Date of Award

1-1-2013

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Arts (DA)

College/School/Department

Department of Public Administration and Policy

Content Description

1 online resource (x, 181 pages)

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Victor Asal

Committee Members

Karl Rethemeyer, Kathleen Deloughery, Virginia Eubanks

Keywords

Gender inequality, Policy implications, Quantitative analysis, Religion, Terrorism, World Values Survey, Woman and war, Women's rights, Women, Violence in women, Violence, Women terrorists, Masculinity, Sex discrimination against women

Subject Categories

Political Science | Public Policy | Women's Studies

Abstract

This dissertation includes three essays that present a quantitative analysis of the policy implications of gender equality and religious attitudes as predictors of terrorism at the state level using a broad dataset. Essay one focuses on impact of gender equality, especially women's political empowerment on terrorism, both domestic and transnational. The second essay examines both gender equality attitudes and actual outcomes in social, economic and political spheres, to measure their effect on terrorism. The third essay analyzes the relation of religiousness in a society with incidents and lethality of terrorism. The overall findings of this thesis suggest that attitudes and norms of gender equality matter with regard to terrorism, but practices and outcomes matter more. Results also indicate that religious attitudes of a society are associated with lethality of terror attack. These findings have important policy implications for rethinking prevention of terrorism in an effective and innovative manner. The results strongly support investment in women's rights programs, promotion of religious tolerance and provision of social services as indirect policy solutions to curb the conditions that foster terrorism.

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