European Journal of Political Economy
Volume 44, 2016, Pages 41-52

Why concessions should not be made to terrorist kidnappers (Article) (Open Access)

Brandt P.T. , George J. , Sandler T.*
  • a School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, United States
  • b School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, United States
  • c School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, United States

Abstract

This paper examines the dynamic implications of making concessions to terrorist kidnappers. We apply a Bayesian Poisson changepoint model to kidnapping incidents associated with three cohorts of countries that differ in their frequency of granting concessions. Depending on the cohort of countries during 2001-2013, terrorist negotiation successes encouraged 64% to 87% more kidnappings. Our findings also hold for 1978-2013, during which these negotiation successes encouraged 26% to 57% more kidnappings. Deterrent aspects of terrorist casualties are also quantified; the dominance of religious fundamentalist terrorists meant that such casualties generally did not curb kidnappings. © 2016 The Authors.

Author Keywords

Violent ends Concessions Kidnappings Game theory Changepoints Dynamic analysis

Index Keywords

[No Keywords available]
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84976315447&doi=10.1016%2fj.ejpoleco.2016.05.004&partnerID=40&md5=fca5a29db02f04225ef5c5a673cc6d00
DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2016.05.004
ISSN: 01762680
Cited by: 11
Original Language: English