Migration, Social Exclusion and the Risk of Terrorism

• In Event: Domestic Politics of Terrorism

Abstract

Recent terrorist attacks by people with an immigration background raised concerns. Yet, it remains unclear whether immigration systematically relates to terrorist attacks and what is an underlying causal mechanism for why migrants should become involved in terrorism. I argue that social exclusion can lead to resort to terrorism, as grievances arise from a gap between immigrants' expectations and reality in a host country, which in turn may provide a fertile ground for immigrants' radicalization. Using originally coded dataset of immigrants-led terrorist attacks occurred in 29 OECD member-states in North American and Western Europe, this paper focuses on two sources of social exclusion of immigrants; namely unemployment and lack of education. Comparing the unemployment rate and the tertiary educational attainment rate between foreign-born and native-born citizens, I found that increasing unemployment gap is robustly associated with more terrorist attacks. When a perpetrator is a lone wolf, economic exclusion has a stronger effect on the likelihood of terrorism. In addition, stock of immigrants is likely to be associated with more terrorist attacks perpetrated by immigrants.

Author

• Miku Matsunaga, University of Essex