U.S. FOREIGN POLICY 

AND REGIME INSTABILITY

James Meernik

May 2008

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ISBN 1-58487-355-8
iii

FOREWORD

This Letort Paper examines the relationship 

between U.S. military ties with foreign states and the 

extent to which the depth of these ties influences the 

level of political instability and violence in those states. 

Many pundits and scholars have criticized U.S. foreign 

policy for its reliance on military means of influence 

and have argued that other foreign policy tools, such 

as economic aid, cultural exchanges, and diplomacy 

can better promote American interests. Yet, few 

scholars have chosen to evaluate empirically whether 

the military relationship encourages or discourages 

political instability and violence in these nations. The 

author, Dr. James Meernik, analyzes these issues in 

a systematic and objective fashion and finds that the 

relationships between a U.S. military presence, U.S. 

military aid, the use of military force, and other factors 

are much more complex and subtle than many have 

believed.

The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to publish 

this analysis as a contribution to the debate on this 

issue.

 

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute 
iv

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

JAMES MEERNIK is Professor of Political Science at 

the University of North Texas and Associate Editor of 

International Studies Quarterly. He is also Chair of the 

Department of Political Science. Dr. Meernik specializes 

in research on U.S. foreign policy and international 

criminal tribunals. His research has been published 

in International Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Politics, 

Political Research Quarterly, Journal of Peace Research, 

Conflict Management and Peace Science, Journal of Conflict 

Resolution, International Criminal Law Review, and the 

American Journal of Political Science. He is also author of 

The Political Use of Foreign Military in U.S. Foreign Policy

(Ashgate Press) and co-editor of Conflict Prevention and 

Peace Building in Post War Societies, with Professor T. 

David Mason (Routledge Press). Dr. Meernik received 

his Ph.D. in Political Science from Michigan State 

University in 1992.
v

SUMMARY

The United States utilizes a vast arsenal of foreign 

policy tools to induce, compel, and deter changes in 

other nations’ foreign policies. As the quantity and 

quality of such activity increases, the U.S. “footprint” 

in such nations grows deeper and wider. The U.S. 

presence may range from a diplomatic mission to a 

massive invasion force. The United States may seek to 

use its presence to openly compel change in a regime’s 

policies; it may employ its leverage to quietly induce 

policy modification; or it may use a combination of 

such strategies. And while the regime and citizens 

of one nation may welcome the United States and its 

largess, others may find such relationships a threat 

to the nation’s honor and sovereignty. To the extent 

a deeper and broader foreign policy relationship (as 

measured by a U.S. military presence; U.S. foreign aid 

relationship; the discrete use of military force; and a 

substantial similarity in foreign policy preferences 

between the United States and another government) 

contributes to stability and friendship, U.S. interests 

are realized. But does a broad and deep military and 

foreign policy relationship with the United States 

always succeed in realizing these interests?

Why would a cooperative relationship with 

the United States precipitate political and societal 

instability in the host nation? First, the U.S. relationship 

with the friendly or client regime may undermine the 

popular legitimacy and sovereignty of the government 

or interfere with local, political processes. Second, 

political ties with the United States often impact local 

economic conditions. Whether it is economic ties per 

se the United States is seeking to advance through 

opening markets, providing economic assistance, or 
vi

promoting U.S. multinational corporation interests, or 

it is the economic spillover effects from a U.S. military 

presence, local market conditions are bound to be 

influenced by the actions of the world’s largest economy 

within the local borders. Third, the local population 

may also be opposed to the broader U.S. foreign policy 

goals with which U.S. officials are seeking acquiescence 

or cooperation. Specific U.S. interests will also provoke 

antagonism as the populations of other states take 

exception to the ends or the means of U.S. foreign 

policy, and to their regime’s degree of identification 

with such interests. 

On the other hand, U.S. foreign policy means and 

ends are intended and designed to promote positive 

relations and maintain stability in those nations with 

whom the United States seeks to foster amicable and 

cooperative relationships. A strong U.S. presence can 

promote multiple, positive conditions. First, to the 

extent that a U.S. presence promotes both internal and 

external security for a nation, it provides the protection 

and stability a state needs to develop economically and 

politically. U.S. friendship can deter interstate rivals 

from overtly aggressive behavior and can dissuade 

internal political rivals from sowing unrest. Second, 

to the extent a U.S. military presence or U.S. military 

aid alleviates the need for a government to expend 

resources on its own security, a regime is better 

able to utilize freed up resources on economic and 

social development that should further the nation’s 

prosperity. Third, a U.S. military presence and military 

aid can stimulate the local economy and provide jobs 

for many nationals who are involved in businesses that 

contract with and supply the U.S. military, and can 

open avenues of opportunity for citizens to take part in 

educational, economic, and military interactions with 

the United States.
vii

I use statistical analyses to evaluate the extent to 

which indicators of a U.S. foreign policy relationship 

predict the level of terrorism, domestic instability, and 

war in other nations. I find a statistically significant 

relationship between several of the indicators of U.S. 

foreign policy and instability in foreign countries. 

The closer the relationship between a country and the 

United States, as measured by many of these indicators 

in most of the estimates, the more likely nations were 

to experience various forms of instability. Yet, the size 

of the impact of U.S. foreign policy was not always 

strong. Of all the measures of ties to U.S. foreign policy, 

the one that demonstrated the strongest and most 

consistent effects in the estimates was U.S. military 

aid. The greater the amount of military aid received by 

a foreign government, the more at risk it becomes for 

instability, including terrorism, riots, assassinations, 

anti-government demonstrations, and civil wars. 

The other measure of U.S. foreign policy 

relationships that exercises a strong, albeit somewhat 

inconsistent impact on regime instability is involvement 

in a militarized dispute with the United States. When 

the United States has used military force in or toward 

a foreign regime in the previous year, the predicted 

incidence of terrorism and civil wars tends to increase 

in the following year. Uses of force may inspire antiAmerican sentiment, embolden regime opponents to 

take violent action against the government (especially 

in cases where the United States is taking action against 

the regime), or may simply indicate the prevalence of 

uncertainty and trouble in a nation. 

We find less evidence that a large U.S. military 

presence contributes in any significant manner, 

at least so far as is apparent in these analyses, to 

regime instability. The effects of the size of the U.S. 
viii

military presence on the indicators is either small, 

statistically insignificant, or both. The last U.S. foreign 

policy indicator considered is the extent to which 

a nation’s voting record in the United Nations (UN) 

General Assembly mirrors that of the United States. 

As a state’s voting record in the UN more closely 

resembles the United States’, the incidence of various 

forms of instability, including riots, anti-government 

demonstrations, assassinations, and government crises 

increases. Anti-Americanism is often de rigueur in many 

nations, and thus making public pronouncements 

against U.S. foreign policy objectives almost seems to 

be reflexive in many capitals around the world. 

The nature of a country’s political system also 

plays a much more crucial role. We see throughout the 

analyses that as constraints on the executive branch 

of government increased, the incidence of terrorism, 

riots, anti-government demonstrations, assassinations, 

government crises, and civil wars all increased. On the 

other hand, political competitiveness serves to decrease 

the likelihood of riots, anti-government demonstrations, government crises, assassinations, and civil wars. 

Viewed from the perspective of domestic tranquility, 

the most effective form of government would appear 

to be one with a strong executive and robust political 

competition. Economic prosperity appears to decrease 

instability. The greater a nation’s per capita gross 

domestic product, the lower the predicted incidence of 

riots, anti-government demonstrations, assassinations, 

and civil wars. We also see, however, that more 

powerful states are more likely to experience acts of 

terrorism, riots, assassinations, and anti-government 

demonstrations, but are less likely to be involved in 

civil wars. These states typically have large economies, 

large populations, and large militaries. Their major 
ix

power status among the nations of the world may make 

them inviting targets for disaffected groups within 

their borders and terrorists from both the outside and 

inside, but not to the point at which intrastate war 

breaks out. 

1

U.S. FOREIGN POLICY 

AND REGIME INSTABILITY

INTRODUCTION

A superpower, like the United States, and its foreign 

policy actions typically produce substantial consequences throughout the world—it is the 800 pound 

gorilla whose every move carries with it deep and wide 

repercussions. Hegemons are able to supply a number 

of public and private goods that earn them many allies, 

especially among those states with whom they already 

enjoy a coincidence of interests. The hegemon’s very 

dominance, however, creates conflicts of interest, 

disputes, and challengers to its role regardless of the 

substance of its interests. U.S. foreign policy, broadly 

speaking, subsumes all actions taken by the U.S. 

Government that are directed toward influencing the 

conduct of world affairs in order to make the United 

States more secure and prosperous. When framed in 

the broadest and most inclusive terms, the United 

States seeks to influence other nations to adopt policies 

and take actions that more closely reflect American 

interests. The more approximately other nations align 

their foreign policy preferences to those of the United 

States, presumably, the better able is the United States 

to realize its preferences. Influencing other regimes to 

move toward the U.S. preferred position encompasses 

a substantial part of its foreign policy. To the extent that 

the United States is able to effect such changes through 

diplomatic inducement and deterrence and via other 

mechanisms that utilize its soft power, it preserves 

foreign policy resources for use in situations that 

require more forceful applications of U.S. power. And 
2

while the U.S. Government sometimes deliberately, 

and sometimes inadvertently, takes actions that result 

in other nations moving their policies away from U.S. 

preferences, nonetheless the overall goal in world 

affairs remains: to make more nations act globally 

more like the United States.

The United States possesses a plethora of tools at 

its disposal to effect change or seek influence in foreign 

regimes, including the stationing of U.S. military forces 

in foreign nations, the use of military and economic 

assistance, and the discrete use of military force. Scholars 

have researched the extent to which these tools have 

helped promote U.S. foreign policy objectives, such 

as democratization, improvements in human rights, 

and economic development. While their conclusions 

stress the limited impact the United States, or any 

other nation for that matter, can have on such specific 

objectives, scholars have yet to investigate the extent 

to which U.S. foreign policy tools are associated with 

broader U.S. foreign policy goals—most specifically 

regime stability. U.S. foreign policy relations depend 

upon the stability of those nations with which it seeks 

good relations. Those nations the United States seeks 

to influence that experience civil unrest, terrorism, and 

war are unlikely to be capable of maintaining positive 

and productive relations with the United States, to say 

nothing of democratizing or improving their human 

rights practices. Thus, a fundamental goal of U.S. foreign 

policy must necessarily be to help such regimes remain 

peaceful, stable and free of terrorism. But, to what 

extent do U.S. foreign policy relations with nations help 

improve the likelihood that these basic requirements 

of an effective foreign policy are realized? Does the 

use of military force or the stationing of U.S. troops 

within such nations or the use of foreign assistance 
3

contribute to peaceful and stable regimes that are free 

of terrorism? Or do these foreign policy tools in some 

manner make the realization of these objectives more 

difficult? The purpose of this monograph is to evaluate 

the degree to which U.S. foreign policies—the stationing 

of U.S. military personnel; the use of military force; 

the provision of foreign assistance—as well as a more 

general similarity of foreign policy interests between 

the United States and a foreign regime stabilizes or 

destabilizes such nations.

