A Very Dark Place: Explaining State Terrorism

• In Event: New Perspectives on Political Violence

Abstract

A voluminous literature exists on the causes, dynamics, and consequences of state repression. To date, however, no attempt has been made to systematically explain one variety of repression, state terrorism. We distinguish between two types of repression, generic repression such as limits on the civil and political rights of citizens, and state terrorism. The latter occurs when the state or its agents apply selective, targeted violence in extra-judicial ways such as by kidnapping, disappearing, exiling or killing their dissidents without bothering to use the country’s legal framework. We examine the relationship between generic repression and state terrorism in a cross-national dynamic framework. Our analysis reveals that levels of generic repression tend to correlate with levels of state terrorism, but changes in repression do not significantly predict changes in state terrorism. The two, in other words, have different purposes. In addition, the general model of the causes of state terrorism we propose reveals that state terrorism in the past, anti-system movements, armed insurgencies, and corruption in the political system also help explain the onset and severity of state repression, while horizontal and diagonal accountability help prevent it. We take advantage in our analysis of almost 7000 observations from 1900 to 1998.

Authors

• Jose Aleman, Fordham University

• Dwayne Woods, Purdue University