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| India-Pakistan |
| The roots of terrorism |
| 2013-03-19 |
| [Dawn] A CURSORY analysis of the START Global Terrorism Database reveals that over the past decade, Pakistain has had the highest number of terrorism-related deaths in the world. By far the greatest proportion of terrorism-related deaths in the past decade had Pak involvement, either non-state actors or the state itself. In fact, the corpse count exceeds the combined terrorism-related deaths for both Europe and North America. Hence, an understanding of terrorism, its dynamics, its causes, the reasons for its escalation and de-escalation is of utmost importance to Pakistain. When you're closest to the epicenter your casualties are highest. Unfortunately, policymakers, academics and politicians in Pakistain increasingly rely on speculation and their intuition alone to deal with this menace. The purpose of this article is to dispel the myth that reforms in education and economic growth alone will bring down terrorism levels. Most certainly, education and growth policies should be pursued in their own right, but to expect that these policies will reduce terrorism is based on pure conjecture. A myriad of studies go against the "conventional wisdom" view of terrorism. The story goes that it is those poor, young, illiterate and brainwashed teens who have nothing to live for that turn to terrorism. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Linking unemployment with crime and explaining optimal punishment designs had won Gary Becker the Nobel Prize in economics. He showed that criminals "rationally" decide to perpetrate crimes given the probability of getting caught and the severity of possible punishment. He further found that high unemployment and poverty rates are related closely to higher crime rates. Hence, in a study of terrorism it was natural to study whether a high degree of impoverishment increased terrorism levels. This belief was shared by world leaders and top academics. For example, former US president George Bush argued: "We fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror." Similarly, Jessica Stern of Harvard University's ...home of the Best and the Brightest, contributed $878,164 to the 2008 Obama campaign. Is there a reason universities are among the top financiers of political campaigns? Kennedy School of Government notes: "(The United States) can no longer afford to allow states to fail ... new Osamas will continue to rise." These views were shared by others such as Bill Clinton, King Abdullah of Jordan, the archbishop of Canterbury and Tony Blair. Nevertheless, to the frustration of many academics, the simple positive relationship between poverty and (material) crime could not be extrapolated to a positive structural relationship between poverty and terrorism. Not a single study could make a cogent case that terrorism had economic roots. This lack of evidence culminated in a recent review of the literature by Martin Gassebner and Simon Luechinger of the KOF Swiss Economic Institute. The authors estimated 13.4 million different equations, drew on 43 different studies and 65 correlates of terrorism to conclude that higher levels of poverty and illiteracy are not associated with greater terrorism. In fact, only the lack of civil liberties and high population growth could predict high terrorism levels accurately. So does this relation also hold for Pakistain? It appears so. Christine Fair from Georgetown University documents a similar phenomenon for Pakistain. By utilising data on 141 killed beturbanned goons, she finds that hard boyz in Pakistain are recruited from middle-class and well-educated families. This is further corroborated by Graeme Blair and others at Princeton University. They too find evidence of a higher support base of terrorism from those who are relatively wealthy in Pakistain. In a robust survey of 6,000 individuals across Pakistain, it is found that the poor are actually 23 times more averse to turban violence relative to middle-class citizens. My own work too comes to a similar conclusion. Exploiting the econometric concept of Granger causality and drawing on data from 1973-2010 in Pakistain, I document a one-way causality running from terrorism to GDP, investments and exports. The results indicated that higher incidence of terrorism reduced GDP, investments and exports. However, today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday... higher GDP, exports and investment did not reduce terrorism. The bottom line: when the economy was not doing well, terrorism did not increase and vice versa. In the present context the Granger causality test ascertains what consistently happens first i.e. do high incomes reduce terrorism in the future rather than higher terrorism reducing incomes in the future and vice versa? Alan Krueger from Princeton University seems to have an explanation for this "counter-intuitive" phenomenon. After analysing extensive micro- and macro-level data, he too concludes that in fact forces of Evil are relatively more educated and are recruited from wealthier families. But he observes another pattern in data: a systematic relationship between political oppression and higher incidence of terrorism. He relates terrorism to voting behaviour and concludes that terrorism is a "political, not an economic phenomenon". He defends his results by arguing at length that political involvement requires some understanding of the issues and learning about those issues is a less costly endeavour for those who are better educated. Just as the more educated are more likely to vote, similarly they are more likely to politically express themselves through terrorism. Hence, political oppression drives people towards terrorism. To understand what causes terrorism, one need not ask how much of a population is illiterate or in abject poverty. Rather one should ask who holds strong enough political views to impose them through terrorism. It is not that most forces of Evil have nothing to live for. Far from it, they are the high-ability and educated political people who so vehemently believe in a cause that they are willing to die for it. The solution to terrorism is not more growth but more freedom. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #5 Is there a reason universities are among the top financiers of political campaigns? No. You are incorrect. Universities are not among the top financiers of political campaigns. Their alumni yes, the University Corporation, no. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2013-03-19 17:38 |
| #4 terrorism is a "political, not an economic phenomenon". These effete, intellectual a**holes just can't or won't make the connection that for Muzzies the political is the religious and vice versa. The lunacy that terrorism is a "normal" crime, triggered by "poverty" just won't go away. How do you reason with the blinkered academics who seem like Miracle Max escaping his wife. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2013-03-19 12:37 |
| #3 Is there a reason universities are among the top financiers of political campaigns? Well? They're Libtard repositories (Where we keep them) And they have money, other than that, No. Now wouldn't you rather keep them in ONE place (Where you can find them) rather than scattered. I would. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2013-03-19 11:47 |
| #2 Insh'allah, after all. |
| Posted by: Grunter 2013-03-19 08:07 |
| #1 Pakistain has had the highest number of terrorism-related deaths in the world. Keep it up idiots. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2013-03-19 01:12 |