Books and Articles by Seung-Whan Choi
Popular belief suggests that poverty is the primary cause of terrorism. However, several prominen... more Popular belief suggests that poverty is the primary cause of terrorism. However, several prominent studies have found little or no empirical support for this notion. I argue that these studies often overlook specific terrorist groups that recruit individuals from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. I propose conceptual frameworks that connect poor economic conditions to four distinct political objectives of terrorist groups: ethnonationalist, left-wing, right-wing, and religious fundamentalist. To support my argument, I analyze a sample of 726 terrorist groups from 1970 to 2016. My findings indicate that poverty and inequality have a significant and positive effect on the activities of left-wing and right-wing terrorist groups, but do not have the same impact on ethnonationalist and religious fundamentalist terrorist groups. Interestingly, these significant relationships diminish when conventional statistical analysis is applied to assess the effect of poverty on all terrorist activities combined. I conclude that poverty alleviation measures can be effective counterterrorism strategies, as they may ameliorate a primary motivator of economically disadvantaged individuals engaging in left-wing and right-wing terrorism.
Defence and Peace Economics., 2025
Whether political leaders playing the nationalist card to enhance their legitimacy provoke the ac... more Whether political leaders playing the nationalist card to enhance their legitimacy provoke the activity of terrorist groups is an important yet underexplored question. I argue that there is a positive association between nationalist leaders and certain types of terrorist groups, depending on the ideology of the group. My analysis focuses on four specific group ideologies: ethnonationalist, leftwing, right-wing, and religious fundamentalist. Specifically, I conceptualize that: 1) nationalist leaders amplify the activity of ethnonationalist terrorist groups that advocate for the interests of ethnic others, 2) nationalist politics diminish the activity of left-wing groups primarily focused on addressing economic inequality, 3) nationalist leaders empower right-wing groups that target perceived outgroup members, and 4) nationalist politics increase the activity of religious fundamentalist groups that resist persecution based on their beliefs. The empirical findings indicate some deviations from these expectations. Nationalistic leadership is a significant driver of activity among ethnonationalist and religious fundamentalist terrorist groups, reduces the engagement of leftwing groups, and has minimal impact on right-wing groups. Overall, this analysis suggests that nationalist leaders present a security risk, as their actions likely incite, rather than mitigate, the activities of specific terrorist groups.
Nations and Nationalism, 2025
Nationalist leaders are believed to reject international human rights criticisms in a blanket fas... more Nationalist leaders are believed to reject international human rights criticisms in a blanket fashion. However, I argue that they are likely to be highly selective in accommodating or dismissing such criticisms based on the kind of human rights issue on the table. Nationalist leaders refuse to yield to the pressure of international human rights organizations in the name of national sovereignty. However, they may be incentivized to entertain human rights recommendations on issues that are relatively inconsequential to their political survival. They may be even more receptive to international pressure on matters such as human rights education and training, perceiving opportunities to score points with the international community while furthering their domestic political agenda. To test these arguments, I gather data from the Universal Periodic Review and two human rights cases (Sri Lanka and Finland). The findings of this study provide an important clue about which specific human rights areas the international community should focus on when nationalist leaders are transgressors.
Foreign Policy Analysis, 2025
This research note reexamines the ongoing debate about whether security alliances help prevent co... more This research note reexamines the ongoing debate about whether security alliances help prevent conflicts. It specifically reevaluates recent scholarly exchanges between deterrence and Steps-to-War studies. Deterrence scholars argue that alliances reduce the likelihood of conflict initiation, while Steps-to-War scholars contend that forming an alliance can actually incite conflict. Both sides provide evidence to support their theories by analyzing the effectiveness of defensive pacts in deterring or failing to
deter militarized interstate disputes. However, recent studies have overlooked testing and reporting whether alliances prevent the most destructive form of conflict: war. This omission is surprising, given that the primary goal of alliances is to prevent war. This research note conducts a canonical directed dyad-year analysis of 1,077,992 observations from 1816 to 2000 and finds compelling evidence in support of deterrence theory, but not for the Steps-to-War theory. As a result, this empirical research
clarifies the debate between these two leading theories in international
relations.
