role, or a very

small role?

Just as potentially important as a person’s attitude toward the role Islam should play, is a

person’s perception of the role Islam does play. Another question captures this:
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

7

How much of a role do you think Islam plays in the political life of our country—a

very large role, a fairly large role, a fairly small role, or a very small role?

The next table shows the correlation between people’s answers to these two questions and

their support for terrorism. People who support a strong role for Islam in politics are more likely

to also support terrorism. Perhaps more surprisingly, people who perceive Islam to play a large

role in the politics of their home country are also more likely to support terrorism.

One might conjecture that this latter correlation is due to people from countries where Islam

does play a strong role also supporting terrorism more. However, as we will see in the statistical

model, even controlling for country, the perception that Islam plays a large role in politics is a

positive correlate of support for terror.

Correlations Between Support for Terrorism and Views on Islam

Role Islam Should Play Role Islam Plays

Support for Terrorism 0.14 0.1

One might also think that dissatisfaction with Islam’s role in politics would be correlated with

support for terrorism. Consider a new variable constructed by subtracting a person’s answer to

the role Islam does play from that person’s answer to the role Islam should play. A person with a

high score on this new variable is a person who believes Islam should play a big role but does

play a small role. A person with a low score is a person who believes Islam should play a small

role but does play a big role. Call this new variable “Islamic Dissatisfaction.” Interestingly, as

shown in the next table, dissatisfaction with the role of Islam in one’s own country’s politics is

much more weakly correlated with support for terrorism then raw attitudes toward to role of

Islam.

Correlation Between Support for Terrorism and Dissatisfaction with the

Role of Islam in Politics

Islamic Dissatisfaction

Support for Terrorism 0.04

The question assessing a person’s attitude toward terrorism specifically makes mention of

the use of terrorism in defense of Islam. One might think that people are particularly likely to

support this type of terrorism if they perceive Islam to be under threat and, thus, in need of

defending.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

8

In order to explore this possibility, I make use of the following question:

Turning to another subject, in your opinion, are there any serious threats to Islam

today?

People who answered yes to this question were offered the chance to name three possible

sources of threats to Islam. Of particular interest, for this report, are people who perceive the

threat to Islam as coming from the United States and the West, other religions, or their home

government.

Correlations Between Support for Terrorism and Perceived Threats to Islam

Threat to

Islam

U.S.

Threat

Religious

Threat

Government

Threat

Support for

Terrorism

0.11 0.17 0.04 0.01

As can be seen in the table, a perceived threat to Islam is, in fact, a large positive correlate

of support for terrorism. And, among those who perceive there to be significant threats to Islam,

those who believe the United States and the West pose such a threat are particularly likely to

support terrorism.

The following figure summarizes the descriptive statistics relating support for terrorism to

attitudes toward Islam.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

9

Attitudes toward the United States. As the previous section showed, perceiving the United

States as a threat to Islam is a large, positive correlate of support for terrorism. The question

naturally arises, then, whether other attitudes toward the United States are also correlated with

support for terrorism.

The Pew study explicitly asks respondents of their attitudes toward the United States in the

following question:

Please tell me if you have a very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable or

very unfavorable opinion of the United States?

The survey also asks respondents whether they have ever visited the United States. As the

following table shows, people with positive attitudes toward the United States are less likely to

support terrorism. Surprisingly, the same is not true of people who have visited the United

States. Such people are more likely to support terrorism. Further, among survey respondents,
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

10

having a positive attitude toward the United States is essentially uncorrelated with having visited

the United States.

Correlations Between Support for Terrorism and Attitudes toward or

Experience of the United States

Attitude Toward U.S. Visited U.S.

Support for

Terrorism -0.09 0.05

Correlations Between Attitudes toward and Experience of the United States

Attitude Toward U.S.

Visited U.S. 0.02

The following figure summarizes the descriptive statistics relating support for terrorism to

attitudes toward the United States.

