Do terrorist attacks feed populist Eurosceptics? Evidence from two comparative quasi-experiments

Over recent years, Europe has experienced a series of Islamic terrorist attacks. In this article, conflicting theoretical expectations are derived on whether such attacks increase populist Euroscepticism in the form of anti-immigration, anti-refugee and anti-European Union sentiment. Empirically, plausible exogenous variation in the exposure to the 2016 Berlin attack is exploited in two nationally representative surveys covering multiple European countries. No evidence is found for a populist response to the terrorist attack in any of the surveyed countries. On the contrary, people in Germany became more positive towards the EU in the wake of the Berlin attack. Moreover, little evidence is found that ideology shaped the response to the attack. The findings suggest that terrorist attacks are not met by an immediate public populist response.     

Cold War counter-terrorism: the evolution of international counter-terrorism in the RCMP Security Service, 1972–1984

This piece provides a detailed case study of the evolution of counter-terrorism within a specific domestic security agency of a liberal-democratic state in the context of the Cold War. It does so by examining the creation of a counter-terrorism unit within Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Service and how it responded to international terrorism. This occurred in between major terrorist attacks in Canada in 1970 and 1985 and included a growing focus on counter-terrorism even as counter-subversion remained a top priority within a still dominant Cold War domestic security framework. Ultimately, the article, based on thousands of pages of previously secret documents, argues that the Security Service could conceive of in a broader strategic sense the threat of terrorism but found it more challenging, for a variety of reasons, including the dominance of the Cold War and the difficulties around infiltrating ethnic communities, to collect intelligence.     

Terrorist events,emotional reactions,and political participation: the 2015 Paris attacks

The impact of terrorist events on attitude formation and change among mass publics has been well established in political research. Still, no individual-level study has examined the impact of terrorist attacks on political participation. This article aims to fill that gap. Drawing on theories of affect, it is predicted that fear stemming from a terrorist attack will increase motivation to seek out political information, yet will have a negative effect on actual participation. On the contrary, anger will hinder information seeking but will boost the intention to participate in political rallies. These hypotheses are tested using data from a two-wave panel study that collected one wave before and a second wave after the January 2015 Paris attacks, and from one cross-sectional study carried out soon after the November 2015 attacks.     

Re-examining the evidence on the electoral impact of terrorist attacks: The Spanish election of 2004

This paper re-examines the electoral effect of the 11-M terrorist attacks in Madrid. Previous research has focused on post-electoral surveys to construct counterfactuals for the evaluation of the electoral impact of the attack. Bali (Electoral Studies, 2007) claims that the terrorists attacks had an important electoral impact while Lago and Montero (2005) claim the opposite. In this paper I propose to re-examine the evidence using a methodological approach based on actual votes instead of opinions revealed by surveys, and the difference-in-differences estimator. The calculations under the counterfactual of “no terrorist attack” support the forecasts of the polls taken prior to the terrorist attack and the results of Bali (2007). The incumbent (conservative) party would have won the election with between 42% and the 45% of the votes, while the socialist party would have obtained 37% of the votes.     

Terrorist attacks and Europeans’ attitudes towards immigrants: An experimental approach

Over the past several years an increasing number of terrorist attacks committed in the name of Islam and targeting civilians have taken place in many Western democracies, calling for more research on the impact of these exogenous events on citizens’ attitudes towards immigrants. Using a quasi-experimental design, this study examines the short-term effect of the Paris attacks of the night of 13 November 2015 on the attitudes towards European Union (EU) and non-EU immigrants across 28 EU countries. Employing Eurobarometer 84.3 survey data collected in 28 European countries between 7 and 17 November 2015, the design allows the testing of individual attitudes before and after the Paris attacks and the spillover effects of this event in all European countries. It is found that the Paris attacks had a significant negative effect on attitudes towards immigrants, especially among educated and left-wing individuals. Moreover, the negative effect was stronger in countries where the national political-ideological climate was more positive towards immigrants. These findings are explained by theorising that first emotional reactions to the attack are the results of coping mechanisms whereby individuals are confronted with disconfirmation/confirmation of their previous beliefs: individuals who experience stronger stereotype disconfirmation are the most negatively affected by the terrorist attack. Overall, the study holds important implications for understanding the short-term impact of terrorist attacks on public attitudes towards immigrants.     

The 'New Terrorism': Revolution or Evolution?

It is essential to understand the concept of the 'new terrorism', since it has fostered a paradigm shift in the way that academics, policy makers and counter-terrorism professionals conceive of the contemporary threat. Capturing the notion that there has been a revolutionary change in the nature of terrorism, it now plays a pre-eminent role in shaping counter-terrorism policy. However, despite the attractive simplicity of the concept, there are good reasons to question the assumption that the actual behaviour of terrorist groups has fundamentally altered. Indeed, an analysis of the history of terrorism shows that many of the supposed hallmarks of the 'new terrorism' have been seen in the past. As a consequence, the concept of the 'new terrorism' should be viewed with some scepticism, as it unduly exaggerates the unprecedented nature of the contemporary terrorist threat and needlessly leads policy makers to reject the relevance of historical counter-terrorism lessons.     

