Why Political Assassinations Often Succeed

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The attempted killing of the Slovak prime minister is part of a recent wave.

By Cameron Abadi, a deputy editor at Foreign Policy, and Adam Tooze, a columnist at Foreign Policy and director of the European Institute at Columbia University. Sign up for Adam’s Chartbook newsletter here.

A man displays a newspaper article on the attack on Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia.

A man displays a newspaper article on the attack on Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia, on May 16, 2024. Zuzana Gogova/Getty Images

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The assassination attempt on Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico is part of a wave of political violence directed at leaders around the world. The leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, Lee Jae-myung, was stabbed in the neck by an assailant in January, while Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was killed in August of last year, to cite just two examples.

Cameron Abadi is a deputy editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @CameronAbadi

Adam Tooze is a columnist at Foreign Policy and a history professor and the director of the European Institute at Columbia University. He is the author of Chartbook, a newsletter on economics, geopolitics, and history. Twitter: @adam_tooze