Not in My Back Yard: Public Perceptions and Terrorism

• Author: Clayton Webb,Nazli Avdan
• Published date: 01 March 2019
• Date: 01 March 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1065912918776118
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912918776118

Political Research Quarterly

2019, Vol. 72(1) 90 –103

© 2018 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912918776118

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Article

Why does the public care about some terrorist attacks

more than others? Consider three of the major terrorist

attacks of 2015. On April 2, 2015, four gunmen belonging

to the Somalia-based terrorist organization Al-Shabaab

attacked Garissa University College in Garissa, Kenya

(Levs and Yan 2015). Using explosives and small arms,

they killed 147 people and wounded seventy-nine. On

October 10, 2015, two Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) sui-

cide bombers detonated explosive vests near a train termi-

nal in Ankara, Turkey (Dearden 2015). The twin blasts

killed ninety-seven people and wounded four hundred

(Letsch and Khomami 2015; Melvin 2015). Finally, on

November 13, 2015, seven terrorists operating in three

teams staged coordinated attacks at six locations in Paris,

France. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks

(Mullen, Melvin, and Armstrong 2015). One hundred

thirty people were killed, and 367 were wounded

(Chandler, Calamur, and Ford 2015). The attacks had sim-

ilar casualty rates and were carried out by similar organi-

zations, but the public responses were notably different.

The attacks in Paris received more attention in the United

States than the attacks in Garissa and Ankara. Celebrities

issued public statements expressing sadness and outrage fol-

lowing the attacks in Paris (Shearlaw 2015). There were

public vigils held all over the United States (Stockman

2015). National monuments were lit up in the blue, white,

and red of the French flag (Mullen, Melvin, and Armstrong

2015). On social media, Facebook allowed users to drape

their profile pictures with the French flag (Gicobi 2015).

Facebook also activated their safety check function during

the Paris attack. The function allows users to “check in” as

safe for the benefit of friends and family. Until Paris, this

feature had been used exclusively for natural disasters

(Shearlaw 2015). The attacks in Garissa and Ankara did not

provoke similar waves of sympathy and did not receive the

same kind of attention. Figure 1 shows the Weekly Google

searches for the word “Terrorism” in the United States in

2015. Terrorism searches did not change after the attack in

Garissa, actually fell after the attack in Ankara, but spiked

after the attack in Paris. The attacks were similar, but they

were not viewed as such in the United States.

What explains this disparity? An article in the Atlantic

described the disparate responses from the global commu-

nity as an “empathy gap.” There is a familiarity factor

where “people tend to perk up when they see themselves in

the victims” (Graham 2015). Political scientists have ana-

lyzed the effects of victim identity and target location on

threat perceptions (Abrahms 2007, 2012) but overlooked

other characteristics of victims. We argue that personal and

physical proximity shape public perceptions of terrorist

776118PRQXXX10.1177/1065912918776118Political Research QuarterlyAvdan and Webb

research-article2018

1University of Kansas, Lawrence, USA

Corresponding Author:

Clayton Webb, University of Kansas, 1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504,

Lawrence, KS 66045-3177, USA.

Email: webb767@ku.edu

Not in My Back Yard: Public

Perceptions and Terrorism

Nazli Avdan1 and Clayton Webb1

Abstract

Why does the public care more about some terrorist attacks than others? In recent years, there has been a wave

of terrorist attacks carried out by similar terrorist organizations, but these attacks have produced disparate public

responses. Existing research shows that terrorist attacks are more traumatic for people who live near terrorist targets,

but this research cannot explain differences in public attitudes about attacks occurring in other countries. We argue

that threat perceptions are shaped by the physical and personal proximity of terrorist attacks. The identities of the

victims are rarely known. People impute the characteristics of victims based on the country where the attack occurred.

These perceived identities determine the empathy people feel toward victims and affect perceptions of terrorist threats.

People feel a greater sense of vulnerability when attacks occur near their borders. We test these arguments using a

series of online experiments. We find that the location of the attack and the race and nationality of the victims drive

threat perceptions.

Keywords

terrorism, public opinion, threat perceptions, race