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Terrorist campaigns and the growth of the Muslim population

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2021

Seung-Whan Choi Open the ORCID record for Seung-Whan Choi [Opens in a new window]
Seung-Whan Choi*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science (MC 276), University of Illinois at Chicago, 1007 West Harrison Street, Chicago, IL60607-7137, USA
*
Corresponding author. Email: whanchoi@uic.edu
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Abstract

The world population of Muslims has increased exponentially in the past decade. Why is the world's Muslim population growing so quickly? This study offers a new theoretical perspective: the growth of the worldwide Muslim population is a result of a series of terrorist campaigns that inspire non-Muslims to convert to Islam. For empirical testing, this study employs a cross-national, time-series analysis of 152 countries from 1970 to 2007. Although there is lack of data on conversions that follow terrorist campaigns for a direct test of the theory, this study finds a correlation between terrorist attacks and growth of the Muslim population. This finding is robust and consistent even after controlling for salient demographic reasons for growth, such as the level of fertility and immigration.

Keywords

Religious conversionempirical analysisgrowth of Muslim populationsonline propagandaterrorist attacksterrorist campaigns
Type
Research Article
Information
Japanese Journal of Political Science , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 40 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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