Document Type

Limited Access

Department

Political Science

Rights Management

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Abstract

Terrorist groups are most active in developing areas of the world and thrive on instability. The ripple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has increased unemployment and poverty while decreasing economic output and government efficacy in the developing world. I argue that these effects may have the secondary effect of leading to more violence involving terrorist groups and other non-state actors. Using a global sample of data on non-state violence from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), I find a statistically significant and positive relationship between COVID-19 deaths and the number of battles. I also present a case study of the Lake Chad Basin in Africa’s Sahel, the region of the world most afflicted by terrorist attacks, to identify the effects of COVID-19 on increased terrorist activities.

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