EL TERRORISMO REVOLUCIONARIO: MUTACIÓN Y SELECCIÓN POLÍTICA

Authors

  • IGNACIO SÁNCHEZ-CUENCA

Keywords:

terrorism, political mobilization, dictatorship.

Abstract

Leftist revolutionary terrorism during the period 1970-90 shows high internal variation regarding its lethality. Using my own data set of fatalities, I present a new index of impact of terrorism for 21 developed countries. In order to account for this variation, I argue that terrorism is a mix of chance and necessity: it emerges randomly, but its survival and reproduction depend on economic and political factors. The statistical analysis reveals that revolutionary terrorism is particularly strong in countries that have undergone an authoritarian period during 20th century, in highly populated countries, and in countries with a high rate of participation in protest demonstrations.

Published

2008-03-24

Issue

Section

ARTICLES