Do arms imports fuel terrorism? Despite the high human, economic and political toll associated with terrorism, the effect of a country’s arms trade on the propensity to experience terrorist attacks has received scant attention so far. We argue that arms imports affect a country’s institutional landscape, increasing grievances due to corruption, exclusion and human rights violations; these grievances, in turn, incite terrorism. We leverage plausibly exogenous variation in global arms trade patterns as an instrument to provide causal evidence of a significant positive effect of arms imports on terrorist activity for 179 countries between 1992 and 2018. We also show that arms imports indeed increase corruption and political exclusion, which may explain why arms imports ultimately encourage terrorist activity. Finally, the adverse effect of arms imports on terrorism is strongest among countries characterized by low levels of fiscal capacity and high levels of political inequality and authoritarianism.

武器进口会助长恐怖主义吗？尽管与恐怖主义相关的人员、经济和政治损失很高，但一个国家的武器贸易对遭受恐怖袭击的倾向的影响迄今为止很少受到关注。我们认为武器进口会影响一个国家的制度格局，增加因腐败、排斥和侵犯人权而引起的不满；这些不满反过来又会煽动恐怖主义。我们利用全球武器贸易模式中看似合理的外生变化作为工具提供因果证据，证明武器进口对 1992 年至 2018 年间 179 个国家的恐怖主义活动产生了显着的积极影响。我们还表明，武器进口确实增加了腐败和政治排斥，这可以解释为什么武器进口最终会鼓励恐怖活动。最后，