Social Science Quarterly, 2025
Objective: This study aims to provide a first-cut empirical analysis of whether civil society pro... more Objective: This study aims to provide a first-cut empirical analysis of whether civil society promotes democratic governance or only supports specific aspects of democracy. Methods: This study fits a battery of OLS regression models against cross-national, time-series data for 173 countries from 1900 to 2016. Results: Civil society is likely to strengthen democracy: it is conducive to some dimensions of democracy but not as closely as we expected. Specifically, civil society is likely to help fulfill democracy's promise of electoral, participatory, and institutional conditions but exert little to no effect on other democratic dimensions. Conclusion: This study hopes that the empirical findings will stimulate further research on civil society and democracy to obtain a more complete sense of how these essential concepts are connected to each other and the success of political systems. At a time when both civil society and democracy seem embattled in a range of locations, the real-world relevance of this academic research becomes apparent as well.
International Interactions, 2025
A growing body of research indicates that women are increasingly involved in suicide attacks. The... more A growing body of research indicates that women are increasingly involved in suicide attacks. These studies suggest that women, due to their seemingly innocent appearance, can more effectively target civilians rather than soldiers. However, these studies often overlook the strategic and tactical motives behind these attacks. This study argues that gender has become an important factor as terrorist organizations adopt new strategiesspecifically, targeting civilians-and new tactics, such as using women to inflict high civilian casualties. Consequently, women are less likely to target well-defended security personnel, like soldiers and police, and are more likely to attack civilian targets compared to men. This gender difference in targeting behavior is supported by a statistical analysis of 6,127 suicide bombing incidents from 1980 to 2016. Therefore, the counterterrorism community needs to develop effective measures to address the new security challenges posed by female suicide bombers.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies, 2025
The world has witnessed the reemergence of nationalism, especially a rising number of ethnic nati... more The world has witnessed the reemergence of nationalism, especially a rising number of ethnic nationalist heads of state, each of whom promises to make his or her country great again. What are the consequences of the rebirth of ethnic nationalism? One of the most notable consequences is closely related to the ongoing debate about whether ethnic nationalism is inherently violent or peaceful. The existing literature mostly centers on ethnic conflict, disregarding other forms of violent outcomes. It also tends to focus on the masses in the context of independent movements, relying on historical anecdotes or a few case studies rather than statistical data. While informative, the literature has difficulty generalizing findings across different countries and time periods. More important, there is a lack of focus on the role that nationalist state leaders, such as Adolf Hitler, Slobodan Milošević, Narendra Modi, Victor Orbán, Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump, play in inciting various types of violence through ethnic favoritism to maintain power. Such leaders are responsible for provoking significant political turmoil in the form of ethnic terrorism, ethnic conflict, irredentist conflict, and interstate war. When nationalist leaders employ ethnic favoritism to gain support from co-ethnics and thus stay longer in power, they provoke disenfranchised ethnic groups or countries into reacting violently. The latter groups fight back to protect and preserve their ethnic or national identity. Therefore, nationalist leaders can be viewed as the origins of multiple forms of political violence. Empirical analyses may be used to elucidate the connection between nationalist leaders and political violence across countries and years. If future empirical research confirms that ethnic nationalism poses a significant risk to domestic and international peace, it should prompt the security community to address it effectively and promptly.
Chinese Journal of International Politics, 2025
Although civil society has significant implications for international peace, it has been overlook... more Although civil society has significant implications for international peace, it has been overlooked and not given enough attention. Instead, existing studies focus on other factors that contribute to peace. In this study, we compare five prominent peace factors, namely, democratic peace, Cold War peace, contractualist peace, capitalist peace, and territorial peace, to a robust civil society. Our research presents a unique theoretical argument that a robust civil society can have a pacifying effect on international conflict. This is because it can organize a united front against belligerent leaders, solve collective action problems, and take immediate action against leaders' war decisions in pursuit of a common peace agenda. We begin by building a canonical democratic peace model and then compare the results related to civil society and each of the five peace factors. Our findings provide supporting evidence that a robust civil society has a stronger pacifying effect compared to democratic, Cold War, contractualist, capitalist, and territorial peace, respectively. Our empirical results are significant for academics and policymakers, highlighting the importance of building a robust civil society in the pursuit of perpetual peace.
