Attitudinal and Emotional Consequences of Islamist Terrorism. Evidence from the Berlin Attack

Abstract

Studies about Islamist-inspired terror attacks in the Western world have identified a recently declining impact on public opinion. What explains this development? I argue that the wider audience of terrorist attacks has become desensitized. Cognitive desensitization occurs when citizens increasingly expect an attack, reducing the likelihood of attitudinal change. Emotional desensitization occurs when audiences lose sensitivity to attacks, tempering emotional arousal. To assess the implications of desensitization, I analyze a survey conducted around the Berlin Christmas market attack in 2016 and account for baseline information of the surveyed individuals, an approach not used before due to data limitations. I find that attitudes like trust in government, national identification, and views of Islam remain unchanged. Sadness and anger are heightened in the immediate aftermath of the attack. The wider German audience may thus have expected an attack but still be emotionally sensitive to it in the short term. These findings are relevant as political leaders have justified important policy changes in fields like migration and even war making with reference to supposed shifts in public opinion after attacks.

Do Terrorists Get the Attention They Want?

“…Hence, future studies focusing on the durability of effects should use different methodological approaches. However, previous studies suggest that effects may in fact be limited to a few days after the attack ( Legewie 2013 ; Nussio 2020 ).…”

“…While attack size is arguably related to impact ( Rohner and Frey 2007 ), this relationship may not be as clear as conventional wisdom suggests. Small-scale events, like a knife attack in the Netherlands in 2004, can have substantial impact ( Finseraas, Jakobsson, and Kotsadam 2011 ), while attacks with many more victims, like the 2016 Berlin truck attack, may be surprisingly less influential ( Nussio 2020 ). In any case, as terrorism comes in different forms, it is difficult to measure its consequences by studying individual attacks.…”

The consequences of terrorism on migration attitudes across Europe

“…Hence, we cannot say whether these effects will persist over time or go back to pre-attack levels rather quickly (Mancosu et al, 2018). A likely scenario is that attitudes level off after a series of attacks and individuals become less susceptible to additional changes (Markoulis & Katsikides, 2018;Nussio, 2018). Hence, a series of attacks, as the one experienced recently in Europe, is likely accompanied by increasingly fixed attitudes with less susceptibility for change after each attack.…”

Stille Nacht: COVID and the Ghost of Christmas 2020

“…The other observation provides some indications about the resilience of Christmas markets as a concept. On 19 December 2016, an Islamic terrorist drove a truck into the crowds of the Berlin Christmas markets at Breitscheidplatz, killing 12 people and injuring 56 [95]. While the symbolism was not lost on the German public [96], there is no indication that external negative incidences influenced the perception of the cultural value of Christmas markets.…”