Correlations Between Support for Terrorism and Attitudes toward or Experience

of the United States

-0.1

-0.08

-0.06

-0.04

-0.02

0

0.02

0.04

0.06

U.S. Attitude Visit U.S.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

11

Attitudes toward Politics and Economics at Home. Although much terrorism is

undertaken in opposition to America and the West, the politics and economics of a respondent’s

home country can also be an important correlate of support for terrorism. The Pew study makes

it possible to examine the importance of a variety of attitudes toward and perceptions of political

and economic life in a respondent’s home country.

I first consider a question that attempts to determine whether a person considers his or her

home government effective at governance.

Please tell me whether you completely agree, mostly agree, mostly disagree or completely

disagree with, “When something is run by the state/government, it is usually inefficient and

wasteful.” 

The next question assesses the extent to which a person perceives him or herself to have

freedom of speech:

Does “you can openly say what you think and can criticize the state/government” describe

our country very well, somewhat well, not too well or not well at all?

The final question in this category considers a person’s perception of the economy:

Now thinking about our economic situation, how would you describe the current economic

situation in (survey country)—is it very good, somewhat good, somewhat bad or very bad?

Taken together, these questions present a rough overview of a person’s view of politics and

economics in his or her home country. Correlation data are presented in the following table.

Correlations Between Support for Terrorism and Perceptions of Politics

and Economics in Home Country

State Inefficient Economic Perception Free expression

Support for

Terrorism

0.05 -0.01 0.08

Not surprisingly, people who view their government as inefficient are more likely to support

terrorism. Perhaps less intuitive, though consistent with other survey evidence (Krueger and
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

12

Maleckova 2003), a person’s perception of the economy is essentially uncorrelated with his or

her support for terrorism.

Most surprisingly, a person who perceives him or herself to have free expression is more

likely to support terrorism. One possible explanation for this positive correlation is that people

who perceive themselves to have free expression are more willing to voice support for terrorism,

whereas those who do not perceive themselves to have free expression keep such views

hidden. Interestingly, however, the correlation between the average perceived freedom of

expression in this survey by country and an objective measure of political freedom by country

(POLITY IV scores) is very low (0.08, see the figure).1 Thus, the perception of freedom of

expression is not highly correlated with other measures of political freedom.

Demographics and Personal Characteristics

Several demographic and other personal variables are also studied. The include age,

gender, marital status, and educational attainment. Age ranges from 18 through 90. Marital

status includes only two options: married or not. Education is broken into four categories: no

education, primary education, high school, and more than high school.

Correlations Between Support for Terrorism and Perceptions of Politics

and Economics in Home Country

Age Female Married Education

Support for

Terrorism -0.04 0.02 -0.07 0.00

Older people and married people are somewhat less likely to report that they support

terrorism. Women appear to support terrorism slightly more than men. And, consistent with

other surveys (e.g., Krueger and Maleckova 2003), education appears uncorrelated with support

for terrorism.

 1 Note that Lebanon and Ivory Coast are omitted. This is because they did not receive 2003 POLITY IV

scored due to foreign occupation (Lebannon) or the collapse of central authority (Ivory Coast).
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

13

3. Statistical Analysis

The correlations in the previous section provide an overview of the data and the relationship

between support for terrorism and a variety of important covariates. However, they do not tell

the whole story. These simple correlations fail to take into account the interrelationship among

the independent variables, as they relate to support for terrorism.

For instance, support for terrorism is positively correlated with having a negative impression

of the United States. Thus, it might be that general anti-American sentiment leads to greater

support for terrorism. However, the perception that the United States is a threat to Islam is also

positively correlated with support for terrorism. And there is a positive correlation between

perceiving the United States to be a threat and having a negative attitude toward the United

States (the correlation is 0.17). Thus, it might be that perceiving the United States to be a threat

to Islam leads one both to support terror and to have a negative attitude toward the United

States. To uncover this type of relationship, we need to examine the correlation between antiAmerican attitudes and support for terrorism, controlling for the perception of the United States

as a threat to Islam.

In order to do this, we employ a statistical model that estimates the correlations between

support for terrorism and each independent variable, controlling for all the other independent

variables. The particular statistical model used is an ordered logit, which is an appropriate tool

for dealing with the non-binary, ordered, discrete nature of the answers to the survey question

on support for terrorism.

