RT Article
T1 Do Blasphemy Restrictions Restrict Terrorism?
JF Terrorism and political violence
VO 37
IS 6
SP 857
OP 869
A1 Eskildsen, Lasse Skjoldager
A1 Bjørnskov, Christian
A2 Bjørnskov, Christian
LA English
YR 2025
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1933281979
AB Although several countries have repealed their laws banning blasphemy in recent years, a majority of the world’s countries still ban some forms of blasphemous expressions. It is often argued in political debate that such legislation is necessary to prevent conflicts and terrorism. The empirical literature on the topic nevertheless remains tiny and it is an open question if blasphemy bans ‘work’ in this way. In this paper, we therefore explore the association between types of blasphemy legislation and terrorist events. We do so using a large cross-country panel dataset of up to 162 countries observed between 1970 and 2016. Exploring determinants of terrorist attacks, we find that while blasphemy legislation in general is not associated with terrorism, countries with constitutionalised blasphemy bans experience a higher terrorism risk.
K1 Conflict
K1 Terrorism
K1 freedom of expression
K1 Blasphemy legislation
DO 10.1080/09546553.2024.2378446