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Report on the Relationship Between Terrorist Threats and Governance Conditions in the European Union - Asif Efrat Menachem Friedman Sivan ...
Report on the Relationship Between
Terrorist Threats and Governance
Conditions in the European Union

Asif Efrat
Menachem Friedman
Sivan Hirsch-Hoefler
Amichai Magen
Report on the Relationship Between Terrorist Threats and Governance Conditions in the European Union - Asif Efrat Menachem Friedman Sivan ...
DISCLAIMER
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation programme under Grant
Agreement no. 770142. The information in this deliverable reflects only the authors’ views and the European Union is not
liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

DISSIMINATION LEVEL
Public

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                                      Page 2 of 64
Report on the Relationship Between Terrorist Threats and Governance Conditions in the European Union - Asif Efrat Menachem Friedman Sivan ...
Project:            RECONNECT - Reconciling Europe with its Citizens through Democracy and Rule of Law
 GA:                 770142
 Horizon 2020:       H2020-SC6-CULT-COOP-2017-two-stage
 Funding Scheme:     Collaboration Project

   Report on the Relationship
  Between Terrorist Threats and
  Governance Conditions in the
        European Union
                                 Work Package 11 - Deliverable 3

 Due date:                                                                                30.06.2021
 Submission date:                                                                         29.06.2021
 Lead beneficiary:                                                                       IDC, Herzliya
 Authors:                               Asif Efrat, Sivan Hirsch-Hoefler, Menachem Friedman, Amichai
                                                                                               Magen

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                              Page 3 of 64
Report on the Relationship Between Terrorist Threats and Governance Conditions in the European Union - Asif Efrat Menachem Friedman Sivan ...
Content
1.     Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 5
2.     Terrorism and Political Regimes: The State of Knowledge ............................................................... 7
3.     Empirical Realities and Trends ....................................................................................................... 10
4.     A Test Case for Democracy: Populism, Far-right Extremism, and Terrorism in Europe ................. 22
5.     A Test Case for the Rule of Law: Putting ISIS Foreign Fighters on Trial .......................................... 35
6.     Guidelines for Policy ...................................................................................................................... 41
7.     Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 48
References ............................................................................................................................................. 50
Appendix ................................................................................................................................................ 62

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                                                                    Page 4 of 64
Report on the Relationship Between Terrorist Threats and Governance Conditions in the European Union - Asif Efrat Menachem Friedman Sivan ...
1. Introduction
This Report provides a comprehensive empirical survey, theoretically-informed analysis, and
policy-oriented insights regarding the relationship between terrorist threats and governance
conditions, with special applicability to the European Union (EU). Specifically, the report
provides the following:

   (1) A succinct literature review, surveying the origins, evolution, and latest state of
       knowledge regarding the relationship between governance conditions and terrorism. In
       line with RECONNECT's overarching goal of understanding the relationship between
       democratic and rule of law conditions, on the one hand, and a variety of challenges
       facing the EU, on the other hand, the report opens by outlining what we know about
       the relationship between political regimes – on both the democratic and autocratic
       sides of the regime-spectrum – and vulnerability to terrorist threats, in terms of number
       of attacks and casualties. This review of the state of the art provides both a necessary
       reference point for the subsequent empirical analysis of the report, for testing our
       findings against existing expectations, and for generating policy-oriented insights.

   (2) A state of the art empirical survey of post-9/11 global terrorist attacks and casualty
       rates. This global survey presents the latest available data and provides the basis for an
       informed, comparative analysis of trends and dynamics in the EU.

