Terrorism - democracy nexus: İs democracy at stake? A mixed method approach on the effects of terrorism on democracy

Abstract

Bu tezin birincil amaci artan terror tehdidinin demokrasi uzerindeki etkilerini anlamaktir. Mevcut literatur demokrasinin terror olusumu uzerindeki etkilerini arastirmaya yogunlasirken, tersi bir etkinin sonuclarina dair sorulari cevaplamaya yonelik etkisiz kalmaktadir. Bu tez literature katki yapmak icin artan terror tehdidinin demokratik kurumlar ve degerler uzerindeki ampirik etkileri test ederken, bu etkilerin sebep-sonuc mekanizmasini da anlamaya calismaktadir. Bu teorik cercevede, artan terror tehdidi, kisisel hak ve ozgurlukleri olumsuz yonde etkilerken, bagimsiz yarginin artan tehdit altinda bagimsiziligini kaybetmesi ile konsolide olan politik gucun demokrasiyi negatif yonde etkilemektedir.

The aim of this thesis is to understand the effects of terrorism on democracy. Existing research on democracy and terrorism nexus focuses on the effect of regime type on terrorism while it falls short in answering the questions about the effect of terrorism on democracy. This thesis tries to contribute to the literature by exploring the causal linkages from terrorism to democracy. In recent years, we witnessed that increasing terrorist threat causes governments to expand the powers of security forces, introduce policies limiting individual liberties and freedoms, and, thus, leading to a tradeoff between security and freedom. The empirical analysis in this thesis shows that increasing threat of terrorism is statistically significant and negatively correlated with liberal democracy, civil liberties, equality before law and individual freedoms and independent judiciary in all countries. The case comparison of Brazil, Peru and Colombia shows that increasing threat of terrorism forces democratic countries to expand the powers of security forces to deal with the terrorism. Aggressive measures that countries conducted to deal with terrorism increase human rights violations and restrict civil liberties.