RESEARCH

Abadie on Terrorism

Terrorism was often a main topic around the dinner table when Alberto Abadie was growing up in the Basque region in Spain. And that experience helped mold the Kennedy School economist’s vision in such a way that his research is now transforming the academic understanding of the growing international threat.

It was the late 1970s, when Spain was emerging from more than 35 years under the authoritarian rule of General Francisco Franco. The Basque country — which had once been an autonomous region — was particularly active, with political demonstrations in the streets almost every day. The extremist group known as ETA — which stands for Homeland and Liberty in Basque — also launched regular violent attacks in its campaign for complete separation from Spain.

That had several impacts on the young man that are still reflected in his research today. By the time he was 16, he says he was “immunized” from activism and opted instead for the study of politics and economics. It also impressed upon him that terrorism was not unique to poverty-stricken countries.

After the September 11 attacks in 2001, much of the media and political discussion focused on a link between poverty and terrorism. A few scholars soon began to question that. But Abadie, who well remembers talk about explosions and killings in his prosperous town of Bilboa, has undertaken the most comprehensive assessment yet, including both international and domestic terrorism, as well as data about each country’s economic prosperity and levels of political freedom.

He’s concluded that there is no clear association between poverty and terrorism.

“What I’ve found, instead, is that terrorism is related to the amount of political freedom, but not in a very simple way,” he says. “Both democracies and highly authoritarian regimes tend to have lower levels of terrorism. It’s those countries that have intermediate levels of political freedom, those in transition from autocratic regimes to democracies that are the ones that are especially prone to terrorism.”

Abadie is not sure what impact his findings will have, but he’s confident of one outcome he would not approve of: “I don’t want the data to be misinterpreted and used as an
argument to shift funds away from fighting poverty.”

His working paper, “Poverty, Political Freedom and the Roots of Terrorism,” can be found at http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~aabadie/research.html.

Currently, Abadie is studying the impact of terrorism on international capital flows and foreign investment.