BACKGROUND

The United States has utilized a vast arsenal of 

foreign policy carrots and sticks to induce, compel, 

and deter changes in other nations’ foreign policies. 

Traditionally, U.S. foreign policy research focuses 

on the degree of success the U.S. Government has 

achieved when seeking specific objectives such as 

improvements in human rights conditions, democratic 

change, United Nations (UN) General Assembly voting, 

trade policies, and a host of other goals. The results 

of such studies have been mixed, with some finding 

evidence that the United States can induce nations 

to vote more closely according to its preferences in 

the UN General Assembly,1

 and that U.S. militarized 

actions do sometimes lead to advances in democracy in 

target nations.2 Yet, other researchers have concluded 

that U.S. foreign assistance has little impact on human 

rights3

 or democratization,4 and that the use of military 

force to promote democracy rarely works.5

 And even 

those researchers who have found evidence of linkages 

between U.S. foreign policy actions and target nation 

behavior conclude that such relationships are often 

neither strong nor direct. Thus, evidence of positive 

influence must be treated carefully.
4

In this analysis, I seek to examine more broadly the 

effect of U.S. foreign policy actions—do they increase 

or decrease regime stability? The prime directive of 

doctors, as well as many other types of practitioners, 

is held to be, “do no harm.” That dictum may well be 

directed toward U.S. foreign policy—do U.S. foreign 

policy actions lead to harmful outcomes within those 

states with which the United States has established 

relationships? Are nations in which the United 

States maintains economic, political, and security 

relationships more likely to experience adverse political 

events that may be a result of the U.S. presence? More 

specifically, are the peoples of these nations likely to 

engage in disruptive or violent behavior because of 

their opposition to the U.S. presence or the degree of 

U.S. influence over their government? Or does the 

provision of foreign assistance, the use of military 

force, or the stationing of U.S. military personnel in 

a nation promote greater stability and lead to fewer 

instances of civil unrest, terrorism, and war? Does 

a close relationship with the United States provide 

foreign governments with the resources, assistance, 

and support they need to protect themselves from such 

threats? 

Before delving into the relationship between U.S. 

foreign policy and domestic unrest in other nations, I 

should make clear that as in all studies of influence, 

we must be extremely cautious in ascribing cause and 

effect status to phenomena whose precise relationship 

will often be simplified in our models and remain 

obscured in our data. Such caveats must be assumed 

in all such analyses, but I state them unequivocally 

here at the outset.

The U.S. Government engages in a plethora of 

actions to seek, maintain, and promote relations with 
5

other nations to better realize its broader foreign policy 

aims. As the quantity and quality of such activity 

increases, the U.S. “footprint” in such nations grows 

deeper and wider. The U.S. presence may range from 

a diplomatic mission to a massive invasion force. 

The United States may seek to use its presence to 

openly compel change in a regime’s policies; it may 

quietly leverage policy modification; or it may use 

a combination of such strategies and everything in 

between. And while the regime and citizens of one 

nation may welcome the United States and its largess, 

others may find such relationships a threat to the 

nation’s honor and sovereignty. I assume that in most 

cases the United States prefers a stable government 

and acquiescent population in such target nations, 

although it may foment unrest against some regimes 

whose policies it finds particularly objectionable. I 

further assume that when unrest and violence do occur, 

they tend to undermine U.S. foreign policy objectives 

by destabilizing friendly regimes. As indicated above, 

a close foreign policy relationship with the United 

States may help promote peace and stability; it may be 

associated with unrest and instability; and, of course, it 

may have little or no effect at all. I first describe below 

why states that maintain close ties with the United 

States might experience more negative consequences, 

before describing the rationale behind the opposing 

arguments.

U.S. Foreign Policy and Regime Instability.

Why would a cooperative relationship with the 

United States precipitate political and societal instability 

in the host nation? There may be numerous, specific 

U.S. policies the local populace finds objectionable, but 
6

here I focus on three broader sets of concerns that might 

engender opposition to the United States and ultimately 

its allies in the host regime. First, the U.S. relationship 

with the friendly or client regime may undermine the 

popular legitimacy and sovereignty of the government 

or interfere with local political processes. Given that 

the United States is pursuing its own foreign policy 

interests and seeking to sway regimes to adopt more 

favorable domestic and international policies, we must 

assume that (a) the local regime has not adopted policies 

sufficiently close to the U.S.-preferred position already 

because its own political interests and key constituents 

dictate otherwise; and (b) the United States is seeking to 

convince the regime to adopt policies that run contrary 

to its perceived interests. Ultimately, no matter how 

much the United States may seek to hide or disguise 

its efforts, many local officials and ordinary citizens 

are likely to resent U.S. actions as intrusive and be 

offended by the perceived subversion of their national 

interests. The more extensive the relationship between 

the United States and the local regime, the greater the 

probability that such opposition will grow.

Second, political ties with the United States often 

impact local economic conditions. Whether it is 

economic ties per se the United States is seeking to 

advance through opening markets, providing economic 

assistance, or promoting U.S. multinational corporation 

(MNC) interests, or it is the economic spillover effects 

from a U.S. military presence, local market conditions 

are bound to be influenced by the actions of the world’s 

largest economy within the local borders. For example, 

U.S. economic assistance that fosters free market reforms 

may, in turn, lead to reduced government subsidies to 

some economic sectors; spending reductions in social 

welfare programs; and the advancement of the interests 
7

of U.S. MNCs and local economic elites at the expense 

of small businesses and workers. A large U.S. military 

and/or political presence may lead to the growth 

of industries that cater more to the demands of U.S. 

Government personnel than to the local population, 

and may distort wages in some sectors of the economy. 

Even if the aggregate impact of all these U.S. actions 

is positive and leads to growth in the local economy, 

there will still likely be resentment at U.S. involvement 

in local affairs and the creation of winners and losers 

in the local economy that will breed further opposition 

to the U.S. role. 

Third, the local population may also be opposed to 

the broader U.S. foreign policy goals with which U.S. 

officials are seeking acquiescence or cooperation. Some 

degree of opposition to U.S. interests will form either 

because governments and their citizens oppose them 

because they are American interests and/or because they 

are the interests of a hegemon. Hegemonic interests, 

regardless of their substance, will always be met with 

some resistance from some quarters as the hegemon’s 

challengers seek to assert their own interests. Tensions 

and jockeying for power in global affairs are a near 

constant feature of international relations throughout 

history. Specific U.S. interests will also provoke 

antagonism as the populations of other states take 

exception to the ends or the means of U.S. foreign 

policy, and to their regime’s degree of identification 

with such interests. And even though regimes may 

seek to distance themselves from the particular U.S. 

actions that arouse such opposition, nonetheless, the 

deeper their overall ties with the United States, the 

greater the likelihood that U.S. unpopularity will lead 

to local unrest.

Therefore, given these several reasons why citizens 

and even some regime leaders would oppose U.S. 
8

foreign policies, U.S. influence, and a U.S. presence in 

their nations, the first, general hypothesis I will test is 

that the greater the degree of local U.S. involvement, 

the greater the likelihood of domestic unrest. The 

extent and nature of the local U.S. presence will act 

as a lightning rod for opposition to U.S. policies more 

generally and as a source of contention locally. It is both 

emblematic and symbolic of the relationship between 

the United States and the host government that can 

galvanize opposition to the (perceived) negative 

consequences of U.S. influence, and can serve to inspire 

those opposed to U.S. policies more generally. And 

while greater involvement often also provides greater 

local benefits as U.S. aid and military resources flow 

into a country, the political and economic negative 

externalities of extensive involvement increase as well. 

I do not attempt to assess whether, on balance, the U.S. 

presence provides greater benefits than costs. Rather, I 

assume that there are direct and indirect relationships 

between the size and nature of the U.S. presence and 

the likelihood of local opposition, and ultimately 

unrest. Further, I must acknowledge that the level of 

opposition to U.S. foreign policy in any given nation 

will not remain constant over time, but will fluctuate 

depending on the salience and visibility of U.S. actions. 

Thus, the causal pathways between the U.S. presence 

and local, domestic unrest are several and complex. 

U.S. Foreign Policy and Regime Stability.

On the other hand, U.S. foreign policy means and 

ends are intended and designed to promote positive 

relations and maintain stability in those nations with 

whom the United States seeks to foster amicable and 

cooperative relationships. A strong U.S. presence can 
9

promote multiple positive conditions. First, to the 

extent that a U.S. presence promotes both internal and 

external security for a nation, it provides the protection 

and stability a state needs to develop economically and 

politically. U.S. friendship can deter interstate rivals 

from overtly aggressive behavior and can dissuade 

internal, political rivals from sowing unrest. Second, 

to the extent a U.S. military presence or U.S. military 

aid alleviates the need for a government to expend 

resources on its own security, a regime is better 

able to utilize freed up resources on economic and 

social development that should further the nation’s 

prosperity. Third, a U.S. military presence and military 

aid can stimulate the local economy and provide jobs 

for many nationals who are involved in businesses that 

contract with and supply the U.S. military, and can 

open avenues of opportunity for citizens to take part 

in educational, economic, and military interactions 

with the United States. Therefore, the second, general 

hypothesis I test is that the greater the degree of local 

U.S. involvement, the lesser the likelihood of domestic 

unrest. I describe below several hypotheses based 

on these potential relationships and note where both 

positive and negative effects may result from U.S. 

foreign policy actions.

HYPOTHESES

U.S. Troop Presence.

The Potential Negative Impact. The U.S. Government 

maintains a military presence in most nations of the 

world. The troops that are stationed on foreign soil 

range in responsibilities from small contingents of 

Marines that provide diplomatic protection, to the 

many thousands of U.S. forces stationed in allied states 
10

including Europe, Japan, and South Korea. While their 

missions may vary and change over time, the impact 

of the presence of such forces can go far beyond their 

actual purposes. However, the U.S. military presence 

will likely serve as a lightning rod when the U.S. 

Government takes unpopular foreign policy positions 

and actions. Opposition to U.S. hegemony will likely 

be greater the more visible the manifestation of such 

influence in the presence of U.S. military personnel. As 

the foremost symbol of U.S. influence, a U.S. military 

presence will likely serve as both an inspiration and 

target for local opposition to the United States. I 

measure a U.S. military presence by the number of U.S. 

military personnel listed as stationed in all nations of 

the world.6

 I save for later a lengthy discussion of the 

dependent variables.

Hypothesis 1a: The greater the number of U.S. forces 

stationed in a foreign nation, the greater the level of 

domestic unrest, terrorism and war in that nation.

The Potential Positive Impact. Contrarily, a U.S. 

troop presence can potentially have many positive 

influences on local political conditions. Some of the 

larger deployments can have substantial beneficial 

effects on the economy by generating growth in local 

industries and services to support the U.S. personnel. 

U.S. personnel make many positive contributions to the 

society and the government through training programs, 

community involvement, and other endeavors. 

While not generally charged with influencing the 

internal affairs of these states, the military presence 

nonetheless may have important secondary effects on 

the likelihood of stability and peace in foreign nations. 

