Does provocation work? Lessons learned from the success and failure of counterterrorism in democracies
Creators: name: Schlesinger, Jayme R.
Publisher: name: No Publisher Supplied
Year: 2023

description: Does provocation work? This project studies the proposed effectiveness of provocation against democracies. The logic of provocation suggests that terrorists might achieve political gains by committing attacks that elicit overreactive responses from targeted governments that are then intended to produce a backlash effect among the public which terrorists can leverage to achieve their objectives thereafter. Studies of provocation have thus far only tested these dynamics among the aggrieved population, or the portion of the population already affected by the same political grievances motivating the terrorists to act. Theories of provocation neglect the additional public dimension. I consider the role of democratic accountability in shaping counterterrorism policy similar to how these dynamic shapes security policy during the traditional interstate conflict. I argue that provocation can be an effective strategy against democracies when terrorists can successfully manipulate the relationship between public opinion and leadership decision-making. Terrorists achieve this by committing attacks that are severe enough to elicit a repressive government response but not enough to justify the government’s repressive policies to the broader public, thereby establishing discord between the two actors. However, when terrorists are unable to effectively orchestrate this dynamic to their benefit, the same institutions reinforce the government’s repressive policies, making success harder to obtain. I study these effects in their applied sequence. First, I study patterns between the characteristics of terror attacks and of government responses in the immediate aftermath of those attacks to assess whether terrorists might successfully provoke democracies by altering the characteristic makeup of their attacks. This test utilizes original data on democratic responses to terror in coordination with existing data on the characteristics of attacks from the Terrorism Events Immediate Response Data (TIERD) Dataset. The corresponding code book for this data is made available with the project. Second, I use a conjoint experiment to assess individual attitudes toward government responses after an attack. This analysis tests how the public uses information on an original attack to frame their attitudes toward the government’s subsequent response. Together, the first two analyses provide insight into how terrorists might create discord between the public and the government by committing attacks that evoke repressive responses of which the public is likely to disapprove. Finally, I develop a theory of successful (unsuccessful) provocation in democracies by comparing the details of terror and counterterror campaigns in the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) against Spain, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) against Israel, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the context of the Sri Lankan Civil War. From this analysis, I identify one avenue through which terrorists might succeed using provocation – overreaction, and two avenues through which terrorists are likely to fail – alignment, and underreaction. This project contributes novel theoretical considerations regarding the effects of provocation on public opinion and the eventual role public opinion plays in determining the success (failure) of provocation in terrorist campaigns. This project has further implications for successful counterterrorism policy in democracies, as well.