   (3) A state of the art empirical survey of EU terrorist attacks, casualty rates and distribution
       among Member States (MS) and the United Kingdom (UK) from 2000 onwards. In
       addition, it presents the data in relation to the distribution of attacks/casualties among
       MS, the methods of attack, and motivating ideologies for attacks. This finer-grained
       empirical survey lays solid empirical grounding for theory-informed analysis and policy-
       oriented insights, in three main ways. First, it allows EU-focused analysts and policy
       makers to position EU terrorism threats in comparative perspective to global ones. This
       is important because it provides perspective on the scale and trajectory of terrorist
       threats over the past two decades, but also since terrorism is just one security threat
       among a range of contending threats and policy priorities. Empirically-based
       perspective is therefore crucial for perspective and sound policy. Second, it presents
       the latest available empirical picture of terrorist threats in the EU and UK from 2000
       onwards (i.e. for a two-year period prior to the starting point of the global survey). We
       deliberately opt to extend the data to just prior to 9/11 (which is rightly seen as a
       moment of "epochal change" in global patterns of terrorism) in order to better capture
       the "wave" nature of terrorism in Europe and the transition that occurs in Europe
       around the turn of the millennium – from nationalist/secessionist terrorism, to
       terrorism motivated by radical ideologies, both Islamist and extreme-right. Third and

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                 Page 5 of 64
Report on the Relationship Between Terrorist Threats and Governance Conditions in the European Union - Asif Efrat Menachem Friedman Sivan ...
last, the finer-grained empirical data presentation allows us to identify a number of key
       patterns in EU terrorism threats, such as the great variation among MS to terrorist
       attacks and casualties (i.e. that a handful of MS suffer the vast majority of attacks and
       fatalities, while others experience very low or no attacks/casualties) or the fact that
       terrorism in Europe tends to manifest itself in a small number of methods of attack
       (notably bombings, incendiary attacks, and shootings).

   (4) To supplement the broad empirical analysis presented in (2) and (3), flesh-out the
       democracy and rule of law challenges confronting the EU in facing terrorist threats, and
       lay the ground for forward-looking policy-oriented insights, the report presents two
       qualitative sections, titled "A Test Case for Democracy: Populism, Far-right Extremism,
       and Terrorism in Europe" and "A Test Case for the Rule of Law: Putting ISIS Foreign
       Fighters on Trial", in sections four and five respectively. In doing so, the report tackles
       core challenges for the EU and MS not envisaged when RECONNECT was conceived,
       namely the links between populism and terrorism, the returning foreign-fighter and
       families phenomena, and the recent rise of non-Islamist terrorist risks in Europe.

   (5) Building upon the preceding empirical analysis and two qualitative studies, the report
       then dedicates a section to laying out a set of forward-looking, policy-oriented
       guidelines for managing the democratic governance-terrorism threats nexus. We do not
       pretend to offer a detailed counter-terrorism strategy for the EU. Rather, our guidelines
       for policy are meant to facilitate the work of other working packages focused on
       generating EU policy adaptation for improved democratic and rule of law-based order;
       one that is able to effectively manage future EU challenges, including terrorism threats.
       Finally, the report draws together the main lessons of the report in a brief conclusion.

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                Page 6 of 64
Report on the Relationship Between Terrorist Threats and Governance Conditions in the European Union - Asif Efrat Menachem Friedman Sivan ...
2. Terrorism and Political Regimes: The State of
   Knowledge
Terrorism is the deliberate use or threat of violence against civilians by a non-state entity
(individual or group) in pursuit of a political goal. Like war between states, civil wars, or
insurgencies, terrorism is a species of political violence, distinguished from ordinary criminality
on account of its goal of advancing some political end beyond harm to the immediate targets
themselves (Hoffman 2006, chapter 2).1