Local citizens, who live near, work at, or simply follow 
11

developments at American overseas military bases, 

become cognizant of a variety of American cultural and 

political customs. Long-term exposure to these ideas 

and practices may help inculcate democratic values 

in the populace and lead to calls for positive political 

change. The U.S. military also sponsors a number of 

programs and classes for foreign military personnel to 

impress upon them the importance of civilian control 

of the armed forces and other democratic and human 

rights values. In order to ensure continued American 

access to foreign bases, the U.S. Government also 

has an interest in stable and legitimate governments 

in these nations and may push some regimes toward 

democratization rather than risk less predictable forms 

of political change (e.g., the Philippines, 1986). 

Hypothesis 1b: The greater the number of U.S. forces 

stationed in a foreign nation, the lesser the level of 

domestic unrest, terrorism, and war in that nation.

U.S. Military Aid.

The Potential Negative Impact. The provision of U.S. 

military assistance no doubt wins the United States 

key friends in foreign regimes and militaries, but 

may also provoke anger and resentment on the part 

of many outside the government who disapprove of 

its uses. U.S. military aid may be used to help buttress 

unpopular repressive regimes; it may free up funds that 

regimes can then use to support private military forces, 

and it may be used to support unpopular wars or other 

programs, such as drug eradication. Ultimately, many 

in the population will likely see little direct benefit 

from U.S. military assistance and believe that U.S. aid 

dollars would be better invested in social programs 
12

and other initiatives designed to help the people. And 

to the extent that the population perceives the military 

assistance program as furthering U.S. dominance, 

whether locally or globally, its unpopularity may 

provoke dissention and unrest. Scholars have sought 

to determine if linkages occur between the decision 

to provide foreign aid and the level of such aid, and 

improvements in a nation’s human rights practices and 

democratization. Regan finds in his study of U.S. aid on 

human rights repression in 32 developing nations that 

“. . . U.S. economic aid has had little or no impact on the 

human rights practices of the recipient governments.”7

Similarly, in a study of the impact of U.S. foreign 

assistance on democratization, Knack finds that “The 

evidence presented here does suggest that either the 

favorable impacts of aid on democratization are minor; 

or they are roughly balanced by other democracyundermining effects of aid dependence.”8

 I measure 

U.S. military assistance using annual data in constant 

U.S. dollars from the U.S. Agency for International 

Development (USAID).9

Hypothesis 2a: The greater the level of the U.S. 

military assistance spending in a foreign nation, the 

greater the level of domestic unrest, terrorism and 

war in that nation.

The Potential Positive Impact. While most U.S. foreign 

assistance is given for political, economic, and security 

interests, it has also been used to advance and reward 

democracy, human rights protections, and other such 

goals that should enhance stability and peace in foreign 

nations. Insofar as military aid exposes foreign citizens 

to U.S. political values and helps to create a civil 

society, the underpinnings of stability and democracy 
13

are encouraged. The net impact of aid in general 

according to Carothers is “. . . usually modestly positive, 

sometimes negligible, and occasionally negative.”10

Hypothesis 2b: The greater the level of the U.S. 

military assistance spending in a foreign nation, the 

lower the level of domestic unrest, terrorism and war 

in that nation.

Militarized Disputes.

The Potential Negative Impact. Nothing symbolizes 

U.S. hegemony more than its use of military force to 

influence international politics and to effect political 

change in other nations. While some regimes and 

groups may support U.S. military action in some 

crises, often the use of force is viewed as evidence of 

U.S. heavy-handedness in global affairs. Many regimes 

and individuals will likely view U.S. military actions 

as protective of U.S. national interests rather than local 

interests, and believe the United States cares little for 

the value of civilian lives in those nations it enters. 

Thus, even though the U.S. military may be dispatched 

to provide order and stability in foreign nations, it 

may also precipitate more violence and unrest. Several 

scholars are skeptical of the utility of U.S. attempts to 

enforce its values and practices on other nations, and 

argue that military force is far too blunt an instrument 

with which to export values that take time, commitment 

and resources to grow.11 It is certainly possible as well, 

however, that there is reciprocal causation occurring 

between the use of military force by the United States 

and foreign unrest, for such military operations may 

be authorized in response to violence and instability in 

foreign nations. In order to account for such reciprocal 
14

causation, I lag this variable 1 year. I measure this 

variable as the number of militarized interstate disputes 

the United States was involved in with each nation of 

the world.12

Hypothesis 3a: The greater the number of U.S. 

militarized disputes involving a foreign nation in 

the previous year, the greater the level of domestic 

unrest, terrorism and war in that nation.

The Potential Positive Impact. Throughout U.S. 

history, the military has been employed on behalf 

of friendly relations and liberalist ideals, such as the 

promotion of democracy and human rights. Presidents 

dispatched the armed forces into Central America and 

the Caribbean in the early part of the 20th century, 

as well as the 1980s, to ensure the peace and oversee 

elections. More recently, the U.S. military has played a 

major role in the democratization process in Haiti and 

Bosnia after civil strife and war tore apart those nations. 

Indeed, one of the five major objectives of U.S. military 

strategy in the Annual Defense Report 2000 is fostering 

an international environment in which “Democratic 

norms and respect for human rights are widely 

accepted.”13 Scholars have discovered, however, that 

while the utility of military force depends on a deeper 

commitment among U.S. policymakers to regime 

stability, democratization, and the promotion of human 

rights, military operations do influence the likelihood 

of democratic transitions.14 After spending substantial 

sums of money and incurring a great many political 

costs in major military deployments, policymakers will 

seek to help build friendly and peaceful regimes. And 

of all the tools in the U.S. foreign policy arsenal, none 

provides the degree of direct influence that military 
15

force does. Operations may be designed to facilitate 

stability, human rights, and democratic transitions 

(e.g., Haiti), or compel them (e.g., Germany and Japan 

after World War II). 

Hypothesis 3b: The greater the number of U.S. 

militarized disputes involving a foreign nation in the 

previous year, the lesser the level of domestic unrest, 

terrorism and war in that nation.

U.S. Foreign Policy Similarity.

The Potential Negative Impact. Taking a stand in 

favor of U.S. foreign policy positions is often a risky 

undertaking as U.S. actions often have a way of 

alienating some people and regimes that do not share 

the U.S. world view. Democratically-elected leaders 

in particular may sometimes pay a high price for their 

support of unpopular U.S. policies as we have recently 

seen with regard to the war in Iraq. To the extent that 

the publicly expressed positions of governments align 

these regimes with U.S. foreign policies, we would 

expect that opposition to close identification with U.S. 

interests would increase, and such regimes would be 

more susceptible to domestic unrest. To measure the 

correspondence between a nation’s foreign policy 

positions and those of the United States, I utilize an 

indicator of UN General Assembly voting similarity 

developed by Eric Gartzke, which ranges from “-1” 

(representing nations whose voting similarity is least 

like the United States) and “1” (representing nations 

whose voting similarity is most like the United 

States).15
16

Hypothesis 4a: The more similar the voting behavior 

of a nation in the UN General Assembly to that of 

the United States, the greater the level of domestic 

unrest, terrorism and war in that nation.

The Potential Positive Impact. Contrarily, regimes 

that closely align with U.S. foreign policy interests may 

enjoy U.S. support and favoritism on a wide variety 

of issues. U.S. influence on international political and 

economic organizations is substantial, and the United 

States can use its influence to help ensure outcomes 

favorable to friendly states. Close alignment with U.S. 

foreign policy interests may also result in a regime 

receiving more tangible rewards, such as government 

contracts, foreign assistance, and other types of largess 

that can have a positive effect on regime stability. 

Hypothesis 4b: The more similar the voting behavior 

of a nation in the UN General Assembly to that of the 

United States, the lesser the level of domestic unrest, 

terrorism and war in that nation.

Control Variables.

To ensure a properly estimated model, I also 

include several control variables that have generally 

been found to exercise a substantial impact on the 

dependent variables—unrest, terrorism, and war. 

First, the level of democracy in a society should have 

a negative impact on these events. More democratic 

nations provide for outlets for citizens’ grievances 

against their governments, such as legal protests, 

freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the 

power to change office holders through regular and 

free elections. These opportunities should diminish 
17

the attractiveness of more violent forms of protest 

and should increase regime stability and decrease the 

incidence of terrorism and war. I use several measures 

of the level of democratization from the Polity IV 

data base.16 I first include a measure of the number 

of constraints the executive branch of a government 

must labor under. Previous research has found that 

the more constraints the executive must contend 

with, the more difficult it is for the executive to take 

strong measures to counter unrest and violence.17

I use the Polity IV measure “ExConst” that is coded 

“1” for unlimited authority; “3” for slight to moderate 

limitations on executive authority; “5” for substantial 

limitations on executive authority; “7” for executive 

parity or subordination; and values “2,” “4,” and “6” 

as intermediate categories. I also include a measure 

of the degree of political competitiveness in a regime. 

In contrast to the previous variable, we would expect 

that, as political competition increases, there is less 

need for individuals to resort to violent methods of 

expressing their dissatisfaction with government. 

I also use the Polity IV variable measuring the level 

of political competition, “PolComp,” but create a 

political competition variable that is coded “1” for 

those nations that receive the highest PolComp score, 

and “0” otherwise. Political Competition refers to “the 

extent to which alternative preferences for policy and 

leadership can be pursued in the political arena”18 and 

whether, “Participation is regulated to the extent that 

there are binding rules on when, whether, and how 

political preferences are expressed.19 Finally, I use a 

measure of regime durability. We would expect that 

regimes that have been in existence for longer periods 

of time would have better experience and institutions 

capable of handling dissent and unrest, or channeling 
18

it in appropriate directions. This variable also comes 

from Polity IV and is described in extensive detail in 

their codebook.20 It is simply a measure of the number 

of years a regime has been in existence.

Second, states with larger populations have been 

found to be more likely to experience various types 

of unrest, particularly terrorism.21 The greater the size 

of the population, the more likely it is that there are 

groups of people within the society whose grievances 

have not been satisfactorily dealt with. Thus, states 

with large populations should show more signs of 

domestic unrest, experience more terrorism, and be 

more likely to be involved in wars. I measure total 

population using data from the World Development 

Indicators CD from the World Bank. Third, states 

with greater levels of economic development should 

be more stable. An economy that effectively produces 

wealth, and in which there is a reasonable distribution 

of such rewards, should lessen many citizens’ potential 

for unrest by providing employment and more tangible 

rewards, and by promoting an economically more 

prosperous future. Combined, these effects should 

substantially detract from the attractiveness of violent 

action. I measure economic development using per 

capita gross domestic product (GDP) from the World 

Development Indicators CD from the World Bank. 

Fourth, I control for state power. States with a greater 

share of power internationally are likely to make more 

attractive targets for terrorists because of their greater 

ability to influence international politics.22 I measure 

state power using the Correlates of War Composite 

Indicator of National Capability.23 The Correlates 

of War Composite Indicator of National Capability 

encompasses total population, urban population, iron 

and steel production, and energy consumption (as 
19

indicators of economic size comparable across time), 

number of military personnel, and defense expenditures, 

and is measured as each state’s percentage of the world 

power total across all these factors. Finally, I control for 

regional effects by including binary variables for the 

Western hemisphere (Latin America, the Caribbean, 

and Canada); Sub-Saharan Africa; Europe; and Asia. 

