Linkage between public opinion and terrorism

Alan B. Krueger, Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Treasury and Jitka Malečková of the Economics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences examine the effect of public opinion in a country on the number of terrorist attacks perpetrated by its citizens or groups against other countries by analyzing Gallup poll data of public opinion in 19 Middle Eastern and North African countries who disapprove of the leadership of nine world powers. In an article “Attitudes and Action: Public Opinion and the Occurrence of International Terrorism “ in Science they refute the assertion that terrorists act independently of their countrymen’s attitudes toward the leadership of the countries they attack.