IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v69y2025i7-8p1340-1371.html

Terrorist Attacks and Trust in Institutions: Micro Evidence From Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Chandan Kumar Jha
  • Ishita Tripathi

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Chandan Kumar Jha & Ishita Tripathi, 2025. "Terrorist Attacks and Trust in Institutions: Micro Evidence From Europe," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 69(7-8), pages 1340-1371, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:69:y:2025:i:7-8:p:1340-1371
    DOI: 10.1177/00220027241289843
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00220027241289843
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00220027241289843?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Abel Brodeur, 2018. "The Effect of Terrorism on Employment and Consumer Sentiment: Evidence from Successful and Failed Terror Attacks," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 246-282, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tung Nguyen & Dimitris Petmezas & Nikolaos Karampatsas, 2023. "Does Terrorism Affect Acquisitions?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(7), pages 4134-4168, July.
    2. Jetter, Michael, 2017. "Terrorism and the Media: The Effect of US Television Coverage on Al-Qaeda Attacks," IZA Discussion Papers 10708, IZA Network @ LISER.
    3. Brodeur, Abel & Yousaf, Hasin, 2019. "The Economics of Mass Shootings," IZA Discussion Papers 12728, IZA Network @ LISER.
    4. Hadiye Aslan, 2022. "Personal Financial Distress, Limited Attention," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 60(1), pages 97-128, March.
    5. Michael Mitchell Omoruyi Ehizuelen, 2025. "Assessing the possible influence of maritime piracy on African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in Nigeria," Journal of Shipping and Trade, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 1-39, December.
    6. Harry Pickard & Vincenzo Bove & Georgios Efthyvoulou, 2026. "Beyond the headlines: the intangible costs of terrorism," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 93(371), pages 1122-1144, July.
    7. Besley, Timothy & Fetzer, Thiemo & Mueller, Hannes, 2019. "Terror and Tourism: The Economic Consequences of Media Coverage," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 449, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    8. Michael Jetter, 2017. "Mediated Terrorism: US News and Al-Qaeda Attacks," CESifo Working Paper Series 6804, CESifo.
    9. Ummad Mazhar, 2021. "Women empowerment and insecurity: firm-level evidence," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 56(1), pages 43-53, January.
    10. Ummad Mazhar, 2021. "Terrorism Risk and the Mediating Role of Manager Experience: Empirical Evidence," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 317-337, September.
    11. Bönte Werner & Procher Vivien D. & Malik Faisal S., 2024. "Terror in the City: Local Terrorism and Firm Exports," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 24(4), pages 1073-1100.
    12. Brodeur, Abel & Wright, Taylor, 2019. "Terrorism, immigration and asylum approval," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 119-131.
    13. Isa Jibrin OKPE & Victor Ushahemba IJIRSHAR & Amina Shehu IBRAHIM & Samuel Igwe OGODA, 2024. "Impact of Security Threats on Investment in Nigeria," CECCAR Business Review, Body of Expert and Licensed Accountants of Romania (CECCAR), vol. 5(1), pages 59-72, January.
    14. Andrew E. Clark & Orla Doyle & Elena Stancanelli, 2017. "The Impact of Terrorism on Well-being: Evidence from the Boston Marathon Bombing," Working Papers 201717, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    15. Amarasinghe, Ashani, 2023. "Public sentiment in times of terror," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    16. Cust,James Frederick & Mensah,Justice Tei, 2020. "Natural Resource Discoveries, Citizen Expectations and Household Decisions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9372, The World Bank.
    17. P Carmel Marie Zagre, 2025. "Terrorism & Democracy in Burkina-Faso," Papers 2509.23046, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2026.
    18. Marco Alfano & Joseph-Simon Görlach, 2023. "Terrorism, Media Coverage, and Education: Evidence from al-Shabaab Attacks in Kenya," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 727-763.
    19. Gan Jin & Md Rafiul Karim & Günther G. Schulze, 2024. "The Stock Market Effects of Islamist versus Non-Islamist Terror," Discussion Paper Series 45 JEL Classification: D7, Department of International Economic Policy, University of Freiburg, revised Feb 2024.
    20. Clark, Andrew & Stancanelli, Elena, 2017. "Americans’ Responses to Terrorism and Mass-Shooting: Evidence from the American Time Use Survey and Well-Being Module," GLO Discussion Paper Series 26, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:69:y:2025:i:7-8:p:1340-1371. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.