Terrorism and Political Science

Abstract

This article shows empirically, theoretically and statistically that domestic (or ‘home-grown’) terrorism in Western Europe occurs more frequently in countries with majoritarian political systems (typically first-past-the-post electoral systems and single-party governments) than in countries with consensus political systems (typically countries with PR electoral systems and coalition governments). Based on a survey of all domestic terrorist incidents in Western Europe from 1985 to 2010, the article shows strong negative correlations between consensus institutions and levels of terrorism; that is, the more disproportional the political system is, the higher the levels of terrorism are likely to be. Thus domestic terrorism tends to occur when minorities are excluded from the decision-making process on matters they find important. These findings indicate that constitutional engineering provides a more promising model of counterterrorism than the prevailing orthodoxy.