Why do states commit to UN counterterrorism treaties? This article posits that state accession to UN counterterrorism treaties is likely informed by the nature of the terrorist threats a state faces, and consequently, the pressures that such threats generate from domestic and international audiences on the state to address (or appear to address) them. As such, we hypothesize that states ratify UN CT treaties for either material, needs-based reasons—to gain external assistance for counterterror capacity building—or for symbolic reasons—to visibly signal their commitment to fight terrorism in order maintain legitimacy, and mitigate reputational costs to both domestic and international audiences. To test these hypotheses, we use a newly compiled dataset of state accessions to the 19 UN counterterrorism treaties from 1970–2016, testing both our needs-based versus symbolic hypotheses, as well as more “traditional” explanations for state treaty accession. Across the universe of 19 UN counterterrorism treaties, our study implies that states may be more likely to ratify treaties as mechanisms to signal intent to address terror threats rather than to build threat-specific counterterrorism capacity. This research thus broadens both academic and policy-related understandings of state counterterror treaty ratification.

中文翻译：

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需求还是符号？联合国反恐条约批准的逻辑

为什么各国要遵守联合国反恐条约？本文认为，国家加入联合国反恐条约很可能取决于国家面临的恐怖主义威胁的性质，因此，这种威胁从国内和国际受众对国家产生的应对（或似乎应对）这些威胁的压力. 因此，我们假设各国批准联合国反恐条约是出于物质的、基于需求的原因——为反恐能力建设获得外部援助——或出于象征性的原因——以明显表明其打击恐怖主义的承诺，以保持合法性，并减轻声誉国内和国际观众的成本。为了检验这些假设，我们使用了一个新编译的国家加入 1970-2016 年联合国反恐条约的数据集，检验我们基于需求的假设和象征性假设，以及对加入国家条约的更“传统”解释。纵观 19 项联合国反恐条约，我们的研究表明，各国可能更有可能批准条约，作为表达应对恐怖威胁意图的机制，而不是建立针对特定威胁的反恐能力。因此，这项研究拓宽了对国家反恐条约批准的学术和政策相关理解。