TLAMs in Syria

The United States' Tomahawk cruise-missile strikes on the Syrian regime's Shayrat Air Base in retaliation for the regime's sarin attack are unlikely to advance peace in Syria. The regime and its main supporters, Russia and Iran, remain defiant, and the Trump administration appears inclined to frame the strikes as a relatively narrow deterrent against chemical weapons attacks and keep counter-terrorism its main priority in Syria for now.     

Jihad in Russia: the Caucasus Emirate

Russian authorities are engaged in a large-scale counter-terrorism campaign against the Caucasus Emirate (CE), a Salafist terrorist network with ties to al-Qaeda and other international groups. The CE's operations threaten the stability of the Russian North Caucasus, and could potentially impact further afield. Russia's counter-terrorism effort has assumed greater urgency since the 2014 Winter Olympic Games were awarded to Sochi, a popular resort city in the North Caucasus.     

Terrorist threats in Europe: hype or reality?

On 3 October, the American and British governments issued travel advisories on the threat of terrorist attacks in France and Germany. The United States government characterised the threat as ‘high’, while the United Kingdom raised the terrorist threat level for France and Germany from ‘general’ to ‘high’. Shortly afterwards, the French government issued a warning to its citizens about the risk of a terrorist attack in Britain. Within the UK itself, the threat level in respect of Islamist jihadist terrorism has been set since January 2010 at ‘severe’, the second highest level, indicating an attack is likely but not yet judged imminent. This has remained unchanged.     

Ten Years of EU's Fight against Terrorist Financing: A Critical Assessment

This article offers a critical assessment of the post-9/11 efforts of the European Union (EU) in the fight against terrorist finances. Using the EU's own goals from its action plans and counterterrorism strategies as the baseline criteria, it examines how successful the EU has been in implementing the relevant aspects of various United Nations Security Council counterterrorism resolutions, the special recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force, and its own measures spanning across all of its three pre-Lisbon pillars. In particular, the article seeks to answer the following questions: (1) What and how much of its own counter-terrorism plans has the EU managed to achieve since 9/11? and (2) What lessons can be learned from the hitherto successes and failures for future EU efforts to counter terrorist financing? Special attention is paid to the thus far neglected role of the private sector in the fight against terrorist financing.     

The 9/11 Terrorist Attacks: A Failure of Policy Not Strategic Intelligence Analysis

Abstract

The 9/11 terrorist attacks have been intensively examined as both tactical and strategic intelligence failures but less attention has been paid to the policy failures which preceded them. Perhaps this is due to the presumption that intelligence analysis influences decision-making as a precursor to and foundation for policy. This assumption about the influence of analysis on decision deserves a much closer examination. The 9/11 terrorist attacks provide a good case to study for greater understanding of the influence, or lack of influence, that intelligence analysis has on decision-making. Specifically, the 9/11 Commission Report identifies as a significant failure the lack of a National Intelligence Estimate on the terrorist threat between 1998 and 2001, and implies that if one had been produced it might have helped enable decision-makers to prevent the 9/11 attacks. In other words, a failure of strategic intelligence analysis lay at the foundation of the failure to prevent 9/11. But was this really the case? This article takes a closer look at the case of the missing National Intelligence Estimate by first evaluating what decision-makers knew about the threat prior to the 9/11 attacks, the policies they were implementing at the time, and the extent to which the hypothetical National Intelligence Estimate described by the 9/11 Commission would have mattered in terms of influencing their judgement and policy for the better. It concludes that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were more a failure of policy than strategic intelligence analysis.     

The Barcelona terrorist attack

A homegrown cell composed mainly of young men with no known terrorist connections perpetrated the 17 August terrorist attack in Barcelona and a linked operation in Cambrils, for which the Islamic State took credit. The cell leader’s sophisticated approach to recruitment and the cell’s considerable planning capabilities and dedication, combined with the Islamic State's determination to support out-of-area attacks, pose significant challenges to Spanish and other law enforcement and intelligence agencies.     

Can Terrorism Abroad Influence Migration Attitudes at Home?

This article demonstrates that public opinion on migration “at home” is systematically driven by terrorism in other countries. Although there is little substantive evidence linking refugees or migrants to most recent terror attacks in Europe, news about terrorist attacks can trigger more negative views of immigrants. However, the spatial dynamics of this process are neglected in existing research. We argue that feelings of imminent danger and a more salient perception of migration threats do not stop at national borders. The empirical results based on spatial econometrics and data on all terrorist attacks in Europe for the post-9/11 period support these claims. The effect of terrorism on migration concern is strongly present within a country but also diffuses across states in Europe. This finding improves our understanding of public opinion on migration, as well as the spillover effects of terrorism, and it highlights crucial lessons for scholars interested in the security implications of population movements.     

Insurgents’ intelligence network and practices during the Greek Civil War

John N. Gentry argues that Violent Non-State Actors, such as insurgencies or terrorist groups, use intelligence in three ways. First and foremost, they employ intelligence to plan physical military attacks and to protect themselves from penetration and attack by government forces. Secondly, they use counterintelligence in order to ensure the survival of the insurgency and preserve the faith of their members by enforcing ideological discipline. Finally, they use information operations to shape their operational environments. This article seeks to determine what type of intelligence the Greek insurgents employed during the civil war and whether this insurgency fits Gentry’s model.     

