The Effect of Terrorism on Judicial Confidence

• Author: Steven V. Miller
• Date: 01 December 2017
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912917716337
• Published date: 01 December 2017
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912917716337

Political Research Quarterly

2017, Vol. 70(4) 790 –802

© 2017 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912917716337

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Article

Introduction

Why is confidence in the judicial system so low in a

country like Great Britain? British popular confidence in

the judicial system lags behind British confidence in

other state institutions (Van de Walle 2009) and lags well

behind most of its democratic peers in Western Europe

(Bühlmann and Kunz 2011). A comparison of European

survey data places British confidence in the judicial sys-

tem closer to the mass-level confidence in judicial sys-

tems in nondemocracies like Azerbaijan and Ukraine

than democratic peers like Denmark or Iceland. This is

curious because the British judicial system shows numer-

ous benchmarks that should inspire widespread public

confidence. The ability of the judicial process to resolve

commercial disputes and enforce contracts places the

British system as No. 6 in the world for judicial quality

and efficiency (World Bank Group 2016). Its time to

resolution from submission of a claim is among the best

in Europe and the world. Civil liberty and due process

protections are also strong in the United Kingdom. Its

protection of political rights and civil liberties gives the

United Kingdom a 95 of 100 in the 2016 Freedom House

rankings (Freedom House 2016), which ties United

Kingdom with many of its democratic peers for No. 6 in

the world. Judicial independence data (e.g., Cingranelli,

Richards, and Clay 2014) give further confidence that

the British judicial system is independent from the

influence of other state or societal actors. Yet, confidence

in the British judicial system lags behind confidence in

other British institutions and judicial confidence else-

where in Western Europe.

The independence the British judicial system enjoys may

actually be part of the problem. The United Kingdom, unlike

Denmark and Iceland, has a long history of terror threats.

This had historically been the Irish Republican Army though

recent threats involve Islamist terror groups like Al-Qaeda

or the Islamic State. The British judicial response to these

terror threats stands at odds with executive-led initiatives in

countries like Australia and the United States after September

11, 2001 (Roach 2011) or the symbiotic executive–judiciary

relationship that France had implemented in 1986. The

British judicial system institutes numerous legal protections

for terror suspects—including automatic legal representa-

tion during interrogations and a high threshold for charging

a suspect with terror-related offenses—that diverges from

the French model of counterterrorism. British politicians

even express envy at the more “flexible,” security-oriented

judicial response to terrorism in France (Foley 2013). It is

716337PRQXXX10.1177/1065912917716337Political Research QuarterlyMiller

research-article2017

1Clemson University, SC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Steven V. Miller, Department of Political Science, Clemson University,

232 Brackett Hall, Clemson, SC 29634-1354, USA.

Email: svmille@clemson.edu

The Effect of Terrorism

on Judicial Confidence

Steven V. Miller1

Abstract

Independent judiciaries prevent democratic reversals, facilitate peaceful transitions of power, and legitimate democracy

among citizens. We believe this judicial independence is important for citizen-level judicial confidence and faith in

democratic institutions. I challenge this and argue that citizens living under terror threats lose confidence in their

independent judiciaries. Terror threats lead citizens to enable the state leader to provide counterterrorism for their

security, which has important implications for interbranch relations between the executive and the judiciary. Citizens

lose confidence in independent judiciaries that provide due process for suspected terrorists. I test my argument with

mixed effects models that incorporate the Global Terrorism Database and four waves of European Values Survey. The

analyses demonstrate the negative effects of terror threats on judicial confidence when interacting terror threats with

measures of judicial independence. My findings have important implications for the study of democratic confidence

and the liberty-security dilemma.

Keywords

terrorism, judicial confidence, judicial independence, liberty-security dilemma