Democracy is one of the most consistent predictors of terrorism. Yet we know little about why there is an apparent relationship between terrorism and democracy. In this article, I argue that previous democratic breakdown is a significant predictor of terrorism. While democratic civil liberties increase the opportunity to carry out terrorist attacks, they do not explain why groups are motivated to use terrorism rather than legal means for implementing change. Democratic breakdown, however, creates grievances that motivate terrorism by excluding groups with full rights of participation from the political process. Such grievances, which persist over long periods of time, will lead to high levels of terrorism once the regime re-democratizes, since the motivation for political violence is combined with the opportunities provided by democratic civil liberties. Cross-national statistical evidence from 1970 to 2007 lends strong support for this argument. It further demonstrates that only democracies that have experienced democratic breakdown experience more terrorism than autocracies. Moreover, an extreme bounds analysis indicates that previous democratic breakdown is one of the most robust predictors of terrorism and the most robust among variables conceptually related to democracy.

民主是恐怖主义最一致的预测指标之一。但是，我们对恐怖主义与民主之间为什么存在明显的关系一无所知。在本文中，我认为先前的民主崩溃是恐怖主义的重要预兆。尽管民主的公民自由增加了发动恐怖袭击的机会，但它们并没有解释为什么团体有动机使用恐怖主义而不是采取法律手段来实施变革。但是，民主崩溃造成了不满，通过将具有充分参与权的团体从政治进程中排除，从而激起了恐怖主义的愤慨。一旦政权重新民主化，这种怨恨就会长期存在，将导致高度的恐怖主义，因为政治暴力的动机与民主公民自由所提供的机会结合在一起。1970年至2007年的跨国统计证据为这一论点提供了有力的支持。它进一步表明，只有经历民主崩溃的民主国家比独裁国家遭受更多的恐怖主义。此外，极限分析表明，先前的民主崩溃是恐怖主义最强有力的预测因素之一，并且在概念上与民主有关的变量中也是最强有力的预测因素。