Spend 'Em If You Got 'Em: Terrorist Attack Timing and Funding Consistency

• In Event: The Political Economy of Internal Conflict

Abstract

Given the short time horizons faced by terrorist groups, inflows in funding should correlate with spikes in the number of attacks. This pattern, moreover, should be the most prominent for groups whose sources of funding are less consistent and predictable, as uncertainty further shortens the group's time horizons and imposes additional organizational pressures. I test these predictions on a subset of terrorist organizations whose funding is likely linked to drug-trafficking by proxying variation in drug production with the data on weather during the month of harvest. The statistical tests support the predictions. For groups whose funding is tied to narco-trafficking, the timing and number of attacks closely follow the drug-harvesting cycle. Favorable weather conditions during the month of drug harvest correspond to spikes in the number of terrorist attacks in the current and subsequent months, whereas unfavorable weather conditions during drug harvest are associated with the reverse pattern.

Author

• Olga Chyzh, Iowa State University