Do Blasphemy Restrictions Restrict Terrorism?

Although several countries have repealed their laws banning blasphemy in recent years, a majority of the world’s countries still ban some forms of blasphemous expressions. It is often argued in political debate that such legislation is necessary to prevent conflicts and terrorism. The empirical literature on the topic nevertheless remains tiny and it is an open question if blasphemy bans ‘work’ in this way. In this paper, we therefore explore the association between types of blasphemy legislation and terrorist events. We do so using a large cross-country panel dataset of up to 162 countries observed between 1970 and 2016. Exploring determinants of terrorist attacks, we find that while blasphemy legislation in general is not associated with terrorism, countries with constitutionalised blasphemy bans experience a higher terrorism risk.