The Middle East is used as the reference category.

Hypothesis 5: The greater the number of executive 

constraints in a regime, the greater the level of 

domestic unrest, terrorism and war in that nation.

Hypothesis 6: The greater the level of political 

competition in a regime, the lesser the level of 

domestic unrest, terrorism and war in that nation.

Hypothesis 7: The greater the number of years a 

regime has been in existence, the lesser the level of 

domestic unrest, terrorism and war in that nation.

Hypothesis 8: The greater a state’s population, the 

greater the level of domestic unrest, terrorism and 

war in that nation.

Hypothesis 9: The greater a state’s level of economic 

development, the lesser the level of domestic unrest, 

terrorism and war in that nation.

Hypothesis 10: The greater a state’s power, the greater 

the level of domestic unrest, terrorism and war in that 

nation.
20

Measuring Domestic Unrest, Terrorism, and War.

I analyze the impact of the variables described above 

on three separate sets of indicators. First, I look at several 

measures of domestic unrest: riots, government crises, 

assassinations, and anti-government demonstrations. 

These data are measured on an annual basis for all 

countries of the world and are from the Banks CrossNational Time Series Data Archive.24 Second, I analyze 

data on terrorism from the Oklahoma City National 

Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism 

(MIPT) Terrorism Knowledge Database.25 These 

data include all acts of terrorism, both domestic and 

transnational, that occur within a country.26 Finally, 

I analyze civil and international wars as defined 

and measured in the Correlates of War Intrastate 

and Interstate data bases.27 Civil wars are defined as 

disputes where military action was involved, at least 

1,000 battle deaths resulted during the civil war, the 

national government at the time was actively involved, 

and there was effective resistance (as measured by the 

ratio of fatalities of the weaker to the stronger forces).28

International wars are defined as disputes between 

two or more members of the international state system 

in which there are at least 1,000 battle deaths. All 

dependent variables are measured on an annual basis 

for all nations of the world for which there are data. 

All independent variables are also measured on an 

annual basis, but are lagged 1 year to account for the 

likelihood that the impact of such variables will not be 

instantaneous, but will take some amount of time to 

manifest. 
21

METHODOLOGY

To address and answer the questions and hypotheses posed above, I will use several statistical techniques 

to analyze these data. For the assessment of the factors 

that predict regime instability and terrorism, I use 

a statistical technique known as negative binomial 

regression. Because the data on regime instability and 

terrorism are counts of events (riots, government crises, 

anti-government protests, assassinations, and acts of 

terrorism), use of ordinary least squares regression 

is inappropriate as its results would be inefficient, 

inconsistent and biased.29 I use robust standard errors to 

address the likelihood of heteroskedasticity among the 

error terms as has been done in many other studies.30

Analyzing Acts of Terrorism.

The results of the model estimating the impact of 

the variables described above on acts of terrorism are 

presented in Table 1. I will address the impact of the 

independent variables first and then discuss the overall 

fit of the model, its ability to predict acts of terrorism, 

and analyze which nations are most at risk for such 

actions. Most of the coefficients for the independent 

variables are statistically significant at the .05 level. 

I note first that all indicators of U.S. foreign policy 

relations—the size of a U.S. military presence, if any; 

the amount of military aid provided to a regime; and 

involvement in a militarized dispute with the United 

States, are positive. Close ties with the United States, as 

evidenced by these indicators, are correlated with risk 

for increasing numbers of acts of terrorism, with one 

exception. I stress again that we cannot assume that 

there is a causal relationship at work here, given the 

limitations of all statistical models. We can, however, 
22

make qualified inferences regarding the nature of these 

relationships. I use the incidence rate ratio to interpret 

the statistical effect of the variables. This measure tells 

us the impact of a variable on the number of terrorist 

actions holding other variables constant at their mean 

value. Thus, the incidence ratio for the variable “U.S. 

Military Presence” is approximately 1.0, which tells 

us that for every unit increase in the number of U.S. 

troops deployed in a nation, all other things being 

equal, the model predicts that the incidence rate of 

terrorist actions increases by a factor of .000002 percent, 

which is to say, very little. However, if the metric of a 

U.S. military presence we use is 1,000 troops instead 

of 1, the predicted impact is .002 percent. Therefore, 

we would conclude that while there is a statistically 

significant relationship between the size of a U.S. 

military presence and acts of terrorism, the substantive 

impact is quite small. 

Table 1. Predicting Terrorism Across States, 

1953-2003.a
23

We find a similar relationship existing between 

U.S. military aid to regimes and the expected level 

of terrorist activity. Here the incidence rate ratio is 

1.000594. For every $1 million increase in U.S. military 

assistance ceteris paribus (other things being equal), the 

predicted level of terrorist actions in a nation increases 

by a factor of .000594 percent. Here we see that it takes a 

substantial, but not altogether rare, increase in the level 

of military aid to truly impact the number of terrorist 

attacks. When aid increases by $100 million, the model 

predicts a significant likelihood of an upsurge in 

terrorist activity—terrorism would increase by a factor 

of 5.94 percent at this level of military assistance. 

There is a slightly different story, however, when 

we examine the impact of prior U.S. involvement in 

militarized disputes with a nation. Here we see that 

with each additional militarized dispute the model 

predicts an increase in the frequency of terrorist actions 

by a factor of 1.49, or approximately 49 percent. Given 

that there have been several instances in which the 

United States has used force within or against a nation 

in a given year, the potential for a significant and 

substantial rise in the level of terrorist activity is quite 

real. As hypothesized above, these types of militarized 

disputes may inflame relations between the United 

States and the regime in question, or catalyze terrorist 

groups into attacking the regime (if the regime is 

perceived as being too close to the United States, or 

U.S.-related individuals, businesses, installations, or 

organizations in that nation). Thus, there are clear 

policy implications here. Subsequent to U.S. military 

actions occurring within or against other nations, based 

on the model’s estimates, there would seem to be a 

substantial likelihood of increasing terrorist actions in 

those states. 
24

Interestingly, the model shows that states whose 

foreign policies are similar to those of the United States, 

as reflected in the closeness of their voting patterns 

in the UN, are less likely to experience terrorism. As 

voting similarity increases on this “-1” to “1” scale by 

a factor of “1,” the incidence of terrorism declines by a 

factor of 1 percent (1—the incidence rate ratio of .99), 

ceteris paribus. Since a change of one full point on this 

scale is quite rare, (except perhaps in cases where a new 

regime comes to power that is diametrically opposed to 

[or supportive of] the United States where the previous 

regime exhibited just the opposite behavior), this impact 

factor is not necessarily meaningful. If, however, there 

were a change on the order of a .1 increase, ceteris 

paribus, we should expect to find a corresponding 0.1 

percent decrease in terrorist activity. 

Together, these first results would seem to suggest 

that while a close relationship with more tangible 

aspects of U.S. foreign policy—a military presence, 

military aid relationship, and involvement in U.S. 

militarized actions—tends to be associated with an 

increase in the risk of terrorism, a similarity in foreign 

policy orientation toward the world per se does not seem 

to enhance the probability of terrorist activity within a 

state. Terrorists may well be inspired and galvanized 

into action by the more manifest military policies the 

United States engages in rather than some of the more 

abstract and removed policies at issue at the UN. I 

must caution again, however, that these estimates do 

not prove that a state’s close foreign policy relationship 

with the United States directly causes terrorism. All 

that we may reasonably conclude is that those states 

that do maintain such ties with the United States are 

at greater risk for increasing levels of terrorist activity. 

The long-term and structural factors that give rise to 
25

the conditions that make terrorism more likely may 

involve the nature of the regime’s ties to the United 

States, but they may also reflect the regime’s domestic 

and international policies that are correlated with both 

closeness to the United States and terrorist activity. 

As Li finds, the impact of democracy on predicted 

levels of terrorism depends on the extent to which 

there are constraints placed on the executive, the 

competitiveness of the electoral process, and regime 

durability.31 I had argued, as have other researchers, that 

democratic societies provide for more opportunities for 

individuals to present their grievances in a nonviolent 

manner and so ought to experience fewer incidents 

of terrorism.32 Thus, we find that there is a negative 

relationship between electoral competitiveness and 

terrorism, albeit one that is statistically insignificant. 

On the other hand, executives that face a great many 

constraints on their power, as in more democratic 

societies, are handicapped in their ability to prevent 

terrorism. Totalitarian or authoritarian regimes, by 

contrast, through deeper and broader government 

monitoring of individual behaviors, are able to prevent 

such individuals from coalescing into effective action 

groups. For example, one of the few nations for which 

there is no record of any terrorism in the period under 

study is North Korea, one of the most repressive 

police states in the world. Thus, we see that the more 

constraints placed on the executive branch, the more 

likely that nation is to experience terrorist actions. A 

one-unit increase in the measure of executive constraints 

is associated with a 1.16 factor increase in terrorist 

activity, all other things being equal. Regimes that have 

existed for longer periods of time are statistically less 

likely to experience terrorist attacks. For every year a 

regime has been in existence, terrorist attacks decrease 
26

by a factor of 2 percent, which is not large, but still 

indicates that longer-lasting regimes tend to be more 

stable and capable of addressing grievances that might 

lead to terrorism, or addressing through their criminal 

justice systems the potential for terrorist activity.

Neither a strong economy (as evidenced by per 

capita gross domestic product [GDP]) nor a large 

population appear to exercise any kind of meaningful 

impact on the incidence of terrorism in a given country. 

The coefficients for both variables are statistically 

insignificant. Some of their impact, however, may be 

absorbed by the state power variable. The incidence 

rate ratio for this variable is statistically significant and 

positive, which indicates that more powerful states are 

more likely to experience terrorist violence. As I argued 

above, such states are attractive targets for terrorists 

because their power and influence in international 

relations are not only more likely to incur the wrath 

of terrorists and like-minded individuals that view 

themselves and others as oppressed by such powers, 

but also because attacks against these nations are also 

more likely to generate tremendous publicity, thereby 

furthering the terrorists’ cause(s).33 The incidence 

rate ratio indicates that for every one unit increase 

in a state’s share of global GDP, terrorism increases 

by a factor of 28 percent. I stress again, however, 

that it is not possible to claim that there is a causal 

relationship between state power and terrorism that 

can be identified from this analysis. As well, most of 

these more powerful nations tend to be Western states, 

against whom much terrorism is directed because of 

cultural and other differences. State power certainly 

plays a role as an underlying factor that makes 

conditions ripe for the emergence of terrorist activity. 

Yet, just as the collision of two weather fronts does not 
27

automatically produce storms, but creates a conducive 

set of environmental conditions, so, too, does state 

power create an underlying and facilitating condition 

that makes terrorism more likely. Thus, even though we 

cannot then predict precisely when and where terrorist 

actions will occur in powerful states, we know at least 

to look for such events to occur where the conditions 

are most favorable, and not in other states where such 

conditions are absent.

