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Security policy preferences of EU citizens: Do terrorist events affect them?

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Abstract

This article examines whether terrorist attacks affect citizens’ policy preferences by focusing on attitudes toward EU security and defense policy as recorded by the 2016 Eurobarometer survey. The survey was conducted a few months after the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. Both the January and November terrorist incidents captured worldwide attention, claimed many lives, and caused France to declare a state of emergency. To identify the presence or absence of a statistically traceable and significant effect on security policy preferences, expressed by French citizens in the Eurobarometer survey, we compare and contrast the responses from survey participants in an aggregate EU sample and in two other EU member states. In broad terms, our results indicate that the effect of the terrorist attacks was rather weak and short-lived, and affected only a limited number of policy preferences.

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Notes

  1. Al-Qaeda formally claimed responsibility for the attacks.

  2. “Je suis Charlie” was the slogan that encapsulated the international public’s reaction to the incident in the numerous gatherings of citizens across many European capitals and cities, as well as in other countries across the world.

  3. European Commission and European Parliament, Brussels (2016): Eurobarometer 85.1 (2016). TNS opinion [producer]. GESIS Data Archive, Cologne. ZA6693 Data file Version 1.0.0, https://doi.org/10.4232/1.12591.

  4. European Commission (2016) Defence Action Plan. COM (2016) 950 final, Brussels, https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/eeas/files/com_2016_950_f1_communication_from_commission_to_inst_en_v5_p1_869631.pdf. See also Mogherini and Katainen (2017).

  5. The second closest capital to Paris is Luxembourg (287 km), but given its tiny size, we chose the Netherlands instead.

  6. It indicates that behavioral factors explain more than the total observed gap in terrorist risk assessments.

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Acknowledgements

The paper has greatly benefited from insightful comments and suggestions by Todd Sandler, two anonymous referees, and the participants of the 8th Conference on Political Violence and Policy, Center for Global Collective Action, University of Texas at Dallas, 17–18 May 2018. We are also grateful to the Editor in Chief for editorial corrections that improved the final version of the manuscript. The usual disclaimer applies.

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  1. Laboratory of Economic Policy and Strategic Planning, Department of Economics, University of Thessaly, 28hs Octovriou 78 Str., 38333, Vólos, Greece

    Athina Economou & Christos Kollias

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  1. Athina Economou
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  2. Christos Kollias
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Correspondence to Christos Kollias.

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Economou, A., Kollias, C. Security policy preferences of EU citizens: Do terrorist events affect them?. Public Choice 178, 445–471 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-018-0612-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-018-0612-7

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