Research into the relationship between terrorism and political regime types traces back to the
early 1980s (Crenshaw 1981), yet despite decades of accumulated insights, explanatory
theories and empirical support for those theories have oscillated greatly and, if anything,
become more contested in recent years (Jones and Lupu 2018). Much of this is due to the
fragmented nature of the existing literature, as well as to conceptual and methodological
weaknesses, notably among early studies. Spikes of intense interest in the relationship have
punctuated longer periods of neglect, while scholars preoccupied with terrorism and those
concerned with regime types have traditionally worked in separate disciplinary realms
(Chenoweth 2013; Magen 2018). Terrorism analysts, for example, have often used inconsistent
definitions and measures of regime types, and have tended to treat "democracy" and
"autocracy" as dichotomous variables (Schmid 1992; Eubank and Weinberg 1994; Eyerman
1998; Li 2005; Chenoweth 2010). Most existing studies, moreover, possess an outmoded
quality. They often address intervals drawn from the three and a half decades between 1968
and 2004, with temporal clustering that bespeak interest in secular, left-wing, and nationalist
strains of terrorism—phenomena that have since largely dissipated, making no significant
impact on contemporary global terrorism patterns (Schmid 1992; Eubank and Weinberg 1994;
Eyerman 1998; Krain 1998; Li 2005; Hoffman 2006). The most recent influential studies take
into account a broader spectrum of regime types and are more up to date, but still rely on data
that extends only to 2010-2012 at the latest. They thereby lack analyses of the combined
impact of the "Arab Spring" and its aftermath, wave of terrorist incidents in Europe and North
America after 2012, and the global democratic recession (Chenoweth 2013; Gaibulloev, Piazza
and Sandler 2017; Jones and Lupu 2018). Given these limitations in prior research, it is
unsurprising that for decades the impact of democracy on terrorism produced two broadly

1
 For the purpose of this report we use the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) definition of terrorism, which is:
“The threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic,
religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation.”(See:
https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/#:~:text=The%20GTD%20defines%20terrorism%20as,%2C%20coercion%2C%20
or%20intimidation.%E2%80%9D). For a detailed discussion of the definition of terrorism and of political violence
more broadly see: Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (NY: Columbia University Press, 2006) chapter 2.

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                              Page 7 of 64
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opposing views, while inquiry into the relationship between autocracy and terrorism emerged
much later (Aksoy, Carter and Wright 2012; Wilson and Piazza 2013; Conrad, Conrad and Young
2014).

Until quite recently, the dominant view argued that democracies were more prone to terrorist
attacks than non-democracies, and that "the more democratic a country is, the more terrorism
it should experience" (Chenoweth 2013, 357). Adherents of this school of thought offered three
explanatory theories for the perceived vulnerability of democracies. First, Crenshaw's path
breaking 1981 study of the causes of terrorism contended that in democracies "terrorists view
the context as permissive," (Crenshaw 1981, 383) inaugurating a line of argument which Schmid
and Everyman respectively developed into a game-theoretic "strategic influence" explanation
(Schmid 1992; Eyerman 1998). According to this view, liberal-democratic freedoms of
association and movement, coupled with due-process guarantees and legal constraints on
security forces encourage terrorism by reducing the costs of collective action and participation
in political violence. At the same time, the greater media freedoms of open societies magnify
the publicity of terrorist attacks, accentuating their strategic impact (Eubank and Weinberg
1994; Hoffman 2006; Gadarian 2010). A second explanation focused on the superior
mobilization opportunities available to terrorists in democracies and the heightened
responsiveness of elected officials to public pressures. With this line of argument, terrorist
attacks are more likely in democracies since violent challengers are better able to organize,
plan, fundraise, and communicate more easily (San-Akca 2014). At the same time, casualty-
averse officials are more likely to acquiesce to public pressure in order to avoid additional
violence (Wilkinson 1986; Doyle 1997; Pape 2003). Lastly, another branch of the literature
claims that electoral competition and institutional design play key roles in explaining
democracies' greater vulnerability to terrorism. Between 2004 and 2014, four studies found
that political systems with higher levels of political competition suffered more terrorist
incidents (Bloom 2004; Sanchez-Cuenca and Aguilar 2009; Chenoweth 2010; San-Akca 2014).

An opposing viewpoint emerged in the mid-1990s, when Ross and Eyerman argued that the
political openness and inclusivity of democracies helps assuage societal or ethnic grievances
and undermine the legitimacy of the use of violent means for political ends (Ross 1993;
Eyerman 1998; Abrahms 2007; Choi 2010). This "political access" view predicts that liberal
democratic states suffer fewer terrorist attacks by limiting the utility of such behavior and
ameliorating grievances at home before they spill over to attacks abroad (Gaibulloev, Piazza
and Sandler 2017). A number of studies also speculated that the observed proclivity of terrorists
to target democracies derives from an illusion caused by the tendency of authoritarian regimes
to systematically underreport terrorist incidents (Sandler 1995; Drakos and Gofas 2006;
Abrahms 2007; Choi 2010; Hendrix and Young 2014; Salehyan 2015).

