Author: Kelsey    Kehoe

Major: Political Science

Graduation Year: 2017

Thesis Advisor: Kristin Vekasi

Description of Publication: This project is a spatial and temporal analysis of terrorist activity within the Philippines on a provincial and regional level. The data accumulated from the Global Terrorism Database and USAID demonstrate strong evidence against the foreign occupation theory. A regional analysis is appropriate for the Philippines because there is a distinctly different aid allocation for the north and the south. Therefore, it is more accurate to look at the effects of the foreign aid on the regions as distinctly separate entities. Additionally, as the north receives far less aid, this region of the country can be used to demonstrate the controlled terrorist activity of the Philippines, compared to the south where the aid is significantly greater. The two conditions can be examined with minimal conditional variation, thus making the implemented aid the primary driver of the differences in terrorist activity. Foreign nation building aid given to the Philippines by the United States has contributed to a significant decrease in terrorist activity. The decreasing trend of terrorist activity is demonstrated by the Islamic extremist groups located in the south, and the increasing trend demonstrated by the New People’s Army (NPA) located in the north, which received only a very small percentage of the foreign aid. Following aid implementation, the Islamic extremist groups became less lethal and perpetrated fewer attacks, contributing to the evidence against the foreign occupation theory. This theory indicates that terrorist organizations perceive foreign influence as a threat and respond by increasing their activity.

Location of Publication:

• fogler
• reynolds

URL to Thesis: