Developing a Taste for Stability: Economic development in Pakistan can help deter terrorism


 

Publication Date: January 2008

Publisher: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace

Author(s): Gary S. Becker

Research Area: Politics

Keywords: Al-Qaeda; Pakistan

Type: Brief

Coverage: Pakistan

Abstract:

More than a third of Pakistanis surveyed in an August 2007 survey by Terror Free Tomorrow (a nonpartisan policy group in Washington) held favorable views of Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Osama bin Laden. Economic development alters support for terrorism. Prosperous people tend to lose their enthusiasm for terrorism. As economic development takes place in Pakistan, this can happen there, too.

This essay appeared in the Becker-Posner Blog on January 6, 2008.