• Korean Security Journal
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• no.43
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• pp.37-65
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• 2015

There has been discussions and investigation on the nexus between religion and citizen's supports for suicide attacks and terrorist groups conducting such acts. In terms of the relationship, there were two potent hypotheses attempting to explain the process and mechanism of the relationship: religious belief hypothesis and coalitional commitment hypothesis. previous studies examined these hypotheses have been carried out across different cultural, religious, and political contexts. Until today, however, there are still lack of concrete evidence, which is generated from empirical studies, supportive evidence for any of these hypotheses. Therefor this study aims to investigate the association between religion and popular support for suicide attacks by using a survey data collected from three middle east countries, Egypt, Morocco, and Pakistan. In analysis, a step-wised regression analysis conducted with a set of variety of variables considered to be related with the association. This study found that variables reflecting religious belief hypothesis, such as prayer to God, religious devotion were unrelated to support for suicide attacks. Yet, prayer time predicted reduced supports for suicide attacks. Further, attendance at religious services, thought to enhance coalitional commitment, predicted support for suicide attacks. Yet, it showed negative association with support for suicide attacks. These findings suggest that regular attendance at religious services and regular prayer have combined effects reducing on the willing to support for suicide martyrdom. However, this study findings affirmatively support for neigher religious belief hypothesis nor coalitional commitment hypothesis. Instead, it suggests the needs for further research examination on the relationship as well as corrections of these hypotheses. Finally, Implications for the research findings for preventing suicide attacks are discussed.