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who is defined to be “the most powerfUL political figure in each country at each point

of time”, a classification which is often debatable15. They also exclude coups d’états

where the individual or a group of killers try to seize the power for themselves. It is

often unknown, or remains hidden on purpose, whether an attack is undertaken by one

or a few persons on their own account, or whether there is a large group hired by a

foreign country16. They moreover only look at “serious” attempts, a classification

which may, of course, be interpreted in different ways. Assassination attempts in

which the weapon was not discharged, and thus the assassination attempt thwarted,

are not considered. Many aspects connected with political murders are either

unknown or uncertain, or for political reasons remain undisclosed.

It is important to see that in the case of political assassinations the data are not

objective but are systematically manipulated by the persons and organizations

involved. This applies in particular to thwarted assassination attempts. The security

services often have an interest in publicizing– or even in inventing – thwarted

attempts in order to emphasize their importance, and to therewith get more prestige,

political importance and funds. Under different circumstances, the security services

may have an interest in suppressing the publication of such events because they fear

an imitation effect. Such manipulation is easier in dictatorships and in countries with

controlled media than in democratic countries. This means that when political

assassinations for a large number of different countries (as done by Iqbal and Zorn

2005, 2006 and Jones and Olken 2006) are used some of the data are more unreliable

than others. This creates a special problem because political assassinations seem to

occur more often in authoritarian developing than in democratic developed

economies17.

Such manipulation of data is a general phenomenon when the data matter in the

political process. For instance, misrepresentation has proved to be a problem for GNP

and other economic indicators declared to be goals of government activity. As the rate

of unemployment has become a politically important indicator, governments have

started to influence it in order to suggest a better picture of the state of the labor

market than is true in reality. Thus, persons long unemployed are defined to no longer

belong to the work force and therewith do no longer raise the official rate of

unemployment. It is also well known that the measure of budget deficit has been

strongly manipulated by some European countries when the rules for entering the

European Monetary Union required budget deficits not to exceed three percent of

GDP and the public debt not to exceed sixty percent of GDP (see, e.g., Forte 2001;

Von Hagen and Wolff 2004). Such distortions of indicators were so widespread that

15 It also excludes some important political assassinations as Robert Kennedy

(presidential candidate) in 1968, Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 (former Indian Prime Minister)

or of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (whose murder sparked WWI) in 1914 , not to speak

of such noted political figures as Martin Luther King (civil rights activist) in 1968.

16 It is known, for example, that the US Central Intelligence Agency undertook several

assassination attempts against Fidel Castro (CIA 1967). This would classify as a

“political assassination attempt” in the more general sense used in this paper because

the purpose was to bring about a change in policy. But in many cases such efforts

remain undisclosed.

17 At least if the number of attempted and actual assassinations is considered (as done

by Iqbal and Zorn 2005, 2006 and Jones and Olken 2006). But it cannot be excluded

that the number of desired and deterred assassinations attempts has a different relation

to the data actually used in some of the countries than in others.