Political Parties: When Do They Turn to Terror?

The purpose of this article is to explain the creation of terrorist organizations by political parties. Extant literature argues that institutional structural constraints, such as electoral systems, are more likely to lead political parties to create terrorist organizations. However, this article hypothesizes that party ideology is also an important factor that explains the creation of terrorist organizations by political parties. Using a Poisson random effect model for panel data on twenty-eight countries between 1965 and 2003, this article shows that party ideology is positively correlated with the formation of terrorist organizations even after controlling for institutional structural constraints. The implication of these findings is important for policy makers eager to create stable polities.