Tyrants and Terrorism: Why Some Autocrats are Terrorized While Others are Not

Conventional wisdom suggests that reports of terrorism should be sparse in dictatorships, both because such violence is unlikely to result in policy change and because it is difficult to get reliable information on attacks. Yet, there is variance in the number of terrorist attacks reported in autocracies. Why? We argue that differences in the audience costs produced by dictatorships explain why some nondemocracies experience more terrorism than others. Terrorists are more likely to expect a response in dictatorships that generate high domestic audience costs. Using data from multiple terrorism databases, we find empirical evidence that dictatorships generating higher audience costs—military dictatorships, single-party dictatorships, and dynastic monarchies—experience as much terrorism as democracies, while autocracies generating lower audience costs—personalist dictatorships and non-dynastic monarchies—face fewer attacks than their democratic counterparts.

主流共识认为，独裁政权下的恐怖主义报道本应较为稀少——这一方面是由于此类暴力事件难以促成政策变动，另一方面则是因为难以获取袭击事件的可靠信息。然而，不同专制政体所公开报道的恐怖袭击数量却存在显著差异。这一现象的成因何在？我们提出，独裁政权所产生的观众成本（audience costs）差异，能够解释为何部分非民主国家的恐怖主义活动烈度与频次较其他国家更高。恐怖组织更倾向于预判，在国内观众成本较高的独裁政权中，其行动会招致针对性回应。本研究依托多份恐怖主义数据库的数据开展实证分析，结果证实：观众成本较高的独裁政权——包括军事独裁政权、一党专政政权与王朝君主制政权——所遭遇的恐怖主义活动规模与民主国家不相上下；而观众成本较低的专制政体——即个人独裁政权与非王朝君主制政权——所面临的袭击数量则少于其民主对等国家。