The coefficients for the regional variables are all 

statistically significant and negative, which is exactly 

as I expected. Because the Middle East, which tends to 

experience more than its share of terrorists incidents, 

is the reference category, the other regions of the 

world look more peaceful in comparison. In particular, 

those nations in the Western hemisphere, (with the 

exception of the United States, which is not included 

in the analysis), Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are far 

less likely to experience acts of terrorism.

The next stage in the analysis is to evaluate the 

predictions of the model to determine which nations 

are predicted to be most likely to experience acts of 

terrorism. Using the model’s parameters, I am able to 

generate an annual count of the predicted number of 

acts of terrorism, which can be compared against the 

actual number of such incidents. The vast majority 

of the nations of the world are not predicted to 

experience more than one act of terrorism per year, so 

I focus instead on those nations that are predicted to 

experience three or more such actions in a given year. 

Those nations are listed in Table 2 in descending order 

of frequency. Note that the number associated with 

each nation is the number of years each nation is predicted 

to experience at least three acts of terrorism. According to 

the model’s estimates of the number of years a nation is 
28

predicted to experience three or more acts of terrorism, 

four nations in particular stand out. Japan is predicted 

to experience multiple acts of terrorism in 33 of the 

years under study; Israel is predicted to experience 

multiple acts of terrorism in 29 of the years under 

study; the People’s Republic of China is predicted to 

experience multiple acts of terrorism in 26 of the years 

under study; and Turkey is predicted to experience 

such violence in 22 of the years under study. There are 

then several nations the model predicts to experience 

fewer, but still multiple years in which there are at least 

three acts of terrorism: Egypt (in 13 of the years under 

study), Germany (in 12 of the years under study), and 

Iran (in 9 of the years under study). Then there are 

several nations that the model predicts to experience 

5 or fewer years in which there were at least three acts 

of terrorism including: Sudan, South Korea, France, 

Kuwait, and India. As can be seen when comparing the 

actual number of terrorist incidents with the predicted 

number, the model tends to overestimate the number 

of such attacks. Given that a nation fits a “profile” of the 

type of nation most likely to experience multiple acts 

of terrorism (because many of the characteristics that 

predict such actions tend not to change dramatically 

from year to year), such nations are predicted to be at 

risk for multiple acts of terrorism in many years. Thus, 

the model tends to err on the side of over-predicting 

terrorist actions.
29

Table 2. Terrorism Across Time in Specific States.

Acts of terrorism may often be the final culmination 

of domestic unrest, protest, and violence. While 

certainly not all countries that are characterized by such 

conditions can be expected to subsequently experience 

terrorist violence, these problems may well help set the 

stage. Therefore, I next analyze the incidence of four 

types of domestic unrest to determine which nations 

are most susceptible to this kind of instability and 

the impact exercised by U.S. foreign policy actions on 

these indicators. The types of unrest I examine are: 

riots, government crises, anti-government protests, 

and assassinations. I assess the impact of each of 

the independent variables across all four of these 

dependent variables. I again use the negative binomial 

Poisson model to estimate these models.
30

Analyzing Riots, Government Crises, Assassinations, 

and Anti-Government Demonstrations.

I turn first to examine the effect of the indicators 

of foreign policy relationships with the United 

States. The presence of U.S. military forces stationed 

in foreign states has a mixed effect across the four 

models. The incidence rate ratio for this variable is 

statistically significant and positive in the estimates of 

the number of government crises and assassinations, 

but statistically insignificant in the models of riots and 

anti-government demonstrations. Interestingly, the 

effect of the U.S. military presence is greater on the two 

indicators of what we might consider to be elite unrest 

and instability. Government crises may have deep and 

wide societal implications, but they often most directly 

involve regime leaders. Assassinations may involve 

government, militia, or other disaffected groups, but 

the targets are generally chosen for their high profile 

elite status. Taking this logic a step further, but as 

always bearing in mind the difficulties associated with 

making direct, causal inferences, it might be that a 

U.S. military presence may lead to political difficulties 

for those in authority, but it may not always inspire 

protesters in the streets. The substantive impact, as 

we saw in the model of terrorist actions, however, is 

still rather slight even when the incidence rate ratio 

is statistically significant. A rather sizeable increase 

in the number of U.S. troops stationed in a foreign 

country is required before the predicted incidence of 

these instability indicators will increase. 
31

Table 3. Predicting Riots Across States, 1953-2003a

Table 4. Predicting Government Crises Across 

States, 1953-2003.a
32

Table 5. Predicting Assassinations Across States, 

1953-2003.a

Table 6. Predicting Anti-Government 

Demonstrations Across States, 1953-2003.a
33

The incidence rate ratio for the variable measuring 

the degree of a military aid relationship between a 

foreign regime and the United States is statistically 

significant and positive in all but one of the models. 

Greater levels of U.S. military assistance provided to a 

regime are associated with a greater incidence of riots, 

assassinations, and anti-government demonstrations, 

ceteris paribus. The impact of this variable is also 

substantial across all three of these models. A $100 

million increase in U.S. military assistance is associated 

with a factor rate increase of 8 percent in the number of 

riots; a factor rate increase of approximately 5 percent 

in the number of assassinations; and a factor rate 

increase of 7 percent in the number of anti-government 

demonstrations. 

Some words of caution are in order, however, for 

understanding the nature of the relationship between 

U.S. troop levels, military assistance, and regime 

instability. Those regimes to which the United States 

provides significant levels of military assistance, 

as well as those nations wherein the United States 

stations a sizeable number of military personnel, are 

mostly states with whom the United States shares 

ongoing, close ties. Thus, aid levels and the number 

of military personnel stationed in these countries are 

not likely to fluctuate widely from one year to the next. 

Thus, while aid and troops are not constants, there are 

relatively long-lasting features of the U.S. relationship 

with certain regimes. As such, their impact may be 

registered in a more subtle and fundamental way that 

the statistical analysis cannot always detect. Thus, 

while we do find evidence of a positive correlation in 

several cases, we must be mindful of the difficulties of 

untangling the true causal nature of the relationship. I 

return to this point in the conclusion.
34

When the United States is involved in a militarized 

dispute with a nation the year prior, the incidence 

of domestic unrest in that nation does not appear to 

be substantially affected. None of the indicators of 

domestic unrest were statistically related to these 

incidents. American involvement in these disputes can 

certainly affect political developments in the target 

states, but this influence does not appear to extend to 

the level of (in)stability in a society. 

Contrarily, we see evidence of a strong relationship 

between the extent to which a government votes in 

a fashion similar to the United States in the General 

Assembly of the United Nations and the frequency 

of riots, government crises, assassinations, and antigovernment demonstrations, although the incidence 

rate ratio slightly misses statistical significance in the 

last type of unrest. In fact, a 10 percent rise in vote 

similarity between a foreign regime and the United 

States increases the incident rate ratio by 5 percent 

in the estimates of riots; 9 percent in the estimates of 

government crises; and 3 percent in the estimates of 

assassinations. While we cannot rule out the possibility 

that it might be the United States whose voting patterns 

are most closely resembling those of other states, given 

the relative consistency of U.S. foreign policy over 

time, its regime stability, and its enduring hegemonic 

interests, it is much more likely the case that other 

states whose foreign policies can and do shift more 

frequently based on international conditions, and 

whose regimes and constitutions are more at risk of 

upheaval, change their foreign policies to move closer 

or farther away from U.S. foreign policies. Thus, the 

United States may well find itself in a conundrum 

because of these trends. On the one hand, it would like 

to encourage states to shift their policies more to its 
35

liking, yet at the same time the United States certainly 

does not want to be forced to address the domestic 

unrest that might occur when a regime substantially 

and dramatically changes its foreign policies to align 

them with those of the United States. Many sectors in 

these societies may have strong anti-American views 

that are enflamed by close ties with the United States, 

which then manifest themselves in domestic unrest. 

Indeed, even those nations that host U.S. military 

forces and receive substantial amounts of U.S. military 

aid often take positions contrary to American interests 

in order to demonstrate their independence from the 

United States. For example, in the Middle East it may 

be difficult enough for a nation to host U.S. forces 

without incurring the wrath of the anti-Americanists. 

If such a nation, or any nation in the region, took the 

U.S. position on an issue involving Israel in the UN, the 

likelihood of unrest would likely increase dramatically. 

Symbolic politics, of just the sort that occur in the UN, 

can often generate as much instability and violence as 

more tangible elements of politics in certain parts of 

the world on certain issues. 

As we would expect, regime type plays a critical 

role in predicting a state’s propensity to suffer domestic 

unrest. In all models, the extent to which the executive 

is constrained in the exercise of power is positively 

related to riots, government crises, assassinations, 

and anti-government demonstrations. The incidence 

rate ratio for this variable is statistically significant 

and powerful in all four models. The frequency of 

riots increases by a factor of 12 percent with every 

unit increase in executive constraints; the incidence of 

government crises increases by a factor of 18 percent; 

the frequency of assassinations increases by a factor 

of 21 percent; and the incidence of anti-government 

demonstrations rises by a factor of 12 percent for every 
36

unit increase in executive constraints. Strong executives 

are able to clamp down on dissent or the potential for 

dissent. 

On the positive side for democratic states, we 

see that the greater the competitiveness of elections, 

the lower the level of all forms of domestic unrest. 

I find that the frequency of riots decreases by a 

factor of 61 percent, with a unit increase in electoral 

competitiveness; the incidence of government crises 

decreases by a factor of 36 percent; the frequency of 

assassinations decreases by a factor of 71 percent; and 

the incidence of anti-government demonstrations falls 

by a factor of 74 percent in states where there is full 

electoral competitiveness. Hence, while the constraints 

democratic regimes typically require executives to 

operate under are associated with increases in domestic 

unrest, the competitiveness of their electoral systems 

has the opposite impact. It is also important to note that 

the impact of political competitiveness on reducing 

instability is greater than the impact of executive 

constraints in discouraging instability. Presumably 

free and fair elections allow citizens to express their 

voices and opposition in such a way that energies that 

might have been directed toward more violent forms 

of protest are channeled into peaceful and healthy 

democratic practices and discourse. 

Of course, elections can also be a mixed blessing. 

Elections held too early in a critical period of transition, 

such as in the aftermath of war, may harden political 

and sectarian cleavages and precipitate more violence, 

especially from the losing side(s). Thus, it is also 

important to consider the longevity of the regime. All 

things being equal, I argue that more established and 

longer-lasting regimes exhibit greater effectiveness at 

addressing citizens’ aspirations, thus allowing them 

to survive longer. The results tend to bear out this 
37

supposition. The longer a regime has been in existence, 

the less likely it is to experience domestic unrest, ceteris 

paribus. The incidence rate ratio for regime durability is 

negative and statistically significant in two of the models. The frequency of government crises and assassinations decreases by a factor of 1 percent in each model. 

The incidence rate ratio is statistically insignificant in 

the riots and government demonstrations models. 

The impact of population size on the indicators of 

civil unrest is mixed. I find that the larger the population 

size, the more infrequent are riots and anti-government 

demonstrations, while the incidence rate ratio is 

statistically insignificant in the cases of assassinations 

and government crises. Yet, the effect of increasing 

populations is so minuscule that its substantive impact 

barely registers. Large states may be advantaged to 

some very small degree perhaps because collective 

action problems may be more difficult to resolve with 

larger numbers of potential rioters. On the other hand, 

one would assume there would be more opportunities 

for civil unrest in large states simply because the 

likelihood that all citizens would not engage in such 

behavior would diminish with size.

