Sometimes we think terrorism is rooted in ideology. But it can also be because these terrorists have nothing else to do. They're mired in poverty, and can escape it. The worst part is they don't know who to blame.
In their recent NBER paper entitled, "Economic Conditions and the Quality of Suicide Terrorism," Efraim Benmelech, Claude Berrebi and Esteban Klor have shown that poor economic conditions may lead more able, better-educated individuals to participate in terror attacks, allowing terror organizations to send better-qualified terrorists to more complex, higher-impact, terror missions:
"Using the universe of Palestinian suicide terrorists against Israeli targets between the years 2000 and 2006 we provide evidence on the correlation between economic conditions, the characteristics of suicide terrorists and the targets they attack. High levels of unemployment enable terror organizations to recruit more educated, mature and experienced suicide terrorists who in turn attack more important Israeli targets."
Remember, the existing empirical literature shows that poverty and economic conditions are not correlated with the quantity of terror. What Benmelech et al. have shown is that poverty and poor economic conditions may affect the quality of terror
This really brings us back to what other economists have saying: economic development can help lessen acts of terrorism. I'm sure culture and other social factors play roles, but economic development can help put peaceful solutions farther.
The only bigger problem is, for these terrorist-active countries, where do you start?