Bove, V., Di Leo, R., Efthyvoulou, G. orcid.org/0000-0002-4473-0350 et al. (1 more author) (2024) Terrorism, perpetrators and polarization: Evidence from natural experiments. Journal of Politics. ISSN 0022-3816
Abstract
We analyze whether affective polarization can be aggravated by terrorism violence. Terrorist attacks intensify pre-existing ideological worldviews and partisan leanings and bring divisive political issues to the fore. Yet, they can also generate strong feelings of cohesion, solidarity and unity, as individuals from the entire political spectrum come together. To identify causal effects, we exploit a series of natural experiments in Great Britain and leverage the timing of fatal far-right and Islamic terrorist attacks and the date of interview of respondents in the British Election Study. We find that Islamic attacks increase affective polarization whereas far-right attacks depolarize the electorate. We provide evidence that this discrepancy can partly be explained by the perceived salience of attacks and different attitudes towards contentious and polarizing issues.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 The Authors. Except as otherwise noted, this author-accepted version of a journal article published in The Journal of Politics is made available via the University of Sheffield Research Publications and Copyright Policy under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Keywords: | Islamic terrorism; far-right terrorism; polarization; natural experiment |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Economics (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 03 Sep 2024 15:59 |
Last Modified: | 20 Sep 2024 14:33 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | The University of Chicago Press |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1086/732969 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:216633 |
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Filename: Bove_etal_2024_JOP - Georgios Efthyvoulou.pdf
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