Terrorist assassinations and societal unrest in Africa: a research brief

Abstract

ABSTRACT This exploratory research brief examines social unrest in Africa in the aftermath of terrorist assassinations. Assassination is a tactic of violence in modern terrorist campaigns and assassinations are interwoven across the African continent with social conflict events such as demonstrations and riots. Utilizing survival analysis, this article finds variation in the likelihood of social unrest across five African subregions and tests for the type of event most likely to occur after a terrorist assassination. Analyses of data on thirty-seven African states drawn from the Global Terrorism Database and Social Conflict Analysis Database from 1990–2015 suggest that demonstrations may be more likely than riots in the aftermath of a terrorist assassination in Africa and that these events are more likely to be spontaneous, rather than organized, in nature.