Terrorism, Political Opinions, and Election Outcomes: Evidence from Europe

Giovanni Peri, Daniel I. Rees () and Brock Smith ()
Additional contact information
Daniel I. Rees: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Brock Smith: Montana State University

No 13090, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: There is surprisingly little evidence on how terror attacks impact elections. With only a few exceptions, previous studies in this literature have focused on a particular country or attack, limiting their generalizability. Ours is the first comprehensive, multi-country examination of the effects of terror attacks on political opinions and election outcomes. The results provide little evidence that terror attacks are systematically related to Europeans' attitudes towards immigrants and how much trust they have in government. International terror attacks are, however, associated with an increase in the vote share received by nationalistic parties in Europe. These results are relevant to the ongoing debate among academics over the effectiveness of terror attacks.

Keywords: terrorism; elections; nationalism; terror attack (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D74 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 59 pages
Date: 2020-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-pol, nep-soc and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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