The results of the statistical analysis are reported in Appendix 2. However, the values in

those tables are not, in and of themselves, very informative. To tease some substantive

meaning out of the estimates, I provide a variety of simulations. Each simulation sets all of the

independent variables equal to their means and then varies one independent variable. The

output is the probability of an individual respondent giving each of the four possible answers to

the “support terrorism” survey question. Thus, these simulations allow us to see what change in

the probability a person supports terror is, on average, associated with, say, a change in a

person’s attitude toward the United States.

Role of Islam in Politics

In the simple correlations, support for terrorism was found to be positively correlated with

two views on Islam and politics. Both people who believed Islam should play a large role in
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

14

politics and people who believed that Islam does play a large role in the politics of their home

country were more likely to support terrorism. This relationship continues to hold in the statistical

model.

Simulated probabilities of attitudes toward terror as a function of attitude

toward the proper role of Islam in politics

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

Strong Opponent Weak Opponent Weak Supporter Strong Supporter

Very small role

Fairly small role

Fairly large role

Very large role

In this table (and all subsequent tables that are similar in appearance), the x-axis has four

categories, representing the four possible levels of support for terrorism (“strong opponent”,

“weak opponent”, “weak supporter”, and “strong supporter”). Within each of these categories

there are four bars, representing the four possible values of the independent variable in

question (in this case, the respondent’s view of the proper role of Islam in politics). The y-axis

(i.e., the height of each bar), then represents the probability that a respondent with that attitude

toward Islam (and mean values for all other independent variables) has that level of support for

terrorism.

For instance, the figure shows that a person who believes that Islam should have a very

small role in politics is a strong opponent of terrorism with probability of approximately 0.54, a

weak opponent of terrorism with probability of approximately 0.23, a weak supporter of terrorism

with probability of approximately 0.17, and a strong support for terrorism with probability of

approximately 0.05.

One can see several facts in the figure. First, the majority of people in every category do not

support terrorism (i.e., they are in one of the first two categories). However, people who believe

that Islam should have a smaller role are more likely to be opponents of terrorism. We can see

how strong this relationship in the following further figure.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

15

This figure represents the change in a person’s probability of being in each of the four

categories of support for terror as their view of the role of Islam changes incrementally. Thus, a

shift in a person’s opinion of the proper role of Islam by one category (i.e., from believing it

should be very small to fairly small, fairly small to fairly large, or fairly large to very large), is

associated with a decrease in the likelihood that that person is in either of the “opponent of

terrorism” categories and an increase in the likelihood that that person is in either of the

supporter categories. Notice that while the relationships are, by and large, statistically significant

(the dotted lines are 95% confidence intervals), the size of the effect is relatively small. Moving

up one category in one’s view of the proper role of Islam is associated with a decrease of

approximately two percentage points in probability of being a strong opponent of terror and an

increase of five percentage points in probability of being a strong supporter of terror.

The final figure shows the effect of a more dramatic change in attitude toward the

appropriate role of Islam. Moving from the view that Islam should play a very small role to the

view that it should play a very large role is associated with a decrease in the probability of being

a strong opponent of terrorism of approximately 10 percentage points and is associated with an
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

16

increase in the probability of being a strong supporter of terrorism of approximately 4

percentage points. Moreover, this change in beliefs about the proper role of Islam is also

associated with a 5 percentage point increase in the probability of being a weak supporter of

terror and a 1 percentage point increase in the probability of being a weak opponent of terror.

Overall, then, moving from the view that Islam should play a very small role to the view that it

should play a very large role is associated with a decrease in the probability of being an

opponent of terrorism of approximately 9 percentage points and, therefore, is associated with an

increase in the probability of being a supporter of terror of approximately 9 percentage points.

It is worth noting that a similar, though slight weaker, relationship is found between support

for terror and a respondent’s view of the role Islam actually does play in society, as can be seen

in the following figures. Moreover, and somewhat surprisingly, just as indicated by the

correlation in the previous section, running the model with Islam Dissatisfaction (i.e., the role

Islam should play minus the role Islam does play) yields no statistically significant relationship.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

17
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

18
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

19

Threat to Islam

In the simple correlations from Section 2 one of the main correlates of support for terror was

the perception of the existence of a threat to Islam. In particular, among the possible threats to

Islam, the perception of the United States as a threat to Islam was particularly strong.