POLS ONE, 2024
This study explains how the gap between theory and empirical research hinders scientific progress... more This study explains how the gap between theory and empirical research hinders scientific progress in the area of international political economy. To demonstrate this point, I use Chen's Extended Dependence Theory, which challenges liberal peace theory but fails to provide supporting empirical evidence. Chen contends that it is not trade dependence between two states that fosters peace but a challenger's trade relations with the defensepact partners of the target. Although Chen criticizes liberal peace proponents whose primary concern is how to deter war, his empirical analysis is confined to how to decrease (fatal) militarized disputes short of war. I argue that for his theory to succeed, it must be validated against the most severe and intense form of conflict. Using statistical tests and substantive significance, I uncover no peace-building effect, with regards to war, attributable to Extended Dependence. It appears that the Extended Dependence variable exhibits a ceiling effect. Future research should explain why economic ties and security institutions fail to work together to lower the risk of the most destructive form of conflict.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies, 2024
Since the September 11 attacks, a great number of studies have explored the causes and effects of... more Since the September 11 attacks, a great number of studies have explored the causes and effects of transnational terrorist attacks which are carried out by at least two different nationals. However, discussions of whether transnational terrorist attacks are more deadly than domestic terrorist attacks are scant in the current empirical literature. This paucity of research is unfortunate given that many people believe that transnational terrorists, due to their possession of greater organizational, financial, and logistical resources than domestic terrorists, tend to incur higher death tolls. The literature indeed reveals three deficiencies: (a) a discrepancy between popular belief and scholarly work exists regarding the superior lethality of transnational terrorism, (b) very few researchers have taken a serious step toward debunking the myths of international terrorist attacks, and (c) the findings of the published studies are inconsistent. These deficiencies call for an empirical investigation of whether popular belief aligns with empirical data. A series of regression analyses after compiling a sample of 209,706 terrorist incidents spanning from 1970 to 2020 shows robust evidence supporting the popular sentiment of the superior lethality of transnational terrorist attacks over domestic ones. This finding implies that the counterterrorism community should remain committed to the Global War on Terrorism to protect innocent lives. Since terrorist threats persist and even diversify with new tactics, the counterterrorism community must strive to finish the initiative that President George W. Bush set out about 20 years ago: "our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.
Review of International Political Economy, 2023
Liberal peace research maintains that trade interdependence promotes interstate
peace. In this s... more Liberal peace research maintains that trade interdependence promotes interstate
peace. In this study, I introduce nationalism as an important domestic factor and
examine how it fares against trade as an explanation for war and peace and their
interaction effects. I propose that when state leaders promote nationalism to bolster
political legitimacy, they may not be incentivized to foster liberal peace through trade and instead may be willing to conflict with trading partners. A cross-national,
time-series statistical analysis shows that nationalist leaders are likely to
cause the pacifying effect of trade to fall apart and increase the likelihood of (fatal)
militarized disputes, but not necessarily open warfare. These findings suggest that
when politico-security interests of nationalist leaders collide with global economic
interests, the former prevail over the latter in the context of low-level conflict, but
not necessarily high-level conflict. Even nationalist leaders appear to be cautious of
engaging in all-out bloody war with trading partners—the economic pain is greater
than the gain. Nevertheless, the overall analysis indicates that liberal peace theory
may be not as sure a safeguard as previously believed since it is ineffective in lowering
the risk of dyadic disputes short of war in the era of rising nationalism.
International Trade, Politics, and Development, Jul 11, 2022
Purpose – This study proposes spatial origin-destination threshold Tobit to address spatial inter... more Purpose – This study proposes spatial origin-destination threshold Tobit to address spatial interdependence among bilateral trade flows while accounting for zero trade volumes.
Design/methodology/approach – This model is designed to capture multiple forms of spatial autocorrelation embedded in “directional” trade flows. The authors apply this improved model to export flows among 32 Asian countries in 1990.
Findings – The empirical results indicate the presence of all three types of spatial dependence: exporter-based, importer-based and exporter-to-importer-based. After further considering multifaceted spatial correlation in bilateral trade flows, the authors find that the effect of conventional trade variables changes in a noticeable way.
Research limitations/implications – This finding implies that the standard gravity model may produce biased estimates if it does not take spatial dependence into account.
Originality/value – This paper attempts to offer an improved model of the standard gravity model by taking spatial dependence into account.
Keywords Trade, Spatial dependence, Tobit
British Journal of Political Science, 2022
Whether or not nationalism fuels terrorist violence by ethnic groups is an important yet underexp... more Whether or not nationalism fuels terrorist violence by ethnic groups is an important yet underexplored research question. This study offers a theoretical argument, empirical analysis and a case study. When political leaders such as presidents and prime ministers use nationalism to shore up legitimacy, they threaten the existence of disfavored ethnic groups. In turn, those groups are more likely to respond with terrorist attacks. The author tests this argument using a sample of 766 ethnic groups across 163 countries from 1970 to 2009. The multilevel mixed-effects negative binomial regression results provide evidence that leader nationalism is a significant driver of ethnic terrorism. The detrimental effect of nationalism remains the same after using a generalized method of moments method to account for possible reverse causality. A case study of Sinhalese nationalist leaders versus Tamil Tigers also supports the nationalism and terrorism nexus.
