(Re)Evaluating the Effects of Terrorist Provocation: Case Study - ETA

• In Event: Violence, Freedom, and Law

Abstract

Conclusions about effectiveness of terrorist provocation against democracies are unclear. Provocation, or the strategy in which terrorists commit their attacks in hopes of eliciting draconian responses from states to create a backlash effect in public opinion that facilitates terrorists’ abilities to mobilize resources and other forms of support has been shown to be effective in some contexts. However, existing studies focus on these effects as they impact mobilization among moderate members of an existing aggrieved population without addressing the broader effects of provocation on additional audiences to determine the overall success or failure of terrorist campaigns against the state. In this book chapter, I follow the timeline of the Euskadi ta Askatasuna (“ETA”) against the Spanish government following its period of democratization in the latter twentieth century to develop a novel theoretical mechanism through which terrorist provocation may succeed(fail) against democracies that considers the effects of terrorism on additional audiences. Through this case study, I posit one of three possible outcomes of counterterrorism policy in which the state may overreact (in addition to underreacting or reacting "in alignment" with public opinion). In the larger manuscript, this case is accompanied by competing trajectories in the cases of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (“LTTE”) and the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”) to develop additional theoretical outcomes.

Author

• Jayme Schlesinger, Rutgers University