Group concentration and violence: does ethnic segregation affect domestic terrorism?

Abstract

This paper examines the link between ethnic segregation and domestic terrorism. The results show that ethnic segregation has a positive and significant effect on the incidence of domestic terrorism, which indicates that countries where ethnic groups are spatially concentrated face a higher risk of suffering this type of violence. This finding is not affected by the inclusion in the analysis of different covariates that may affect both ethnic segregation and domestic terrorism. The observed relationship between the degree of spatial concentration of ethnic groups and domestic terrorism is confirmed by various robustness tests. The results also suggest that the threat of secession is an important transmission channel linking ethnic segregation and domestic terrorism.