Fair and Shepherd (2006) report that a perceived threat to Islam is the largest correlate of

support for terrorism. The analysis here broadly supports that conclusion, but adds some

nuance. If one runs a statistical model only including threat perception as an independent

variable, it is positively correlated with support for terrorism in a relatively strong way. However,

if one also includes a variable specifically measuring whether a respondent perceives the United

States as a threat to Islam, the general perception of a threat to Islam disappears as a

statistically significant correlate of support for terrorism.

The following figure shows the predicted probability of being in each category of support for

terrorism as a function of a general perception of a threat to Islam existing, controlling for

perceiving the U.S. to be a threat. It is fairly clear from the figure that there is no statistically

significant relationship.

Simulated probability of attitudes toward terror as a function of perceived threat to

Islam

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

Strong Opponent Weak Opponent Weak Supporter Strong Supporter

No threat to Islam

Threat to Islam

The following figure, showing the change in predicted probability moving from being a

person who perceives no threat to a person who perceives a threat to Islam, further

demonstrates that this variable is not a statistically significant correlate (all estimated changes

have confidence intervals that include zero, except the change in probability of becoming a

weak supporter, which is just barely positive).
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

20

Simulated change in probabilities of attitudes toward terror moving from no

perceived threat to a perceived threat to Islam

-0.06

-0.05

-0.04

-0.03

-0.02

-0.01

0

0.01

0.02

0.03

Strong Opponent Weak Opponent Weak Supporter Strong Supporter

Although perception of a general threat to Islam is not a major correlate of support for 

terrorism in the statistical model, perceived threat to Islam does matter. The statistical analysis,

however, highlights that it is the perception of a particular threat—one from the United States—

that is most strongly correlated with support for terrorism.

The next figure shows the probability of being in various categories of support for terrorism

as a function of whether or not a respondent perceives the United States to be a threat to Islam.

Those who do not perceive the U.S. to be a threat are more likely to be weak opponents or 

weak supporters of terrorism. Those who view the United States as a threat are more likely to 

be strong supporters of terrorism.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

21

The strength of these relationships is further illustrated in the following figure. In particular,

changing from a respondent who does not perceive the U.S. to be a threat to one who does

perceive the U.S. to be a threat is associated with a statistically significant change in the

probability of being in only one of the four categories of terror support. In particular, those who

perceive the United States to be a threat to Islam are approximately 5 percentage points more

likely to be supporters of terrorism than those who do not perceive the United States to be a

threat to Islam, who are more likely to be strong opponents.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

22

Simulated change in probability of attitudes toward terror moving

from no perceived threat to Islam from the U.S. to a perceived threat

to Islam from the U.S.

-0.12

-0.1

-0.08

-0.06

-0.04

-0.02

0

0.02

0.04

0.06

Strong Opponent Weak Opponent Weak Supporter Strong Supporter

Surprisingly, as can be seen in the following figure, a respondent’s perception that his or her

home government is a threat to Islam is associated with a decrease in support for terrorism.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

23

The size and significance of this relationship can be seen in the following figure.

Simulated change in probability of attitudes toward terror moving from no

perceived threat to Islam to a perceived threat to Islam from the home

Government

-0.06

-0.04

-0.02

0

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

0.1

Strong Opponent Weak Opponent Weak Supporter Strong Supporter

Attitudes toward the United States

Given that the perception of the United States as a threat to Islam is positively correlated

with strong support for terrorism, it seems intuitive that a respondent’s attitude toward the United

States, more generally, would also be correlated with support for terrorism.

