Modeling Public Policy: Influences on Terrorism and Public Opinion

Abstract

This article examines the effects of counterterrorism policy in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom between 1997 and 2016. We use time series analysis and series hazard models to examine the influence of policy on (a) incidents of terrorist violence and (b) citizen perceptions of the threat of terrorism. Results indicate that counterterrorism policy is, for the most part, not related to significant changes in Canada but does report significant results for public opinion and terrorist incidents in the United States and the United Kingdom, although these effects are temporally defined.

Keywords:

• Terrorism
• political violence
• public opinion
• policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Data availability statement

Please contact the author for data requests.

Notes

1 This statement was made in the days immediately following the implementation of the now-infamous travel ban that restricted access to the United States for individuals from a number of Muslim-majority countries.

2 This may indicate a potential backlash effect.

3 Two more sets of time series analyses were conducted assessing the relationship between policy and public opinion that are not reported here. One set included a variable measuring where the month of interest fell in the sequence of study months and the second included a variable controlling for the number of terrorist attacks in a given month. The addition of these control variables did not significantly alter model results and, therefore, were not included in the table or reported findings.