The politics of warning: Terrorism and risk communication

The problem of risk communication in the context of imperfect intelligence regarding a prospective, rather than actual, terrorist attack is examined in order to assess recommendations for precise guidance for the public. Particular problems are noted with the iterative quality of risk communications about terrorism, as they allow the terrorists to change their behaviour, the difficulty of offering tactical warning without a prior strategic analysis, and the tendency to focus on the vulnerabilities of a society rather than the intent of the terrorists. These issues are assessed through a case study of the Bali attacks of 2002, before an analysis of the American experience following the attacks of 9/11. This experience confirms the difficulties of attempting to convey risks to the public by altering public alert levels.     

All Glory is Fleeting: Sigint and the Fight Against International Terrorism

This article discusses the important role that Signals Intelligence (Sigint) has played, and continues to play, in the war against international terrorism. It sets out what is known or can be authoritatively established about the role that Sigint played in the events leading up to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, especially the performance of America's Sigint organization, the National Security Agency (NSA). The article also analyzes what the potential future role of Sigint may be in the war on terrorism given the ever changing nature of terrorist operations, the growing number of technological impediments to effective Sigint collection against terrorist targets, and shifting geostrategic considerations on the part of the nations engaged in the fight against the international terrorists.     

The effects of the electoral calendar on terrorist attacks

The goal of this paper is to study the linkages between the timing of terrorist events and elections. As strategic actors terrorists may respond to electoral environments by altering the frequency of their attacks around election times. Focusing on democracies, we examine variations in transnational and domestic terrorist incidents before elections over a 40 year span. We find distinct pre-electoral changes in the incidence of terrorist events. In the ITERATE data set, where only transnational terrorist events are included, terrorist activities decline in election months, while in the partitioned GTD data set, where only domestic terrorist events are kept, terrorist activities rise in election months. The findings suggest electoral calendars can dissuade and attract terrorist threats, depending on the origin of the threat, but these effects occur only very close to election time.     

The 22 July Terrorist Attacks in Norway: Impact on Public Attitudes towards Counterterrorist Authorities

Did the terrorist attacks in Norway affect citizens’ attitudes to security‐related institutions and policies? To answer this question this study pools two cross‐sectional surveys, collected shortly before and after the 2011 terrorist attacks, to determine the attacks’ effects on people's attitudes. One important finding is that general support for the institutions responsible for security increased slightly, whereas specific support for government agencies capability to prevent and cope with crises decreased markedly. A second important finding concerns the potential for politicisation of crises: On issues of security, the distance between right‐wing voters and other party voters increased after the attack. Irrespective of party attachment, Norwegians have become less satisfied with governmental policies on security‐related issues, but dissatisfaction has increased significantly more among right‐wing than among left‐wing voters. Thus, even in a country where politicians responded to the crisis with an appeal to togetherness and common values, citizens’ attitudes on security policies were politicised.     

How the CT Community Failed to Anticipate the Islamic State

This article is a critique of the dominant approach within the counter-terrorism (CT) community that failed to analyze IS’s trajectory as a distinct group since at least 2006. We argue that two factors account for this failure. The first concerns the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), the law that was enacted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, providing options to the U.S. President to authorize the use of Armed Forces “against those responsible” for the 9/11 attacks. We contend that this law served as an incentive to lump regional jihadi groups under the AQ umbrella instead of discerning their differences. The second factor concerns what we term as the “al-Qa‘ida fixation,” it has to do with a post-9/11 bias towards understanding the threat emanating from jihadi groups around the world through the lens of AQ. This translated into falsely constructing a so-called “al-Qaeda Central” in the business of ‘franchising’ its brand and cloning its violent operations by establishing regional jihadi groups that served as its “affiliates” and carried out its orders. In the post-9/11 era, these two factors fed off each other. Our critique is not meant to suggest that the CT community is expected to predict the unpredictable, and we also recognize that one gains greater clarity with the benefit of hindsight. However, we argue that had the CT community given due attention to the differences between jihadi groups, there was ample evidence in the open source realm that was pointing to IS being AQ’s bête noire, and was seeking to outbid it.     

The European Parliament in the External Dimension of EU Counter-terrorism: More Actorness,Accountability and Oversight 10 Years on?

The Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force in 2009, considerably reinforced the powers of the European Parliament. This article examines to what extent the European Parliament has become an important actor in EU counter-terrorism by focusing on the external dimension of this policy. It also analyses the impact that this potentially changing role has had on the external dimension of EU counter-terrorism. This article puts forward two inter-related claims. Firstly, the role of the European Parliament in the external dimension of EU counter-terrorism has significantly grown in recent years. Following the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009, the European Parliament has become a fully-fledged actor in the external dimension of EU counter-terrorism. Secondly, the reinforcement of the role of the European Parliament has also led to a strengthening of both accountability and oversight in the external dimension of EU counter-terrorism, although there are still some limitations in that respect.