The next figure shows the intuitive relationship. Respondents who have a strongly positive

attitude toward the United States are more likely than average to be strong opponents of

terrorism and less likely than average to be strong supporters of terrorism. Respondents who

have a strongly negative attitude toward the United States are more likely than average to be

strong supporters of terrorism and less likely than average to be strong opponents. However,

the relationship is very weak and is not statistically significant.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

24

The following figures demonstrate the size of the change in attitude toward terrorism

associated with incremental changes in attitudes toward the United States. Such incremental

changes in attitude toward the United States are associated with small, statistically insignificant

changes in attitude toward terrorism.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

25

While the slope is in the intuitive direction (better attitudes toward the U.S. are correlated

with less support for terrorism), even a larger change in attitude toward the United States is not

associated with a statistically significant change in attitude toward terrorism, as can be seen in

the following figure.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

26

Democracy 

As can be seen in the following figures, respondents with positive attitudes toward

democracy seem to be slightly less supportive of terrorism. However, the relationship is weak

and there is no statistically significant relationship. Overall, attitudes toward democracy as a

system of governance for the respondent’s home country, and support for terrorism are close to

uncorrelated.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

27
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

28

Free Expression

Perhaps more surprising is the relationship between support for terrorism and the perception

of free expression. As can be seen in the following figure, respondents who perceive

themselves to have free expression are more likely to support terrorism.

Simulated probabilities of attitudes toward terrorism as a function of

perceived level of free expression

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

Strong Opponent Weak Opponent Weak Supporter Strong Supporter

Very little free expression 

Fairly little free expression

Fairly good free epxression

Very good free expression

The strength of this relationship can be seen in the following figures. A one category change

in perceived free expression (e.g., from very little to fairly little free expression) is associated

with an approximately three percentage point increase in being a weak or strong supporter of

terrorism and an approximately three and a half percentage point decrease in being a strong

opponent of terrorism.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

29

Simulated change in attitude toward terror associated with an incremental

increase in perceived freedom of expression

-0.15

-0.1

-0.05

0

0.05

0.1

Strong Opponent Weak Opponent Weak Supporter Strong Supporter

A larger change in perceived freedom of expression (from very little to very good free

expression) is associated with an approximately four percentage point increase in being a

strong supporter of terrorism and an approximately eleven percentage point decrease in being a

strong opponent of terror. Moreover, the probability of being a weak supporter of terrorism

increases by the approximately five percentage points. Thus, overall, this change in perceived

freedom of expression is associated with an approximately nine point increase in the probability

of being some type of supporter of terrorism.

This result is somewhat surprising. One possible interpretation is that, when people perceive

themselves to have freedom of expression, they are more inclined to admit their support for

terror.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

30

The Economy

In the correlations in the previous section, perception of the state of the economy was

basically uncorrelated with support for terrorism. That relationship persists in the statistical

model. As can be seen in the figure, there is almost no correlation between the two. Somewhat

surprisingly, to the extent that there is any relationship, people who believe the economy is

strong are less likely to oppose terrorism.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

31

As is clear from the following figure, an incremental improvement in perception of the

economy has a small and statistically insignificant relationship with support for terrorism.

Simulated change in probability of attitudes toward terror associated with an

incremental improvement in perception of the state of the economy

-0.12

-0.1

-0.08

-0.06

-0.04

-0.02

0

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

Strong opponent Weak opponent Weak supporter Strong supporter

Even a large change in perception of the economy (from very bad to very good), has no

statistically significant relationship with support for terrorism.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

32

Simulated change in probability of attitudes toward terror moving from perceiving

the economy as very bad to very good

-0.1

-0.08

-0.06

-0.04

-0.02

0

0.02

0.04

0.06

Strong opponent Weak opponent Weak supporter Strong supporter

State Inefficiency 

The literature on political violence has emphasized state capacity as a determinant of civil

unrest (Fearon and Laitin 2003). Here, we examine how perceptions of the level of state

efficiency correlate with support for terrorism.

The figure indicates that there does seem to be some relationship. Respondents who

perceive the government to be highly efficient are less likely to support terror and respondents

who perceive the government to be inefficient are more likely to support terrorism. However, the

relationship is fairly small.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

33

How an incremental change in perception of state capacity is related to support for terror

can be see in the following figures. While the results are statistically significant, all of the

estimated changes are very small. A small decrease in a respondent’s view of the state’s

efficiency is associated with an approximately one and a half percentage point decrease in the

probability of being an opponent of terror.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

34

The effect of larger changes in perception of state efficiency can be seen in the next figure.

