Counterterrorism policy: Spillovers, regime solidity, and corner solutions

Abstract

This paper takes a unique approach to the scenario where a resident terrorist group in a (fragile) developing nation poses a terrorism threat at home and abroad. The host developing nation's proactive countermeasures against the resident terrorist group not only limits terrorism at home and abroad, but also bolsters regime solidity or stability at home. A two-stage game is presented in which the developed country takes a leadership role to institute a tax-subsidy combination to discourage (encourage) proactive measures at home (abroad) in stage 1. Stage 2 involves both nations’ counterterrorism choices under alternative stage-1 public-policy packages. Unlike the extant literature, we explore corner and interior solutions in both stages based on the terrorists’ targeting preferences and the host nation's regime-solidity preferences. Surprisingly, the developed nation may profit from policy packages that reduce global counterterrorism while raising global terrorism. That outcome and others involve engineered counterterrorism burden shifting.