TY - JOUR
T1 - Kinder, Gentler, Safer? A Re-Examination of the Relationship between Consensus Democracy and Domestic Terrorism
AU - Bogaards, Matthijs
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2020/10/2
Y1 - 2020/10/2
N2 - Can inclusive institutions tame the threat of domestic terrorism? In a series of recent publications, the political scientists Arend Lijphart and Matt Qvortrup claim that consensus democracies are not only kinder and gentler, but also safer: consensus democracies are less likely to experience deadly domestic terrorism and when they do, they suffer fewer fatalities than majoritarian democracies. This article reexamines the logic and the evidence. It argues that the underlying grievance theory of terrorism contains important gaps and that the statistical results are based on a problematic coding of cases and lack robustness. Lijphart and Qvortrup have opened up an important new line of inquiry, but their results do not withstand scrutiny.
AB - Can inclusive institutions tame the threat of domestic terrorism? In a series of recent publications, the political scientists Arend Lijphart and Matt Qvortrup claim that consensus democracies are not only kinder and gentler, but also safer: consensus democracies are less likely to experience deadly domestic terrorism and when they do, they suffer fewer fatalities than majoritarian democracies. This article reexamines the logic and the evidence. It argues that the underlying grievance theory of terrorism contains important gaps and that the statistical results are based on a problematic coding of cases and lack robustness. Lijphart and Qvortrup have opened up an important new line of inquiry, but their results do not withstand scrutiny.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85057547253&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/1057610X.2018.1507312
DO - 10.1080/1057610X.2018.1507312
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85057547253
SN - 1057-610X
VL - 43
SP - 886
EP - 903
JO - Studies in Conflict and Terrorism
JF - Studies in Conflict and Terrorism
IS - 10
ER -