FOREIGN-POLICY CRISES AND THE RESORT TO TERRORISM - A TIME-SERIES ANALYSIS OF CONFLICT LINKAGES

This study rests the validity of opposing arguments regarding superpow er state sponsorship of international crises by exploring the linkages between the monthly foreign policy crisis behavior of nation-states a nd thr occurrence of international terrorism over a 228-month period f rom 1968 to 1986 using data drawn from ITERATE 2 and 3 and the interna tional Crisis Behavior (ICB) data sets. Using time-series ARIMA modell ing techniques, superpower involvement in international crises, attitu des toward superpower crisis intervention, and the victory and defeat patterns of democracies and nondemocracies are considered for their sh ort-term and long-term influences on the amount and occurrence of inte rnational terrorism in the global system. The analysis lends support t o the view that the Soviet Union and other authoritarian regimes are m ore likely than the U.S. and other democracies to resort to internatio nal terrorism as a foreign policy tool.