Long-term effect of September 11 on the political behavior of victims’ families and neighbors

Abstract

This article investigates the long-term effect of September 11, 2001 on the political behaviors of victims' families and neighbors. Relative to comparable individuals, family members and residential neighbors of victims have become-and have stayed-significantly more active in politics in the last 12 years, and they have become more Republican on account of the terrorist attacks. The method used to demonstrate these findings leverages the random nature of the terrorist attack to estimate a causal effect and exploits new techniques to link multiple, individual-level, governmental databases to measure behavioral change without relying on surveys or aggregate analysis.terrorism | political participation | voting | big data | matching S eptember 11, 2001's (hereafter 9/11) effect on the UnitedStates population has been a topic of intrigue across the social sciences for the last 12 years. Short-term and long-term changes stemming from the attacks may help us understand how common citizens react to the stress and threat of mass terrorism. Following 9/11, researchers found heightened levels of posttraumatic stress across the country (1), especially close to the New York attacks (2), as well as increases in individuals' trust in government (3) and conservative political attitudes (4). Heightened levels of stress and threat are linked to authoritarian political attitudes (5-7). Changes in political attitudes are consequential and measurable outcomes of the psychological effects of politicized violence.Estimating the specific and long-term effects of the attacks on the families and neighbors of victims aids our understanding of terrorism, but also sheds light on individuals who have substantial influence in the shaping of public policy. Changes in the law often come when policy equilibria are punctuated by sudden events (8). September 11th was one such event, resulting in policy shifts in domestic security and foreign relations. However, 9/11 is just one example: natural disasters, acts of gun violence, child abductions, even corporate scandals can serve as shocks that catalyze long-lasting policy change. Victims of politicized tragedies can play an important role in shaping policy change. For example, parents of children murdered in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting have become active in lobbying Congress to amend gun laws (for other examples, consult ref. 9). Families of 9/11 victims became similarly involved in politics following the attacks, primarily lobbying policymakers to advance anti-terrorism laws. (See, for example, the following organizations: Families of September 11th, 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America, Voices of September 11th, and September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.) Americans who lost loved ones in 9/11 are thus not only a population of interest for their connection to a major historical event, but their behavior holds lessons for understanding policy influence following system shocks.To estimate behavioral change among 9/11 victims' families and neighbors, I used a method of an...

The Day after the Bomb: Well-being Effects of Terrorist Attacks in Europe

“…Evidence from Spain shows that both lethal and non-lethal terrorist attacks significantly increased individuals willingness to take part in future democratic election (Balcells and Torrats-Espinosa, 2018) and that terror is associated with a positive probability that the incumbent government is replaced (Gassebner et al, 2008). These results are consistent with those for the United States, where families and neighbors of victims of the September 11 2001 attack were found to be significantly more active in politics and to support the Republican party (Hersh, 2013). They are also consistent with findings from Spain, where the terrorist attacks of March 11, 2004 in Madrid have impacted on the results of the elections that took place few days later by negatively affecting the incumbent (conservative) party while favouring the opposing (socialist) party (Montalvo, 2011).…”

Democratic and Republican physicians provide different care on politicized health issues

“…We transmitted the identifying information from the NPI record to Catalist, a political data firm that aggregates voter registration records and vends these data to political organizations, researchers, and government agencies (22,23). Based on the name, gender, and work address, we were able to match 57% of the physicians to a unique record on the public voter file.…”

The Economic Penalty of Terrorism: Increase in Discrimination Against Arabs and Muslims after Paris Attacks

“…A rise in anti-immigrant sentiment and Arab-and Muslim-related prejudices has been registered in European societies independent of whether terrorist attacks took place on local territory like the bombings in Madrid in 2004 (Legewie, 2013;Echebarria-Echabe and Fernández-Guede, 2006) or far from home countries like the 9/11 events in the United States (Åslund and Rooth, 2005;Sheridan, 2006;Schüller, 2016) and the targeting of foreign nationals in Bali in 2002 (Legewie, 2013) and in Mumbai in 2008 (Finseraas and Listhaug, 2013). In some of these cases the shift in public opinion has been linked to changes in behavior such as post-9/11 increases in party-defections (from left-wing membership), political donations and voting (Hersh, 2013) as well as an outright change in the outcome in parliamentary elections occuring only three days after the Madrid bombings (Montalvo, 2011). The effect of terrorism on public opinion has been also shown to have adverse economic consequences on Arab and Muslim minorities, observed in declines in earnings in the U.S. (Kaushal et al, 2007;Dávila and Mora, 2005) and in employment in the U.S. (Rabby and Rodgers, 2011) and in France (Glover, 2019).…”