2024/10/04 by Chandan Kumar Jha, Ishita Tripathi · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence #Political Conflict and Governance #Economic Sanctions and International Relations
paper · doi:10.1177/00220027241289843
openalex publication_date 2024/10/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The existing literature on terrorism focuses on the “rally-around-the-flag-effect” – a relatively short-term phenomenon. The non-immediate effects of terrorist attacks on trust in institutions, however, remain largely unexplored. Arguing that maintaining law and order and upholding peace is considered the responsibility of the political and legal institutions in democracies, we theorize the “accountability effect” suggesting that terrorist activities indicate institutional failures in preventing casualties, undermining residents’ trust in these institutions. Using over 350,000 individual-level observations from the European Social Survey, we find evidence of the accountability effect showing that exposure to terrorist activities undermines self-reported trust in various national and international institutions, including the parliament, legal institutions, the police, politicians, political parties, the European Parliament, and the United Nations. Whereas this negative relationship does not weaken with additional terrorist attacks, strong governance and high trust in institutions mitigate these adverse effects. Lastly, terrorist attacks do not affect trust among people.