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Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict
Pathways toward terrorism and genocide
Volume 16, 2023 - Issue 3
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Research Article

Perception of human rights, law enforcement interference and justifiability of terrorism: a Cross-National Analysis

Pages 179-205 | Received 13 Sep 2022, Accepted 20 May 2023, Published online: 30 May 2023
 

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to understand how subjective perceptions of human rights influence the justifiability of terrorism at the individual level, net of individual and country-level controls. Utilizing the seventh wave of World Values Survey data and 65,668 respondents from 52 countries, this study finds those who report greater interference in their lives from security agents and those who see the country as being run more democratically are more likely to find terrorism justified, while those who perceive less respect for human rights are less likely to do so. The effect of state terror on the justifiability of terrorism is moderated by perceived democracy, with those perceiving the country as being run more democratically being more likely to find terrorism justified when state terror is high.

Acknowledgement

The author thanks The Editor of this journal, the two anonymous peer reviewers, the anonymous peer reviewer in an earlier version of this manuscript and Ms. Merit Goddard Martens for her help in copyediting this paper.

Disclosure statement

There are no conflicts of interests.

Notes

2. Puerto Rico (PR) was surveyed in 2018 but in this study, PR & US are treated as one country.

3. An example of what kind of state terror leads to a particular PTS score: is https://www.politicalterrorscale.org/Data/CodingExamples.html

4. Taiwan’s HDI was found on Taiwan’s national Statistics website (Not UNDP): https://eng.stat.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=25280&ctNode=6032&mp=5

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nabil Bill Julkif

The author is a PhD student at SIU Carbondale

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