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Press Freedom, Publicity, and the Cross-National Incidence of Transnational Terrorism

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Political Research Quarterly

Published online on

Abstract

Publicity is central to terrorism, but demonstrating a link between press freedom and the targeting of attacks is challenging. There are several reasons for this: (1) studies do not distinguish between press freedom and press attention; (2) perpetrators use press freedom to weed out unacceptable targets rather than to determine which targets to attack; (3) only foreign, not domestic, perpetrators depend on press attention; and (4) foreign terrorists satisfy their desire for press attention by attacking powerful states. Our models confirm this argument about press freedom and national power even after controlling for executive constraints, polity, and foreign policy activity.