Does Freedom of Expression Cause Less Terrorism?
| Author | Lasse Skjoldager Eskildsen,Christian Bjørnskov |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321720950223 |
| Published date | 01 February 2022 |
| Date | 01 February 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720950223
Political Studies
2022, Vol. 70(1) 131 –152
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321720950223
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Does Freedom of Expression
Cause Less Terrorism?
Lasse Skjoldager Eskildsen1
and Christian Bjørnskov2,3
Abstract
It is often assumed that there is a trade-off between civil rights and national safety although
the association is theoretically ambiguous. This article therefore explores this association by
estimating the effect of degrees of freedom of expression on the risk of terrorist attacks. We
first note that different theoretical arguments support both a positive and negative association
between freedom of expression and terrorism. We explore this association empirically in a large
panel of 162 countries observed between 1970 and 2016. Distinguishing between media freedom
and discussion freedom, and separating democracies and autocracies, we find that discussion
freedom is unambiguously associated with less terrorism in democracies.
Keywords
freedom of expression, terrorism, political economy
Accepted: 22 July 2020
Introduction
When a state experiences a terror attack, the reaction from governments and politicians
often is to cut back on civil rights. This sometimes occurs because of the political assump-
tion that there is a trade-off between civil rights and national safety (Bjørnskov and Voigt,
2020; Meisels, 2005; Waldron, 2003). The existing empirical literature on this question is
nevertheless divided into two overall claims. One part of the literature argues that civil
rights, including freedom of speech and freedom of the press, can function as a relatively
peaceful outlet of concerns and frustration. Freedom therefore prevents terror because
unhappy citizens can express in legal ways their discontent with the executive branch or
other political actors (Eyerman, 1998; Li, 2005; Piazza, 2013; Ravndal, 2018; Schmid,
1992). The other part of the literature describes how freedom of speech might increase the
likelihood of terror by making it easier for terrorist organisations to motivate and recruit
1København NV, Denmark
2Department of Economics, Aarhus University, Aarhus V, Denmark
3Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Stockholm, Sweden
Corresponding author:
Christian Bjørnskov, Department of Economics, Aarhus University, Fuglesangs Allé 4, 8210 Aarhus V,
Denmark.
Email: chbj@econ.au.dk
950223PSX0010.1177/0032321720950223Political StudiesSkjoldager Eskildsen and Bjørnskov
research-article2020
Article
132 Political Studies 70(1)
new members, as well as making it easier to plan a terror attack (Eyerman, 1998; Li,
2005; Ross, 1993; Schmid, 1992).
Yet, despite the importance of the question and the fact that a literature extensively
covers multiple theoretical arguments, virtually all existing empirical studies share a
common problem (cf. Chenoweth, 2010; Li, 2005; Piazza, 2008; Piazza and Walsh, 2009;
Ravndal, 2018; Wade and Reiter, 2007; Weinberg and Eubank, 1998; Whitaker, 2007).
These studies rest on the implicit assumption that freedom of expression differs between
broad political regime types but only varies little within types. We note here that this
assumption does not bear out in the data, and we therefore abandon a simple comparison
of regime types.
In this article, we instead examine how freedom of speech and freedom of the press
affect the amount of terror a state is subject to. We do so by using new measures derived
from the Varieties of Democracy project, which enable us to test how freedom of expres-
sion affects the amount of terror a state experiences, instead of merely exploring differ-
ences across regime types. We find that freedom of discussion in particular is substantially
associated with less terrorism and argue that freedom lowers the risk of terror due to two
types of mechanisms: (1) more freedom of expression makes it easier for the police and
intelligence agencies to effectively gather information on potential terrorists and targets,
and (2) freedom of expression works as an outlet for displeased citizens through which
they can openly express their discontent instead of resorting to terror.
The rest of the article is structured as follows. Section ‘Freedom of Speech as a
Peaceful Outlet of Dissent or a Source of Conflict’ describes the two theoretical points of
view and our theoretical argument. In section ‘Defining Our Key Terms’, we define our
three key terms: terror, democracy and freedom of expression. In section ‘Data and
Empirical Strategy’, we describe our methodical approach and explain our variables.
Sections ‘Main Results’ and ‘Results, Different Types of Terrorist Attacks’ include our
results, while section ‘Discussion and Conclusion’ comprises our conclusions and a dis-
cussion of our results.
Freedom of Speech as a Peaceful Outlet of Dissent or a
Source of Conflict
When a state is exposed to an act of terrorism, the political reaction is often to increase
security against terror by restricting certain civil rights. This restriction takes place either
because it is believed that a trade-off between safety and freedom exists or because oppor-
tunistic politicians use terrorist attacks as a pretext to introduce such changes (Bjørnskov
and Voigt, 2020; Meisels, 2005; Waldron, 2003). One of the civil rights that is often
restricted in such contexts is freedom of expression: as of 2014, 22 of the 83 countries
sampled in Bjørnskov and Voigt (in press) explicitly allow censorship during states of
emergency, and only 40 have unconditional constitutional protection of the freedom of
speech and expression. As such, much constitutional and judicial thought relies on an
assumption that restricting freedom of expression may be necessary and effective such
that a trade-off between security and civil liberties exists. Accordingly, the Council of
Europe Convention for the Prevention of Terrorism (2005) obliges member states to
establish ‘Public provocation to commit a terrorist offence’ as a terrorist offence under
national law. A number of democracies also criminalise ‘glorification’ or ‘apology’ of
terrorism, and the European Court of Human Rights has clarified that such glorification
may be punished without violating citizens’ right to freedom of expression in the European
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