Japanese Journal of Political Science, 2022
I am delighted to see that my study on the effect of terrorist campaigns on the growth of Muslim ... more I am delighted to see that my study on the effect of terrorist campaigns on the growth of Muslim populations has intrigued Egger and Magni-Berton. After discussing potential theoretical and methodological shortcomings in my study, Egger and Magni-Berton conclude that there is no empirical support for the positive relationship between terror attacks and Muslim populations. Their approach of separating terrorism into Islamist and non-Islamist terrorism is an effort to advance the contemporary research on the nexus between terrorism and Islam. In this re-examination, I show that Egger and Magni-Berton's conclusion is based on two limitations: theoretically unfounded and empirically inadequate. After remedying these limitations step by step, I reconfirm that a series of terrorist activities collectively serve as an explanation for the growth of the worldwide Muslim population. Future research can offer additional evidence to understand whether there is a significant and positive rel...
Asian Perspective, 2022
Although South Korea has elected every president under the same democratic
constitution since 19... more Although South Korea has elected every president under the same democratic
constitution since 1987, it has an ongoing puzzle: why do some presidents
personalize their regimes (or at least made an effort to do so) while others remain
democratic? To explain this puzzle, this study introduces a novel concept, a “lemon
presidency.” This is where a democratically elected president engenders a
personalized regime that is backed by prejudiced judicial authorities such as courts
and prosecutors’ offices. South Korea experienced two lemon presidencies under
Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye. South Koreans viewed Lee and Park as true
representatives of democracy during the 2007 and 2012 presidential elections;
however, they turned out to possess an unrealistic sense of superiority and became
semi-democratic rulers. They personalized political powers by exploiting their
appointment and removal powers. Based on case studies and survey results, this
study provides evidence for Lee’s and Park’s lemon presidencies. The overall
analysis of this study envisions another lemon presidency in South Korea’s future
if voters choose to vote for a grandiose leader.
Nations and Nationalism, 2022
Does the rise of nationalism lead to immigration policy change? By focusing on elite‐led national... more Does the rise of nationalism lead to immigration policy change? By focusing on elite‐led nationalism, this study offers a novel perspective: When top political leaders rely on nationalism as their legitimation strategy, they are more disposed to adopt policies aimed at strict immigration control, such as the imposition of sanctions on illegal immigrants, due to their hands being tied. We perform a battery of empirical tests using a cross‐national, time‐series data for 33 countries for the years 1980–2010. We find evidence that nationalist countries are positively associated with heightened immigration control. This finding is robust even after possible reverse causality is taken into account. The overall analysis illustrates that nationalism is a significant factor in explaining why countries are pushing for more restrictive immigration control in the contemporary world.
Global Studies Quarterly, 2022
Whether Islam is responsible for increased suicide terrorist attacks is a salient but highly cont... more Whether Islam is responsible for increased suicide terrorist attacks is a salient but highly controversial issue. Using independently produced demographics data, we investigate whether there is a correlation between Islam and suicide attacks. We find that (1) countries with greater Muslim populations are likely to experience more suicide attacks, (2) countries with greater Sunni Muslim populations are likely to encounter more suicide attacks, and (3) countries with greater Hanafi Muslim populations, in contrast to other Sunni legal schools, face the greatest risk of experiencing suicide attacks. The overall analysis suggests that Islam is positively associated with suicide attacks, although the degree of its association is not uniform among all branches.
Review of International Organizations, 2022
von Borzyskowski and Vabulas’ Review of International Organizations 14(2):335-366
(2019) pioneer... more von Borzyskowski and Vabulas’ Review of International Organizations 14(2):335-366
(2019) pioneering research explores why states withdraw from intergovernmental
organizations (IGOs). Contrary to popular belief, the research finds that IGO withdrawal
has little to do with increased nationalism and instead is largely driven by geopolitical
reasons and democracy levels both within the state and organization. In this study, I test
von Borzyskowski and Vabulas’ empirical analysis by the introduction of an alternative
measure of leader nationalism that more closely matches their theoretical argument.
With this alternative nationalism measure, I find strong evidence consistent with popular
belief: nationalism is a key driving force for IGO withdrawals across space and time.
PLOS ONE, 2022
This replication underlines the importance of outlier diagnostics since many researchers have lon... more This replication underlines the importance of outlier diagnostics since many researchers have long neglected influential observations in OLS regression analysis. In his article, entitled “Primary Resources, Secondary Labor,” Shin finds that advanced democracies with increased natural resource wealth, particularly from oil and natural gas production, are more likely to restrict low-skill immigration policy. By performing outlier diagnostics, this replication shows that Shin’s findings are a statistical artifact. When one outlying country, Norway, is removed from the sample data, I observe almost no significant and negative relationship between oil wealth and immigration policy. When two outlying countries are excluded, the effect of oil wealth completely disappears. Robust regression analysis, a widely used remedial method for outlier problems, confirms the results of my outlier diagnostics.
