James Piazza: Repression and Terrorism

In today's episode John speaks to James Piazza, a Liberal Arts Professor of Political Science at The Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of over 30 articles on terrorism, counterterrorism and political violence. His research uses a quantitative, data-driven approach to examine the political, economic, social, institutional and religious-cultural forces that drive terrorist activity globally. Some topics he has examined in his research include the relationship between poverty, socioeconomic factors and terrorism, terrorism and political regime type, human rights abuses and terrorism, minorities and terrorism, religion and terrorism, the drug trade and natural resources and terrorism. His work has appeared in a variety of journals including the Journal of Politics, the American Political Science Review, International Organizations, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Journal of Peace Science, International Studies Quartelry, Comparative Political Studies, Public Choice and Terrorism and Political Violence. At Penn State, Piazza teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on terrorism.

The research discussed are:

Some research that has influenced Jim's career

Ervand Abrahamian (1989) Radical Islam: The Iranian Mojahedin.

Robert Pape (2003) The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.

Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova (2003) Education, Poverty and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection.

Some of Jim's key research

Poverty, Minority Economic Discrimination and Domestic Terrorism. (2011)

Autocracies and Terrorism. With Matthew C. Wilson (2013)

Repression and Terrorism: A Cross-National Empirical Analysis of Types of Repression and Domestic Terrorism. (2017)