Attitudes and Action: Public Opinion and the Occurrence of International Terrorism

Abstract

Predicting Terrorism? Terrorists may be extremists whose opinions do not reflect the mainstream views in their country. Alternatively, public opinion could provide a useful indicator of the likelihood of terrorism. Krueger and Malečková (p. 1534 ) used data from the Gallup World Poll of public opinion and the National Counter Terrorism Center to demonstrate a positive relationship between the percentage of people in a country who disapprove of the leadership of another country and the number of terrorist attacks carried out by people or groups from the former country against the latter. Although the data do not demonstrate causality, they do suggest that public opinion can provide an “early warning signal” of future terrorist threats.