Per capita GDP is negatively related to the frequency 

of riots, government crises, assassinations, and antigovernment demonstrations, although the incidence 

rate ratio for this variable in the government crisis 

model is not statistically significant. As the economic 

well-being of a nation becomes healthier and stronger, 

there is less reason to engage in such forms of domestic 

unrest—a prosperous citizenry is a content citizenry 

by and large (although we must also recognize that 

in many of the wealthiest countries in Europe and 

elsewhere, there will be those who, because of their 

society’s prosperity, have the time to engage in the 
38

sorts of protests we normally see when the G-8, the 

World Bank, or the International Monetary Fund have 

a gathering). Additionally, when a nation’s economy is 

running smoothly and people are working hard, there 

is much less opportunity to engage in violent forms 

of protest. Contrarily, those nations in which large 

numbers of citizens are unemployed, especially young 

men, there is ample opportunity for such protests, and 

ultimately violence. 

Finally, I note the impact of the regional variables 

on domestic unrest. There is a positive relationship 

between the Western hemisphere dummy variable 

and the frequency of all forms of domestic unrest, 

although the incidence rate ratio is statistically 

insignificant in the government crises model. Europe 

is statistically more likely to experience riots and 

anti-government demonstrations. Asia is unlikely to 

experience government crises or assassinations, but is 

statistically more likely to experience anti-government 

demonstrations. Africa is unlikely to experience 

government crises or assassinations. Thus, if one 

were searching for a stable part of the world that is 

most unlikely to experience these forms of unrest and 

violence, the nations of Sub-Saharan Africa would seem 

to be least inclined toward these particular measures 

of domestic unrest, while Latin America appears to be 

the most prone to various forms of domestic instability. 

Does this mean that there is little to fear in Africa and 

much to fear in Latin America, the Caribbean, and 

Canada? Not exactly, it may be that the democratic 

freedoms that are enjoyed by citizens residing in the 

Western hemisphere protect them from terrorism, as 

we saw above, but also enable the masses and elites 

to express their grievances in other inappropriate, but 

less feared ways.
39

The final step in the analysis of domestic unrest 

involves further investigation of the predictions of 

the model. From each of the four sets of estimates, I 

generate the predicted number of events at issue and 

look to see which nations are estimated to suffer from 

the greatest number of these incidents in the overall 

period 1998-2003. I focus on the period from 1998 

through 2003 (the last year for which we have complete 

data on all independent variables) since it is the most 

recent time period. Beginning with the predictions for 

the number of riots in Table 7, I find that the model 

predicts the following nations are most likely to be 

susceptible to multiple riots in multiple years in this 

period: South Korea, China, India, and Brazil. China 

especially is fairly consistently predicted to be the site 

of numerous riots. Brazil, China, and India in particular 

are large, populous nations with diverse groups of 

citizens and their economies are rapidly improving, 

but much of their wealth has yet to filter down to the 

urban and rural poor. The enormous concentrations of 

poor people in the large cities of Brazil and India in 

particular would seem to pose a number of potential 

political problems for these regimes. Both states have 

significantly weaker executives than China, which 

increases their predicted likelihood of experiencing 

riots. The final state to address, South Korea, has been 

the scene of several riots and mass demonstrations 

throughout its history. It also has received a significant 

amount of U.S. military assistance over the years, and 

of course, hosts a sizeable contingent of U.S. military 

personnel. It too, continues to be at substantial risk 

for riots in the coming years. I note, however, that 

there is a significant divergence between the number 

of predicted riots and the number of actual riots in 

these nations. The model tends to over-predict riots 
40

in all cases. Among the states predicted to experience 

the greatest number of riots, only Brazil in 2 years and 

China in 1 year actually experienced any such violence. 

I caution, however, that we are most interested in the 

impact of the particular coefficients rather than the 

overall fit of the model, given that we cannot hope to 

include all the relevant factors that would explain riots 

in every nation of the world for over 30 years.

Table 7. Predicted Number of Riots in Most 

Riot-Prone States.

Because government crises in any given nation are 

relatively infrequent events, I calculated the average 

number of predicted government crises across the 

1998-2003 period and rank-ordered the nations by their 

propensity to experience such events in Table 8. South 

Korea also has the distinction of having the highest 

number of predicted government crises in the 1998-

2003 period. Again, because these events are quite rare, 

their predicted numbers for any nation never exceed a 

fraction. Thus, and for example, the predicted number 

of government crises for South Korea is .577 over the 

period 1998-2003. Behind South Korea, we find the 

following nations in order of their predicted number of 
41

crises: India, Moldova, Bulgaria, Estonia, Dominican 

Republic, Poland, Nicaragua, Slovakia, and Romania. 

A comparison of the predicted number of government 

crises and the actual number of such events reveals 

that the model’s ability to predict such events across 

all nations over time has improved relative to the other 

models. Several of the nations that are at higher risk 

for such events have experienced government crises, 

including Israel, Haiti, Romania, and India.

Table 8. Predicted Number of Government Crises 

in Most Crisis-Prone States.

Using the same technique described at the beginning 

of this paragraph, I now examine those nations the 

model predicts to be most at risk for assassinations. 

The nations that are predicted to be most susceptible 

to this form of political instability are: South Korea, 

Brazil, China, Haiti, Nicaragua, Mexico, the Dominican 

Republic, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Guatemala. Thus, 

eight of the top ten nations most likely to experience 
42

assassinations are in the Western Hemisphere, which 

mirrors the positive coefficient for the Western 

Hemisphere variable in this model. Indeed, as one 

moves further down the list, one finds even more U.S. 

neighbors at risk for this type of violence. Interestingly, 

the one nation we do not find in this predicted risk 

category is Panama, which had long been host to a large 

U.S. military presence. The model correctly predicts 

that many of the countries mentioned above are at a 

greater risk for experiencing assassinations, such as 

Haiti, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Mexico. However, as 

we have seen in other such comparisons, the model 

tends to over-predict these events for China and South 

Korea.

Table 9. Predicted Number of Assassinations 

 in Most Assassination-Prone States.
43

The group of countries most at risk for experiencing 

anti-government demonstrations (Table 10) largely 

mirrors those most likely to suffer riots. China, India, 

South Korea, Brazil, and also Japan are predicted to be 

most at risk for these types of events. The model does 

quite well at accurately predicting anti-government 

demonstrations in India, Brazil, and China, and not as 

well in Japan and South Korea. Indeed, the latter two 

states are, as we have seen before, home to sizeable 

numbers of U.S. forces that tend to place them at 

greater risk for these types of events. Yet, despite their 

enhanced risk, both states have not been experiencing 

these kinds of events in recent years although they 

have in the period prior to 1998-2003. 

Table 10. Predicted Number of Anti-Government 

Demonstrations in Most Anti-Government 

Demonstration-Prone States.
44

Analyzing Civil Wars.

I turn next to an examination of the determinants of 

civil or intrastate wars and the impact of U.S. foreign 

policy actions on these conflicts. The dependent variable 

is measured “1” for every year a civil or intrastate war, as 

measured by the Correlates of War project, is occurring 

in a given country. In this and the next analysis, I make 

use of the statistical technique known as probit, which 

is specifically designed to model binary dependent 

variables. I use robust standard errors to control for the 

effects of heteroskedasticity, or unequal variance across 

nations. The results indicate again that the greater 

the size of U.S. military presence in a nation and the 

greater the amount of U.S. military aid, the more likely 

a nation is to experience a civil war in the following 

year. As we have seen in earlier estimates, however, 

the impact is rather slight. I utilize the marginal effects 

of the independent variables to interpret their impacts. 

The marginal effect is the increase in probability of 

observing the event of interest (a civil war) given a unit 

increase in the independent variable while holding 

all other variables constant at their mean value. An 

increase of 10,000 troops stationed in a foreign country 

is associated with only a .07 increase in the predicted 

probability of a nation experiencing a civil war, while a 

$100 million increase in military assistance only raises 

the probability of war by .003 percent. Involvement 

in a militarized dispute with the United States in the 

previous year, however, tends to increase the predicted 

probability of a civil war by 4 percent. While this effect 

is not enormous, we must remember that civil wars 

are still comparatively rare across the world, and so 

even an increase of 4 percent can have an important 

impact on the likelihood of such conflict. A similar 

foreign policy outlook with the United States does not 
45

appear to play a role in predicting intrastate war. The 

coefficient for this variable is statistically insignificant. 

Table 11. Predicting Civil Wars Across States, 

1953-2003.a

We also see that an important role in predicting civil 

war occurrence is played by regime characteristics. 

Those states in which there are more constraints 

placed on the exercise of power by the executive are 

statistically more likely to lapse into civil war. With 

every unit increase in such constraints, the predicted 

likelihood of intrastate war occurring in a nation rises 

by 1 percent. A stronger executive branch should be 

better able to act more quickly and decisively to stop 

domestic unrest from spiraling into open warfare, 

or failing that, to take actions to stop such wars 

from lasting for long periods of time. We also see 
46

that political systems that permit greater electoral 

competition are less likely to experience civil wars. In 

political systems where there are full and free electoral 

competitiveness, the predicted likelihood of intrastate 

war occurring in a nation diminishes by 7 percent, 

which is quite substantial. Regime durability is not 

related to the likelihood of civil war. Thus, these results 

speak rather clearly: Regimes with strong executives 

and strong electoral competition are best poised to 

provide the opportunity for vigorous leadership, but 

their legitimate and open avenues for healthy political 

competition provide effective outlets for grievances.

States with less developed economies, and large 

states, are at greater risk for experiencing civil wars. 

The smaller a state’s per capita gross domestic product, 

the greater the predicted probability of civil war. 

For every $1000 decrease in per capita GDP, there is 

a corresponding .2 percent increase in the likelihood 

of civil war involvement. For every increase of one 

million people in a nation, the probability of civil war 

occurrence increases by .02 percent. I stress again that 

while these numbers are not large, their cumulative 

impact on the likelihood of the occurrence of such a 

rare event can be important. I also note that a state’s 

share of international power is negatively associated 

with civil war. Simply put, more powerful states are not 

susceptible to the same sorts of threats to their power 

and status as are other states. For every percentage 

point increase in international power, the predicted 

likelihood of civil war occurrence declines by 2 percent. 

Lastly, I note that all of the regions listed, including 

Africa, are less likely to experience civil wars. Rather, it 

is the Middle East which forms the reference category 

for a region that is the area most likely to experience 

this form of warfare, as it is the case with so many other 

indicators of instability and violence.
47

Table 12. Predicted Probability of Civil War 

Occurrence By Year.

Table 13. Predicted Probability of Civil War 

Occurrence from 1998-2003.