Moving from perceiving the state as very efficient to very inefficient is associated with a

decrease in the probability of being a strong opponent of terrorism of approximately five

percentage points (plus or minus four) and an increase in the probability of being a weak or

strong supporter of approximately four and a half percentage points.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

35

Education

Consistent with earlier surveys (Krueger and Maleckova 2003), support for terrorism seems

to be constant across education groups. This can be seen in the following figure.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

36

The absence of any relationship between education and support for terrorism can be seen

most starkly in the following figure. It shows changes in the probability of holding each of the

various positions with regard to terror as a result of a large change in education—from having

no education to having an education beyond high school. Not only is the relationship statistically

insignificant, but by and large the point estimates are zero.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

37

Demographics and Personal Characteristics

The model also includes several demographic characteristics of respondents. Consistent

with Fair and Shepherd (2006), who study the same data (but aggregate up to a binary “support

terror” or “oppose terror” dependent variable) we find that women are more likely to be weak or

strong supporters terror. Interestingly, women are also slightly more likely to be weak opponents

(this does not show up in Fair and Shepherds binary analysis). However, they are about 3

percentage points less likely to be strong opponents of terror.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

38

Simulated probability of attitudes toward terror by gender

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

Strong Opponent Weak Opponent Weak Supporter Strong Supporter

Female

Male

Simulated change in probabilities of attitudes toward terror associated with

changing from male to female

-0.06

-0.05

-0.04

-0.03

-0.02

-0.01

0

0.01

0.02

0.03

Strong Opponent Weak Opponent Weak Supporter Strong Supporter

Age is negatively correlated with support for terrorism, as shown in the following figures. A

change in age from 20 to 60 years old is associated with an approximately seven percentage

point increase in probability of being weakly or strongly opposed to terrorism and an eight

percentage point increase in the probability of being a strong opponent of terrorism. The

negative correlation of age and support for terror could be a true age effect (older people are

less likely to support terror) or it could be a generational effect (people born in the 1940s are
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

39

less likely to support terror than people born in the 1980s). Since these data are cross-sectional,

it is not possible to adjudicate between these two accounts in this analysis.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

40

Marital status is also negatively correlated with support for terrorism, though, as the figures

show, the effect is small (no more than 2 percentage points) and statistically insignificant.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

41

4. Interpreting the Results

The following table summarizes the basic results described in the previous section. In

general, the findings were that the strongest correlates of support for terrorism were

respondents’ attitudes toward the United States as a threat to Islam and respondents’ views of

the role of Islam in politics. As notable, however, are the independent variables that were not

correlated with support for terrorism, including attitude toward both the United States and

democracy, education, and perceptions of the economy.

Summary of Correlates of Terrorism

Correlation Uncorrelated

Islam should play large role in politics (+) General threat to Islam

Islam does play large role in politics (+) Religious threat to Islam

U.S. threat to Islam (+) Attitude toward the United States

Home government threat to Islam (-) Attitude toward democracy

Perceived free expression (+) Perceived state of the economy

State efficiency (-) Education

Age (-) Marital status

Female (+)

It is important to recall, in interpreting the statistical analysis, that correlation does not equal

causation. Thus, the results in the previous section should not be given a simple causal

interpretation.

One example of the problems of causal interpretation was already highlighted in the

discussion of the results regarding free expression. An incremental increase in perceived

freedom of expression is associated with a four percentage point increase in the likelihood of

being either a weak or strong supporter of terrorism. However, one ought not conclude that a

country that increases the level (or perception) of freedom of expression will therefore

experience an increase in support for terrorism. As discussed earlier, the direction of causality

could run the other direction; people who perceive themselves to have free expression may be

more willing to give voice to their support for terrorism.

