Measuring the Extents of Drama: A Geographically Weighted Regression Analysis of the Socio-Economic Determinants of Terrorism

In the study, the socio-economic determinants of terrorism are examined using Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) analysis in the context of 81 provinces in Turkey. Firstly, on the purpose of investigating the validity of convergence process among the provinces and examining the effects of terrorism on the convergence process, the four regression models of convergence are used. The results of unconditional and conditional convergence analysis show that divergence process among the provinces is dominant and that terrorism accelerates divergence process. Secondly, the model estimation findings point out that the GWR model promotes the model fitting compared to global estimation coefficients. The outcomes of the analysis providing the non-linear relationship between the terrorism, income and democracy show that the roots of terrorism are stem from several factors in Turkey. In general, it is observed that the level of income, population, unemployment, foreign trade, inflation, poverty, inequality, crime rate, democracy, ethnic heterogeneity, residential instability and geographic location have a positive impact of terrorism while the level of education, consumption, hopefulness, happiness and military intervention have a negative effect on terrorist activity.