I next describe which countries appear to be most 

susceptible to civil war violence. I first calculated the 

predicted probability that a nation would experience 

a civil war and selected out just those states whose 

probability was 25 percent or greater in any given year 

since 1998. I then examined their average probabilities 

of experiencing civil wars across the years 1998-2003. I 

focus on the period from 1998 through 2003 (the last year 

for which we have complete data on all independent 

variables) since it was the most recent period. The 

states that exhibited the greatest predicted likelihood 

of such violence were Turkey (an average of 22 percent 

across 1998-2003 and reaching a high of 29 percent in 
48

1999); Egypt (an average of 26 percent and reaching 

a high of 32.8 percent in 2000); Israel (an average of 

20 percent across 1998-2003 and reaching a high of 

33 percent in 1999); China (an average of 25.7 percent 

across 1998-2003 and reaching a high of 33 percent in 

2000) and India (an average of 52 percent across the 

entire period and reaching a high of 52.5 percent in 

2000). I would note that both Egypt and Israel receive 

substantial amounts of U.S. military assistance, which 

may help explain why their predicted probabilities 

are fairly high. As well, based on their government 

policies, the number of dissident and terrorist groups 

with grievances against them, in addition to the usual 

array of conflict-producing politics in the Middle East, 

we should expect that these states would be prime 

candidates for intrastate war. 

Of those nations that the model predicted would 

experience civil wars in this time frame, it correctly 

predicts that in 1998, 1999, and 2000 India would 

be involved in such conflict. The model incorrectly 

predicted that Turkey would not experience such 

violence in 1999, when it did. The model registers an 

increased likelihood of civil war for China, Israel and 

Egypt, but the predicted probability does not exceed 

.50 and so the model does not generate a prediction 

of civil war violence. Overall, the model accurately 

predicts 91.6 percent of the cases correctly for a slight 

improvement over predicting the modal category of 

no civil war (91.4 percent) in all cases.
49

Analyzing International Wars.

I turn finally to the model explaining and predicting 

the occurrence of international war. The indicators of 

a relationship with the United States are all positively 

signed again, although the incidence rate ratio for the 

military aid variable is not statistically significant. 

The larger the permanent U.S. military presence in a 

state, greater involvement in militarized disputes in 

the previous year with the United States, and a record 

of frequently voting with the United States in the UN 

all tend to increase the predicted probability of state 

involvement in international war. Given the extreme 

rarity of international war, especially in recent years, 

the impact of any one variable on these events is quite 

small. Even if the United States were to increase the 

size of its permanently deployed forces in a nation by 

100,000, this would only serve to raise the probability 

of war by barely 1 percent. An increase of 50 percent 

in vote similarity at the UN would raise the chances 

of an international war by only .5 percent. However, 

involvement in an increasing number of militarized 

disputes with the United States in the previous 

year does have a relatively larger impact. For every 

additional violent incident, the predicted probability 

of a state experiencing international war increases by 2 

percent.
50

Table 14. Predicting International Wars Across 

States, 1953-2003.a

None of the coefficients for the other substantive, 

independent variables exercises a statistically significant impact on the incidence of international war. The 

coefficients for the regional dummy variables for Europe 

and the Western hemisphere were statistically significant and negative, while the incidence rate ratio for 

the Asian region is positive. The model would not 

run with the independent variable for the African 

region because that binary variable perfectly predicted 

instances of no war, which prevents the model from 

generating results. 
51

Table 15. Predicted Probability 

of International War Occurrence By Year.

Table 16. Predicted Probability of International War 

Occurrence from 1998-2003.

I turn now to examining which nations the 

model predicts are most at risk for involvement in 

international war. I generated predicted probabilities 

for war involvement from the model and separated out 

those nations whose risk was at least 25 percent in the 

period 1998-2003. The states that exhibited the greatest 

likelihood of such violence were Israel (an average of 

11 percent across 1998-2003 and reaching a high of 25.5 

percent in 1999); China (an average of 12 percent across 

1998-2003 and reaching a high of 28 percent in 2000); 

and South Korea (an average of 11 percent across the 

entire period and reaching a high of 25 percent in 2000). 

Again, because of the rarity of international wars, none 

of these nations was predicted to actually experience 

war involvement (i.e., a probability greater than 50 

percent). In fact, not even those nations that were 
52

predicted to be at the highest risk for international war 

involvement were actually involved in such disputes. 

Overall, the model predicts 98.4 percent of the cases 

correctly, but this is almost identical to the percentage 

of nation-state years in which there were no wars. The 

model does not improve upon the predictive accuracy 

one would obtain by predicting no international wars 

for every nation for every year in the data. International 

wars are quite rare.

But the nations that have the highest probability do 

seem to be likely contenders for international war, if 

there were to be one. China has its ongoing disputes 

with Taiwan regarding the status of that island nation 

and its tentative moves to something more like formal 

independence. China’s relations with Vietnam have 

not always been peaceful, either. South Korea is nearly 

always at some degree of risk for war involvement on 

the Korean peninsula with its dictatorial and nuclear 

northern neighbor. And Israel has conflicts with any 

number of Middle East nations, such as Syria, Lebanon, 

and Iran that could flare up. Each of these three nations 

warrants close monitoring.

CONCLUSIONS

There are several general findings from this 

analysis that deserve further comment. First, on the 

one hand I found a statistically significant relationship 

between several of the indicators of U.S. foreign policy 

and instability in foreign countries. The closer the 

relationship between a country and the United States 

as measured by many of these indicators in most of the 

estimates, the more likely nations were to experience 

various forms of instability. Yet, we also saw that, for 

the most part, the size of the impact of U.S. foreign 
53

policy was not always strong. I begin by reviewing the 

impact of U.S. foreign policy on regime instability.

Of all the measures of ties to U.S. foreign policy, 

the one that demonstrated the strongest and most 

consistent effects in the estimates was U.S. military 

aid. The greater the amount of military aid received by 

a foreign government, the more at risk it becomes for 

instability, including terrorism, riots, assassinations, 

anti-government demonstrations, and civil wars. 

The challenge here, as in assessing the nature of the 

relationship among all the various independent and 

dependent variables, lies in evaluating the type of effect. 

As I indicated at the outset, while every precaution is 

taken in carrying out these analyses, making causal 

inferences must always be done with a healthy degree 

of objectivity and a critical eye. The relationship 

between U.S. military assistance and regime instability, 

for example, could be one of reverse causality in which 

the United States provides more such assistance to 

those nations that are most at risk for such events in 

order to help prevent future outbreaks of violence. 

The United States might provide more military aid 

to underdeveloped nations in general that are also 

more likely to experience this sort of domestic unrest. 

Regarding the first point, however, we must bear in 

mind that the values of the independent variables were 

lagged 1 year to help alleviate problems of reverse 

causality. Rather, it is more likely that regimes that 

receive greater amounts of military assistance possess 

a constellation of characteristics that make them 

susceptible to unrest and violence. It may well be that 

such assistance engenders opposition in some sectors 

of these societies. Nations that receive large amounts 

of military aid are also likely to have larger economies 

(small and poor nations would be unable to utilize 
54

large amounts of military aid for the most part), but 

given their reliance on the United States for such aid, 

they are also unlikely to have economies sufficiently 

advanced and large enough to produce such hardware 

for themselves. Thus, their economies may well 

remain underdeveloped in key respects, which make 

them susceptible to instability. In this sense, the U.S. 

military aid relationship may be most prevalent in 

societies at more advanced stages of development, 

both economically and politically, that should cause 

policymakers to weigh carefully the consequences of 

such strong ties with the United States.

The other measure of U.S. foreign policy relationships that exercises a strong, albeit somewhat inconsistent, impact on regime instability is involvement in a 

militarized dispute with the United States. When the 

United States has used military force in or toward a 

foreign regime in the previous year, the predicted 

incidence of terrorism and civil wars tends to increase 

in the following year. Uses of force may inspire antiAmerican sentiment, embolden regime opponents to 

take violent action against the government (especially 

in cases where the United States is taking action against 

the regime), or may simply indicate the prevalence 

of uncertainty and trouble in a nation. Regardless of 

whether the United States uses of force accomplish 

their specific, operational objectives (e.g., providing a 

military presence, transporting military forces and/or 

military aid, rescuing American citizens), broader U.S. 

foreign policy goals may be harmed in these incidents 

to the extent the use of force serves to further destabilize 

a nation toward terrorism or civil war. Therefore, even 

when U.S. foreign policymakers determine a use of 

force is necessary, regardless of what other unintended 

and negative consequences might transpire, they must 
55

be aware of the potential for more instability in the 

wake of such militarized actions and take the necessary 

precautions to preserve U.S. interests and protect U.S. 

allies.

We find less evidence that a large U.S. military 

presence contributes in any significant manner, at 

least so far as is apparent in these analyses, to regime 

instability. The effects of the size of the U.S. military 

presence on the indicators is either small, statistically 

insignificant, or both. Since most of the large U.S. 

military establishments in foreign countries tend to 

be fairly long-standing, whatever impact they have 

on (in)stability within such states (e.g., North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization (NATO) allies, South Korea, and 

Japan) does not generally change from year to year, 

as indicators of civil unrest do. Rather, it may be that 

whatever positive or negative effects a U.S. military 

presence in these nations generates have long since 

become systemic or more or less permanent features of 

the political landscape in these nations. If there were a 

sudden and drastic rise or curtailing of a U.S. military 

presence, we might expect to find a more pronounced 

effect. It may also be that the causal arrow is somewhat 

circular. Instability in some nations may lead to a greater 

U.S. troop presence, which in turn leads to more conflict. 

Teasing out the causal relationships among the three 

indicators of a U.S. military relationship with regimes 

could be furthered by in-depth and comparative case 

studies.

The last U.S. foreign policy indicator to consider is 

the extent to which a nation’s voting record in the UN 

General Assembly mirrors that of the United States. 

As a state’s voting record in the UN more closely 

resembles that of the United States, the incidence 

of various forms of instability, including riots, anti-
56

government demonstrations, assassinations, and 

government crises, increase. Anti-Americanism is often 

de rigueur in many nations, and thus making public 

pronouncements against U.S. foreign policy objectives 

almost seems to be reflexive in many capitals around 

the world. Those in power generally understand that 

their public and private face in regard to U.S. foreign 

policy must remain different and separable. These 

data reveal why such public posturing, as evidenced 

in the UN General Assembly, tends to occur. Regimes 

run a significant risk if they appear too cozy with 

the United States, as evidence of such ties inspires 

political violence and other forms of instability. U.S. 

foreign policy positions will often be opposed simply 

because many view U.S. foreign policy objectives as 

nothing more than attempts at U.S. global domination. 

Interestingly, however, foreign policy similarity is 

negatively related to the incidence of terrorism. This 

is rather puzzling since one would expect that this 

type of violence might be precipitated by closeness to 

the United States. Perhaps, however, given the need 

for greater time and organizational effort to mount a 

terrorist attack, there may be a longer time interval 

between a regime’s evidence of shared foreign policy 

outlook with the United States and the incidence of 

terrorist violence.

The nature of a country’s political system also 

plays a crucial role. We saw throughout the analyses 

that as constraints on the executive branch of 

government increased, the incidences of terrorism, 

riots, anti-government demonstrations, assassinations, 

government crises, and civil wars all increased. 