A similar warning holds for other variables that show a strong relationship to support for

terrorism. The analysis showed a strong positive relationship between support for terrorism and

the belief that terrorism should play a major role in politics and perceiving the United States as a

threat to Islam. It may well be that people support terrorism because they perceive there to be a

threat to Islam from the United States. But the relationship could also work the other way.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

42

Terrorism is, among other things, a tool of propaganda. One of the key messages of Islamic

terrorists is anti-Americanism. Thus, if terrorism is an effective tool of propaganda, it may be that

people who support terrorism (for whatever reason) end up having strongly anti-American

sentiments because they are persuaded by the terrorists’ message. Another, related,

explanation argues that people who support terrorism have a psychological need to justify this

support. As a result, they adopt views that “rationalize” their support for terrorism. Thus, while

they may perceive their support for terrorism to be caused by their anti-American views, the

opposite might be the case—they may have adopted anti-Americanism to justify support for

terror. Under either of these alternative interpretations, anti-Americanism does not cause

support for terror, support for terror causes anti-Americanism.

A similar account can be given of the relationship between support for terrorism and the

view that Islam should play a major role in politics. Again, one plausible interpretation is that

people support terrorism because they want Islam to have a large role in politics and they view

terrorism as a means to achieve that goal. Another possibility, however, is that people who

support terror find themselves listening to messages, and interacting with people, who push

them toward the view that Islam should play a large role in politics. Thus, the causal

relationship, again, might be reversed.

The problem of causal interpretation means that one cannot draw simple policy lessons from

this analysis. For instance, to conclude that this analysis implies that fostering favorable views

of the United States’ attitude toward Islam would decreases support for terrorism would be an

over-interpretation. All that can be concluded is that support for terror and this form of antiAmericanism seem to be positively correlated. We do not know what interaction of actions and

beliefs causes that positive correlation.

Care should also be taken with respect to the scope of the questions that were asked in the

survey. The survey only asks people whether they support terrorism. Thus, one should not, for

example, interpret the lack of correlation between support for terrorism and perception of the

economy or support for democracy, as implying that the economy or democracy have no effect

on terrorism. At the most basic level, this analysis speaks only to the question of ideological

support for terrorism. Willingness to support terrorism, and willingness to become a terrorist, are

quite different phenomena. It might well be that, say, economic perceptions do not affect

support for terrorism, but they might nonetheless affect willingness to actually mobilize for

violence (Bueno de Mesquita 2005).
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

43

Finally, the survey itself poses significant problems. Most strikingly, the question on support

for terrorism conflates a variety of issues: defense of Islam from its enemies, suicide violence

and other forms of violence, attacks on civilians, etc. As a result, it is not entirely clear how to

interpret answers to this question. Respondents may be answering any of a variety of questions

(do they support “violence against civilian targets,” “suicide bombings,” defending “Islam from its

enemies”?).

Not only does the ambiguity of the question make interpretation difficult, it also raises

questions about how robust some of the correlations identified here may be. The clearest

example of this is the strong positive correlation between support for terrorism and the

perception that there exist various threats to Islam. One part of the “support for terror” question

specifically mentions defending Islam from its enemies. A respondent who paid particular

attention to that part of the question would be unlikely to answer in the affirmative to supporting

terror (for the purpose of defending Islam from its enemies) if that person did not perceive there

to be significant threats to Islam. Thus, the correlation between threats to Islam and support for

terror may be a specious result of the framing of the question. By mentioning Islam’s enemies,

the question may have filtered out those supporters of terrorism who do not perceive there to be

significant threats to Islam.

One cannot solve these sorts of issues through statistical analysis. The only way to clarify

these issues is for future surveys to field questions that are more targeted, so as to separate out

the attitudes toward various different phenomena that are all embedded in this single question.
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

44

Appendix 1: Results of the ordered Logit

Support for terrorism Support for terrorism

Economic perception

0.05

(0.03)

0.07*

(0.03)

Actual role of Islam

0.09*

(0.03)

Appropriate role of Islam

0.13

(0.03)

Islamic dissatisfaction

0.02

(0.02)

Threat to Islam

0.07

(0.07)

0.07

(0.07)

U.S. threat to Islam

0.24*

(0..08)

0.23*

(0.08)

Government threat to Islam -0.18*

(0.09)

-0.17

(0.09)

