Taming the Beast: Democratic Institutions and Terrorist Groups’ Involvement in Civil War

Most scholarly literature explores the relationship between regime type and terrorism, while little attention has been paid to the influence of regime on terrorist groups’ decision to engage in civil war. This paper argues that the onset of civil war involving terrorist organizations is conditioned by regime type. Democratic regimes create conditions that prevent the onset of civil war involving terrorist organizations, although similar regimes might provide the opportunities for such groups to emerge in the first place. The pacifying effect of democracy on terrorist organizations’ decision-making calculus is, however, mediated through a set of democratic institutions. Empirical tests on a global dataset of terrorist organizations show that democratic institutions such as political rights, repression (lack of), rule of law, civil liberties and high state capacity indeed mediate the effects of a democratic regime in lowering the likelihood of civil war onset involving terrorist organizations.