Abstract

Human Development, Peace, Corruption, and Terrorism in the

Arab World

This study aims at exploring the relationship between human development, peace, corruption and terrorism incidents in the Arab World from 1970 through 2007. The corpus providing the database for this study is based on reliable international databases that cover twenty two Arab countries.

Findings show a negative relationship between the total number of terrorists; incidents and fatalities and human development value (r =- 0.499; -0.50, &-0.50, respectively); human poverty index (r =- 0.238; -0.06, &-0.23, respectively); average gender inequality (r=-0.42; -0.42, & -0.41, respectively). Findings also present a significant negative relationship between peace index and the total number of terrorists, and incidents and fatalities (-0.59; -0.56, & -0.59, respectively). All measures of corruption: freedom from corruption (r =- 0.31; -0.26, &-0.30, respectively); control of corruption (r =- 0.40; -0.39, & -0.38, respectively), & corruption perception index (r =- 0.376; -0.38, & -0.37, respectively) were significantly correlated with the total number of terrorists; incidents and fatalities. A positive relationship was found between unemployment and the number of terrorists; incidents and fatalities (r= 0.19; 0.30 & 0.29, respectively). A positive significant relationship between terrorists’ incidents and Arab youth unemployment (r=0.36), and Arab Youth share of unemployment (r=0.23).

Moreover, findings show that total number of terrorists; incidents and fatalities do vary according to the human development index (HDI) level (high, medium and low development). ANOVA analysis has shown significant differences in terrorists incidents, fatalities and injuries, according to human development levels (F=3.675; 5.027, & 6.700, respectively α=0.04; 0.01 & 0.007, respectively). Significant differences have been found in freedom from corruption; control corruption, and corruption perception according to human development levels (F=4.89; 15.47, & 10.51, respectively α = 0.04; 0.00 & 0.001, respectively).

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