Journal of Global Politics, Dec 31, 2021
Whether economic growth leads to increased democratic governance is a highly contested question. ... more Whether economic growth leads to increased democratic governance is a highly contested question. Several influential studies show a consistent, positive relationship between the two factors over the past 500 years but mixed and inconsistent effects over the past 40 years. Given that the impact of growth is uncertain for the shorter period, we perform a battery of empirical analyses for the years 1960-2014 and provide evidence for a negative, not positive, relationship between growth and democracy. This finding is new in the literature and robust regardless of different estimation methods, model specifications, and sample selections.
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Books and Articles by Seung-Whan Choi
deter militarized interstate disputes. However, recent studies have overlooked testing and reporting whether alliances prevent the most destructive form of conflict: war. This omission is surprising, given that the primary goal of alliances is to prevent war. This research note conducts a canonical directed dyad-year analysis of 1,077,992 observations from 1816 to 2000 and finds compelling evidence in support of deterrence theory, but not for the Steps-to-War theory. As a result, this empirical research
clarifies the debate between these two leading theories in international
relations.
peace. In this study, I introduce nationalism as an important domestic factor and
examine how it fares against trade as an explanation for war and peace and their
interaction effects. I propose that when state leaders promote nationalism to bolster
political legitimacy, they may not be incentivized to foster liberal peace through trade and instead may be willing to conflict with trading partners. A cross-national,
time-series statistical analysis shows that nationalist leaders are likely to
cause the pacifying effect of trade to fall apart and increase the likelihood of (fatal)
militarized disputes, but not necessarily open warfare. These findings suggest that
when politico-security interests of nationalist leaders collide with global economic
interests, the former prevail over the latter in the context of low-level conflict, but
not necessarily high-level conflict. Even nationalist leaders appear to be cautious of
engaging in all-out bloody war with trading partners—the economic pain is greater
than the gain. Nevertheless, the overall analysis indicates that liberal peace theory
may be not as sure a safeguard as previously believed since it is ineffective in lowering
the risk of dyadic disputes short of war in the era of rising nationalism.
Design/methodology/approach – This model is designed to capture multiple forms of spatial autocorrelation embedded in “directional” trade flows. The authors apply this improved model to export flows among 32 Asian countries in 1990.
Findings – The empirical results indicate the presence of all three types of spatial dependence: exporter-based, importer-based and exporter-to-importer-based. After further considering multifaceted spatial correlation in bilateral trade flows, the authors find that the effect of conventional trade variables changes in a noticeable way.
Research limitations/implications – This finding implies that the standard gravity model may produce biased estimates if it does not take spatial dependence into account.
Originality/value – This paper attempts to offer an improved model of the standard gravity model by taking spatial dependence into account.
Keywords Trade, Spatial dependence, Tobit
constitution since 1987, it has an ongoing puzzle: why do some presidents
personalize their regimes (or at least made an effort to do so) while others remain
democratic? To explain this puzzle, this study introduces a novel concept, a “lemon
presidency.” This is where a democratically elected president engenders a
personalized regime that is backed by prejudiced judicial authorities such as courts
and prosecutors’ offices. South Korea experienced two lemon presidencies under
Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye. South Koreans viewed Lee and Park as true
representatives of democracy during the 2007 and 2012 presidential elections;
however, they turned out to possess an unrealistic sense of superiority and became
semi-democratic rulers. They personalized political powers by exploiting their
appointment and removal powers. Based on case studies and survey results, this
study provides evidence for Lee’s and Park’s lemon presidencies. The overall
analysis of this study envisions another lemon presidency in South Korea’s future
if voters choose to vote for a grandiose leader.
(2019) pioneering research explores why states withdraw from intergovernmental
organizations (IGOs). Contrary to popular belief, the research finds that IGO withdrawal
has little to do with increased nationalism and instead is largely driven by geopolitical
reasons and democracy levels both within the state and organization. In this study, I test
von Borzyskowski and Vabulas’ empirical analysis by the introduction of an alternative
measure of leader nationalism that more closely matches their theoretical argument.
With this alternative nationalism measure, I find strong evidence consistent with popular
belief: nationalism is a key driving force for IGO withdrawals across space and time.