Religious Threat to Islam

0.09

(0.08)

0.09

(0.08)

State Inefficient 0.07*

(0.03)

0.07*

(0.03)

Free Expression

0.14*

(0.03)

0.16

(0.03)

Democracy good -0.08

(0.06)

-0.08

(0.06)

Visit U.S. 0.19

(0.16)

0.19

(0.16)

U.S. attitude -0.03

(0.03)

-0.03

(0.03)

Age -0.01*

(0.00)

-0.01*

(0.00)

Female

0.11*

(0.05)

0.10*

(0.05)

Education -0.03

(0.03)

-0.04

(0.03)

Married -0.08

(0.07)

-0.09

(0.06)

Lebanon

1.89*

(0.14)

1.89

(0.14)

Ivory Coast 0.72*

(0.21)

0.73

(0.21)

Bangladesh 0.22

(0.13)

0.20

(0.13)

Nigeria

0.70*

(0.15)

0.75

(0.15)

Jordan

0.47*

(0.12)

0.46

(0.12)
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

45

Pakistan -0.20

(0.12)

-0.15*

(0.12)

Senegal 0.00

(0.12)

-0.09

(0.11)

Ghana -0.18

(0.25)

-0.18

(0.25)

Uganda -0.35

(0.23)

-0.38

(0.23)

Indonesia -0.27*

(0.12)

-0.20

(0.11)

Tanzania -0.35

(0.20)

-0.63*

(0.20)

Turkey -0.97*

(0.13)

-1.05*

(0.13)

Uzbekistan -1.82*

(0.24)

-1.90*

(0.17)

Cut 1

Cut 2

Cut 3

0.77 (0.23)

1.52 (0.23)

2.87 (0.23)

0.16 (0.21)

0.90 (0.21)

2..24 (0.21)

* = significant at 95% confidence

N = 6116, Pseudo R2 = 0.08
This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

46

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47

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This is a working draft. Comments, questions, and permission to cite should be directed to the author.

48

About the Author

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in Arts & 

Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. His research focuses on applications of game 

theory to a variety of political phenomena including terrorism and political violence, legislative 

and electoral institutions, the political economy of weakly institutionalized environments, and law

and politics. His work has appeared in the American Political Science Review, the American 

Journal of Political Science, International Organization, the Journal of Politics, and a variety of

other scholarly journals.
ABOUT THE UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent nonpartisan institution established and

funded by Congress. Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, promote postconflict stability and development, and increase peacebuilding capacity and tools. The Institute

does this by empowering others with knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by directly

engaging in conflict management efforts around the globe.

RELATED PUBLICATIONS

Alterman, Jon B. 1999. “How Terrorism Ends.” USIP Special Report No. 48.

Baram, Amatzia. 2005. “Who Are the Insurgents? Sunni Arab Rebels in Iraq.” USIP

Special Report No. 134.

Barsalou, Judy. 2002. “Islamic Extremists: How Do They Mobilize Support?” USIP

Special Report No. 89.

Cronin, Audrey Kurth. 2002. “The Diplomacy of Counterterrorism.” USIP Special Report

No. 80.

Fair, C. Christine and Bryan Shepherd. 2006. “Who Supports Terrorism? Evidence from

Fourteen Muslim Countries.” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 29(1):51-74.

Hafez, Mohammed. 2006. Manufacturing Human Bombs: The Making of Palestinian

Suicide Bombers. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace Press.

Howenstein, Nicholas. 2006. “Islamist Networks: The Case of Tablighi Jamaat,” 

USIPeace Briefing. Available at

http://www.usip.org/pubs/usipeace_briefings/2006/1011_islamist_networks.html.

Scheffer, David. 2001. “Options for Prosecuting International Terrorists.” USIP Special 

Report No. 78.

Weimann, Gabriel. 2006. Terror on the Internet: The New Arena, the New Challenges.

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace Press.

Yacobian, Mona and Paul Stares. 2005. “Rethinking the War on Terror.” USIPeace 

Briefing. Available at

http://www.usip.org/pubs/usipeace_briefings/2005/0907_terror.html