Terrorist attacks cut short cabinet term of office

Research into political instability carried out by Richard Jong-A-Pin, economist at the University of Groningen, has shown that terrorist attacks influence the term of office of a cabinet. Terrorism has a greater effect than economic variables such as inflation or economic growth. Large-scale attacks during an election period are particularly damaging to a government’s chances of re-election. Jong-A-Pin will be awarded a PhD by the University of Groningen on 5 June 2008 (1.15pm).

Jong-A-Pin examined the influence of terrorism on election results in response to the bloody attacks carried out by Al Qaeda in Madrid in March 2004. Three days after these attacks, Prime Minister Aznar and his Partido Popular lost the Spanish elections. In order to discover how typical this result was, Jong-A-Pin analyzed election results for the preceding forty years in a hundred and twenty countries. His findings showed that generally speaking, a government had a sixty percent chance of failing to be re-elected. However, if a terrorist attack had taken place during the election year or the year before the election, the government’s chance of losing increased to around 73 percent. The chance of losing an election also rises in line with the scale or level of violence involved in the attack. This means that the influence of terrorism is more significant than economic variables such as inflation or economic growth. ‘Governments must therefore do everything within their power to prevent terrorist attacks in the run-up to an election’, concludes Jong-A-Pin.

Ethnic violence

Alongside the influence of terrorism, Jong-A-Pin also explored a second possible cause of political instability. He looked into whether democratization and globalization are leading to an increase in the incidence of ethnic violence. His research shows that democratization and globalization have a particularly strong influence in African countries to the south of the Sahara, where certain ethnic minorities occupy positions of economic dominance. Examples of these so-called ‘market dominant’ minorities include the Lebanese community in West-Africa and the prosperous whites in countries like Zimbabwe and South-Africa. According to Jong-A-Pin, democratization has given populist politicians in these countries an incentive to spread hatred towards wealthy ethnic minorities. ‘These minorities are still protected in autocratic regimes, but this is much more difficult in a democracy,’ says the economist. The link has only been identified in countries in sub-Saharan Africa; Jong-A-Pin found no relationship in the rest of the world.

Kenya

In Jong-A-Pin’s opinion, the recent ethnic uprisings in Kenya, in which several ethnic groups from a range of economically dominant positions became embroiled last April, can be explained by the simultaneous processes of democratization and globalization. ‘Globalization has caused a widening of the gap between the incomes of the poor majority and the wealthy minority,’ says Jong-A-Pin, ‘while democratization has created the possibility of mobilization against this rich ethnic minority.'

Economic growth

Jong-A-Pin also looked into the influence of political instability on economic growth. In order to measure political instability in various countries, he made a distinction between four dimensions of political instability: political violence, social revolt, instability within the political regime and instability of the political regime. His research showed that instability of the political regime (indicators are the number of constitutional amendments, political crises or changes of government and political leaders) was the only dimension that showed evidence of curbing economic growth within a country. On the other hand, instability within a political regime (in other words, electoral competition between politicians) stimulates economic growth. ‘Political competition has a positive effect on economic growth, as it allows incompetent politicians to be replaced’, explains Jong-A-Pin.

Curriculum Vitae

Richard Jong-A-Pin (Groningen, 1980) studied Economics at the University of Groningen. He works as a researcher and lecturer for the Economics and Econometrics department of the University’s Faculty of Economics and Business. Jong-A-Pin will be awarded a PhD on 5 June with a thesis entitled ‘Essays on political instability: measurement, causes and consequences.’ His supervisor is Prof. J. de Haan.

Note for the press

Information: Richard Jong-A-Pin, tel. +31 (0)50 363 4757, e-mail: r.m.jong.a.pin rug.nl