Content area
Full text
Globalization and modernization have been linked with outbreaks of terrorism as groups disadvantaged by a changing world react in violence. An analysis of linkages between globalization and terrorism, based on two global databases, indicates that countries more affected by global impacts suffered from more terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s. In later decades, the relationships became more complex and more difficult to interpret. There is a possibility that there was a threshold effect that was in operation. This article will note the correlations, both positive and negative, between globalization and terrorism, and will discuss how causal forces were likely to have produced the correlations. Particular emphasis is placed on sub-Saharan Africa.
Key Words: Globalization; Modernization; Correlations of globalization and terrorism; Causes of terrorism; Sub-Saharan African terrorism; Threshold effect; KOF Index of Globalization; Global Terrorism Database.
Terrorism is a phenomenon that has spread to all parts of the world in the last part of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty- first century. Sub-Saharan Africa has been no exception to this trend as the region has suffered from both domestic and international terrorist actions. While it is abundantly clear that there is no single cause of terrorism, it is possible that increasing globalization and modernization have been a factor that has contributed to outbreaks of terrorist attacks. If such is the case, then higher levels of terrorism would be associated with higher levels of globalization. The following analysis will focus on various indices of globalization and their relationship to incidents of terrorism in sub-Saharan Africa.
Globalization
Globalization is a complex process, one that has been defined in a sometimes bewildering variety of ways. There is, however, some general agreement that in the economic sphere it involves "the widening, deepening, and speeding up of international connectedness" (McGrew 2011: 275). Globalization, however, goes beyond simple increases in economic interactions to include cultural, military, political and social aspects (McGrew 2011: 277).
There are a number of factors that can contribute to increased levels of globalization. For example, recent increases have resulted from a conjunction of technological, political, and economic circumstances (Castells 2000: 104). Globalization, moreover, involves the movement of goods, services, people, ideas, and cultures across space (Held et al 1999: 16). Frequently, one of the consequences...