Barack My Science Mag

Do political leaders who alienate other nations increase the probability of a terrorist attack against their homeland? Recent research conducted by then- Princeton University professor Alan Krueger and Czech professor Jitka Malečková suggests that it does. (Prof. Krueger joined the Obama Administration as the Assistant Secretary of Economic Policy in May of this year).

In their Science Magazine study, Krueger et al. compared Gallup public opinion polls with the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) database, finding that a 20% increase in “the disapproval rate of a country’s leaders” (one standard deviation) correlated with a 93% “increase in the number of terrorist attacks” against that country. However, the average number of NCTC-recorded attacks ranged between .41 and 1.57 attacks from 2004 to 2008—a relatively small number. “Another issue concerns causality: Our data do not allow us to infer whether terrorists respond to public opinion per se or whether the political preferences of terrorists respond in the same way as those of the general public to external events,” they write. “Moreover, it is not possible to draw inferences concerning individual motivations from regressions with aggregate data.”

“Nevertheless, public opinion appears to provide a useful indicator of terrorist activity.”

Krueger et al.’s analysis was restricted to 19 MENA (Middle Eastern and North African) nations, which are, arguably, more disposed toward attacking other countries than more peaceful regions. They argue in the study that additional research with a larger sample of countries is necessary because restricting their study “to the MENA region, where terrorism is relatively more common, could attenuate the correlation between public opinion and terrorist incidents.”

This doesn’t, however, keep them from obliquely contrasting the failures of the Bush Administration with a brighter future under President Barack Obama. “Another extension of the analysis presented here would be to take advantage of changes in the leadership and policies of a country,” they write, continuing

“For example, the election of Barack Obama—who opposed the war in Iraq, criticized the use of torture and detention of alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, and offered to engage in ‘aggressive personal diplomacy’ with leaders of Middle Eastern countries such as Iran—may well lead to a reduction in public disapproval toward the leadership of the United States in the MENA region. Will changes in terrorist activity accompany changes in public sentiment toward the United States if public sentiment does indeed change?”

Ironically, several of the changes in policy listed above remain promises rather than reality with the current Administration.

Similar criticisms have been made about President Obama’s receipt of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said this October that the prize was awarded to President Obama for his work toward reducing nuclear weapons worldwide and “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” However, the nomination deadline was just days after Obama was inaugurated. “Nominations for the prize had to be postmarked by February 1, only 12 days after Obama took office,” reported CNN on October 9. “The committee sent out its solicitation for nominations last September, two months before Obama was elected president.”

This concluding paragraph by Krueger et al. was—like the Nobel Peace Prize nomination—submitted the same month that President Obama took the oath of office. In fact, the study was submitted before the inauguration, on January 13.

“Most submitted papers are rated for suitability by members of Science’s Board of Reviewing Editors,” states the Science Magazine website (hyperlink and emphases in original). Professor Krueger said that he resigned from Science Magazine’s Board of Reviewing Editors in early May; he was nominated for a position with the Obama Administration in March of 2009.

(Krueger has published three articles, including this one, in Science since joining the Board of Reviewing Editors in 2001; other members of the board are likewise published in the magazine).

Prof. Krueger may have been a consultant for the Administration as early as February 2009. Michelle Wu wrote for the Daily Princetonian on March 9th that “In recent weeks, Krueger has already been serving as a consultant for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.”

In other words, the Science Magazine article, which lauds Obama’s efforts on terrorism issues, was

a) submitted just days before President Obama assumed office,

b) submitted for publication by a current member of the Board of Reviewing Editors (Prof. Krueger),

c) considered by the magazine while this member of the board was consulting for an Administration official,

d) continued to be considered for publication after the author—and member of the board—was nominated for a position within the Obama Administration, and

e) was then published after Prof. Krueger had resigned from the board and joined the Obama Administration.

For the conflict of interest section in the article, Science Magazine merely states that “After this article was submitted to Science, Professor Krueger was appointed Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the U.S. Department of Treasury. The contents of this paper do not necessarily represent the position of the U.S. government.”

Science Magazine chose not to answer questions about this issue. When asked when Prof. Krueger left the Reviewing Board of Editors, a staff member at Science said she was not allowed to release that information.

Bethany Stotts is a staff writer at Accuracy in Academia