ABSTRACT

We examine the effect of class cleavages on terrorist activity by anarchist and leftist terrorist groups in 99 countries over the 1860–1950 period. We find that higher levels of political exclusion of the poor, our main measure of class conflict, were associated with higher levels of social-revolutionary terrorist activity during this time period. This finding is robust to an instrumental-variable approach and further robustness checks. We argue that class cleavages – in the form of the monopolization of political power by the rich – perpetuated and exacerbated the socio-economic ordeal of the poor, while simultaneously curtailing their means to effect relief in the ordinary political process. Consistent with our expectations, this provoked terrorist violence by groups whose ideological orientation highlighted concerns over class conflict, economic equality and the political participation of the poor. Indeed, our empirical analysis also shows that terrorist groups motivated by other ideologies (e.g. extreme nationalism) did not respond to political exclusion of the poor in the same manner, which further emphasizes the role of ideological inclinations in the terrorist response to class antagonisms.

摘要

我们研究了 1860 年至 1950 年期间 99 个国家的无政府主义和左翼恐怖组织的阶级分裂对恐怖活动的影响。我们发现，对穷人的更高程度的政治排斥（我们衡量阶级冲突的主要衡量标准）与这段时期内更高程度的社会革命恐怖活动有关。这一发现对于工具变量方法和进一步的稳健性检查是稳健的。我们认为，阶级分裂——以富人垄断政治权力的形式——延续并加剧了穷人的社会经济苦难，同时限制了他们在普通政治过程中实现救济的手段。与我们的预期一致，这激起了意识形态取向突出对阶级冲突的担忧的团体的恐怖主义暴力，经济平等和穷人的政治参与。事实上，我们的实证分析还表明，受其他意识形态（例如极端民族主义）驱动的恐怖组织并没有以同样的方式对穷人的政治排斥做出反应，这进一步强调了意识形态倾向在对阶级对抗的恐怖反应中的作用。