Clearly, powerful executives play a powerful role in 

clamping down on virtually all forms of domestic 

unrest. Only in the case of international wars do we 

find no statistically significant relationship, as we 
57

might expect since this type of violence is one initiated 

by the executive branch. On the other hand, political 

competitiveness serves to decrease the likelihood of 

riots, anti-government demonstrations, government 

crises, assassinations, and civil wars. Viewed from the 

perspective of domestic tranquility, the most effective 

form of government would appear to be one with a 

strong executive and robust political competition. The 

challenge in many states that confront domestic unrest 

and are seeking to design more effective political 

institutions to combat these problems is to reconcile 

those parties and individuals who compete against 

one another to accept forceful control of the executive 

by one party or one individual. Achieving this type of 

consensus would seem to be the key. 

Economic prosperity appears to decrease 

instability. The greater a nation’s per capita GDP, 

the lower the predicted incidence of riots, antigovernment demonstrations, assassinations, and civil 

wars. A prosperous citizenry is a peaceful citizenry. 

Economically advanced states provide more material 

wealth and security to their citizens; well-developed 

economies require substantial numbers of hardworking citizens who then have less time to engage 

in violent, political behavior; and healthy economies 

tend not to breed discontent and angry young men 

with nothing to do (large numbers of such young men 

are often prerequisites to such violence). We also see, 

however, that more powerful states are more likely to 

experience acts of terrorism, riots, assassinations, and 

anti-government demonstrations, but are less likely to 

be involved in civil wars. These states typically have 

large economies, large populations, and large militaries. 

Their major power status among the nations of the 

world may make them inviting targets for disaffected 
58

groups within their borders and terrorists from both 

the outside and inside, but not to the point at which 

intrastate war breaks out. 

The strongest evidence of regional trends in 

these data is found in the analyses of terrorist acts, 

anti-government demonstrations, civil wars, and 

international wars where I show that the nations of the 

Middle East were much more likely to experience such 

violence. Despite the presence of many other variables 

in these models that help explain the prevalence of 

these indicators of domestic unrest and violence, 

there is still something peculiar about such problems 

in the Middle East that makes that part of the world 

especially conflict-prone. Such unique factors would 

include the Arab-Israeli conflict, oil wealth, religious 

schisms, authoritarian governments, and severe 

inequalities in the distribution of wealth, to name but 

a few. This does not mean that other countries of the 

world outside the Middle East are comparatively less 

violent or safe. Indeed, there are a great many conflicts 

both large and small occurring in Africa and Southeast 

Asia. Rather, the Middle East more generally has been 

and will likely continue to be predisposed to such 

violence because of many factors, but in particular the 

sorts of transnational forces mentioned above.

When viewed as a whole, the findings tend to show 

that U.S. foreign policymakers should be mindful of the 

unintended consequences of the provision of military 

assistance and the use of force, particularly the impact 

these manifestations of U.S. power and influence have 

on those groups in the affected states opposed to U.S. 

interests and prepared to take action to demonstrate 

their opposition. There will always be such actors who 

are unalterably opposed to virtually every aspect of 

U.S. foreign policy and with whom little legitimate 
59

political discussion is possible. But there are always 

many other economic, social, ethnic, and political 

groups within societies which, while they may oppose, 

even strongly, these manifestations of U.S. influence, 

are open to dialogue and negotiation. Policymakers 

should be mindful of the impact their actions have on 

these groups and individuals who are part of a critical 

mass of regime citizens able to influence the direction 

of political opposition toward violence or nonviolence. 

This is not to suggest that it is necessarily the role of 

the U.S. Government to consult with such actors for 

this might well impinge on the sovereignty of the 

government and undermine the very purposes of the 

policy. Rather, before embarking on important new aid 

relationships or the use of military force, policymakers 

need contingency plans to work with such groups to 

prevent the outbreak of violence to ensure that U.S. 

foreign policy goals can still be realized.

This monograph provides us with important new 

insights into both the impact of U.S. foreign policy 

actions on societal unrest in other nations and the 

various other causes of instability. The next step in 

this process is to develop “real-time” indicators of 

societal instability to better predict when such unrest 

is likely to transform into more serious violence and 

challenges to governmental authority. Key to this 

will be development of data on the indicators used 

in this monograph on a monthly, if not daily, unit of 

analysis—a project we are currently developing at 

the University of North Texas through the creation 

of an Early Warning Center to monitor all nations 

of the world through various electronic media, and 

intergovernmental organizational and nongovernment 

organizational reports. By deploying a team of student 

researchers who will monitor this information on a daily 
60

basis, we hope to develop a more fine-grained analysis 

of emerging trends and events, while at the same time 

creating a data base of such information to develop 

better and more systematic explanations of regime 

instability. The use of annual aggregated data, such as 

I use in this analysis, is useful in providing researchers 

and policymakers with a more macro-level perspective 

on unrest. But, if we wish to better determine when 

these nations are most at risk for violence, more refined 

data on the measures used here, as well as actions 

taken by regimes that might precipitate violence (e.g., 

mass arrests, crackdowns on political opposition, etc.) 

are also needed to predict with more precision when 

threats to peace and stability are most likely.

ENDNOTES

1. Karl DeRouen and Uk Heo, “Reward, Punishment or 

Inducement? U.S. Economic and Military Aid, 1946-1996,” Defense 

and Peace Economics, Vol. 15, No. 5, 2004, pp. 453-470; T. Y. Wang, 

“U.S. Foreign Aid and UN Voting: An Analysis of Important 

Issues,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 1, 1999, pp. 

199-210.

2. Margaret Hermann and Charles Kegley, “The Use of 

U.S. Military Intervention to Promote Democracy: Evaluating 

the Record,” International Interactions, Vol. 24, 1998, pp. 91-114; 

James Meernik, “U.S. Military Intervention and the Promotion 

of Democracy,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 33, 1996, pp. 391-

402; Mark Peceny, Democracy At The Point Of Bayonets, University 

Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999.

3. Patrick Regan, “U.S. Economic Aid and Political Repression,” 

Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 48, 1995, pp. 613-628.

4. S. Knack, “Does Foreign Aid Promote Democracy?” 

International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 1, 2004, pp. 251-266.
61

5. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and George Downes, “Intervention 

and Democracy,” International Organization, Vol. 60, July 2006, pp. 

627-649; Mark Peceny and Jeffrey Pickering, “Forging Democracy 

at Gunpoint,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 50, No. 3, 2006, 

pp. 539-560.

6. Data on U.S. troop levels in all foreign countries and 

certain overseas possessions are obtained from the Department 

of Defense at web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/military/miltop.htm. I measure 

these data in September of every year as does the Department of 

Defense, and count only troops stationed outside the 50 United 

States, Guam, the Johnson Atoll, Puerto Rico, Trust Territory 

of the Pacific Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. I also include 

U.S. naval and other forces that are listed as “afloat” in any given 

nation or region.

7. Regan, p. 625.

8. Knack, p. 262.

9. Data on military assistance provided by the U.S. Government 

are taken from the Agency for International Development’s U.S. 

Overseas Loans and Grants Series of Yearly Data from 1949-1994, and 

more recent updates available at the USAID web site at www.dec.

org/ by searching on the above title. The data are measured in 

constant dollars in million dollar increments. 

10. Thomas Carothers, Thomas, Aiding Democracy Abroad, 

Washington DC: The Carnegie Endowment for International 

Peace, 2000, p. 308.

11. Robert J. Art, “A Defensible Defense: America’s Grand 

Strategy after the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 15, 

1991, pp. 5-53; Bueno de Mesquita and Downes; Richard Haass, 

Intervention, Washington DC: A Carnegie Endowment Book, 1994; 

Peceny and Pickering.

12. Data on Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs) are freely 

available at cow2.la.psu.edu/ (Ghosn, Palmer, and Bremer, 2004). 

These events are defined as “united historical cases of conflict in 

which the threat, display, or use of military force short of war by 

one member state is explicitly directed towards the government, 

official representatives, official forces, property, or territory of 
62

another state” (Jones, Bremer, and Singer, 1996). I count all those 

instances involving the United States and directed toward another 

nation that score a “2” or higher on the Hostility Level variable 

that is a part of these data. These incidents include militarized 

interstate disputes in which there was a threat to use force; a 

display of force; a use of force; or war. 

13. This portion of The Annual Defense Report is found at www.

dtic.mil/execsec/adr2000/chap1.html.

14. Meernik; Peceny.

15. These data are constructed by examining all roll call votes 

taken in the UN General Assembly, and comparing the voting 

positions of the United States and all other states to determine on 

how many issues they voted in the same manner as the United 

States and on how many issues states voted dissimilarly to the 

United States.

16. The Polity IV data base measures many different 

characteristics of regimes throughout the world for dozens of 

years. The principal scale used to measure the level of democracy 

in states is known as the “Polity 2” scale which ranges from “-10” 

(least level of democracy) to “10,” which is the highest democratic 

rating. Such factors as the competitiveness of elections, the 

openness of political systems, the manner in which executives 

are recruited, and the extent of executive powers are among the 

different measures that make up this scale. Further information is 

freely available at www.cidcm.umd.edu/polity/. 

17. Quan Li, “Does Democracy Promote or Reduce 

Transnational Terrorist Incidents?” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 

Vol. 49, No. 2, 2005, pp. 278-297.

18. Monty G. Marshall and Keith Jaggers, Polity IV Codebook, 

College Park: University of Maryland, Center for International 

Development and Conflict Management, December 2000, p. 25.

19. Ibid., p. 24.

20. Detailed information on this and the other variables from 

Polity IV can be found in the project codebook available at www.

cidcm.umd.edu/polity/.
63

21. Brian Burgoon, “On Welfare and Terror,” Journal of Conflict 

Resolution, Vol. 50, No. 2, 2006, pp. 176-203; Sara Jackson Wade and 

Dan Reiter, “Does Democracy Matter? Regime Type and Suicide 

Terrorism,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 51, No. 2, 2007, pp. 

329-348.

22. Li

23. The Correlates of War data base and its CINC scores can 

be accessed at cow2.la.psu.edu/.

24. Data are available for purchase at www.databanks.sitehosting.

net/.

25. Aggregated and provided by Aaron Clauset, Maxwell 

Young, and Kristian Gleditsch, “On the Frequency of Severe 

Terrorist Events,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 51, No. 1, 2007, 

pp. 58-87.

26. The data I use may be accessed at jcr.sagepub.com/cgi/

content/full/51/1/58/DC1/.

27. These data are available at cow2.la.psu.edu/.

28. Please see www.csae.ox.ac.uk/econdata/pdfs/edds2002-01.pdf.

29. Li.

30. Burgoon; Li; Wade and Reiter.

31. Li.

32. Martha Crenshaw, “The Causes of Terrorism,” Comparative 

Politics, Vol. 13, 1981, pp. 379-399; William L. Eubank and Leonard 

B. Weinberg, “Does Democracy Encourage Terrorism?” Terrorism 

and Political Violence, Vol. 6, No. 4, 1994, pp. 417-435; 2001; A. 

P. Schmid, “Terrorism and Democracy,” Terrorism and Political 

Violence, Vol. 4, 1992, pp. 14-25.

33. Li.