In a league of its own?: Evolving patterns of post-Cold War non-state political violence in Latin America

This dissertation aims to analyze the patterns of post-Cold War non-governmental political violence in Latin America. Even though there are many studies analyzing political violence in the region, there is limited research combining the elements of terrorist attacks and violent protests during the stated era. This study focuses on the state of non-governmental political violence, meaning both terrorist attacks and violent protests, in Latin America in the aftermath of the Cold War. The research analyzes both intra-regional patterns and compares the pattern of Latin America with the world. The temporal frame of the research covers the period between 1 January 1990 and 31 December 2019. While the prevailing hypothesis in the literature states that terrorism increased with the end of the Cold War, Latin America falsifies this hypothesis due to the decreasing numbers in terrorist attacks. In the deviant case of Latin America, political protests have increased instead of terrorism and violent protests became the dominant form of political violence.