In recent years, scholarship in this field has overcome the prevailing confusion, yet important
gaps in knowledge persist. When terrorism scholars caught up with developments in

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                               Page 8 of 64
Report on the Relationship Between Terrorist Threats and Governance Conditions in the European Union - Asif Efrat Menachem Friedman Sivan ...
comparative politics, they achieved a critical breakthrough by abandoning a dichotomous view
of democracy and dictatorship and beginning to address intermediate (or hybrid) regime types
on both the autocratic and democratic sides of the regime spectrum. In 2006, a pioneer in this
regard, Alberto Abadie, argued that political freedom maintains a curvilinear dynamic with
terrorism and more specifically an inverted U-shaped relationship in which "countries with
intermediate levels of political freedom [are] more prone to terrorism than countries with high
levels of political freedom or countries with highly authoritarian regimes." (Abadie 2006, 51)
Following Abadie, the latest research into the relationship between regime types and terrorism
has largely converged on an inverted U-shape relationship, in which scholars identify
intermediate-level regimes (or "anocracies") as the most vulnerable to terrorist attacks (Wade
and Reiter 2007; Chenoweth 2013; Gaibulloev, Piazza and Sandler 2017; Jones and Lupu 2018;
Magen 2018).

  Number of terrorist attacks

High

Low

  Closed Authoritarian    Multiparty Autocracies/Minimalist Democracies   Polyarchies/Liberal Democracies

  Illustration 1: The inverted U-shape or "More Violence in the Middle" relationship between
                                 regime type and terrorist attacks

Broadly speaking, our data confirms this "More Violence in the Middle" hypothesis in relation
to terrorism, with some important caveats (see section 3 below). Importantly, the inverted U-
shape relationship between regime types and terrorism is highly consistent with other forms
of political violence, notably civil wars (Hegre, Ellingsen, Gates, and Gleditsch 2001; Jones and
Lupu 2018). In the next section we lay out the empirical record and draw out the main analytical
lessons from the data.

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                      Page 9 of 64
3. Empirical Realities and Trends
In this section we present the latest available data on terrorism trends using the Global
Terrorism Database (GTD) as our measure of terrorist activity. By using GTD data, rather than
alternative measures of terrorism, we are able to ensure consistency in measurement of
terrorism incidents, fatalities, methods, and motivating ideologies, globally and in the EU.2 We
present the data in two sequential sub-sections. The first captures global terrorism realities in
the post-9/11 era (i.e. 2002-2019) disaggregated by regime type. Presenting the global data in
this manner permits us to demonstrate the general veracity of the "More Violence in the
Middle" pattern of the relationship, identify deviations from this overall dynamic, and provide
the global context against which EU patterns of terrorism can be compared. The second sub-
section then presents the empirical picture of terrorist activity in the EU and UK since 2000. In
this context, we opted to include the 2000-2001 period in order to capture the terrorism
"wave" patterns and transition from pre-9/11 nationalist/separatist motivated terrorism, to a
post-9/11 era of terrorism in Europe, which is dominated by religious-extremism and alt-right
motivated terrorism. We end the section by identifying a number of salient trends that emerge
from the data.

Global Empirical Realities

The launch of the GTD in late 2001 permitted analysts to attain, for the first time, a reasonably
reliable global assessment of terrorist incidents and casualties. The GTD now provides a
systematic, open-source database that records terrorist incidents and casualties globally
through 2019. When collated, the aggregate global pattern of terrorist attacks is captured in
the graph below:

2
  An alternative source of data on terrorist activity in the EU is the Europol’s annual EU Terrorism Situation and
Trend Report (TE-SAT) which provides an overview of the terrorism phenomenon in the EU in a given year. For our
purposes, the TE-SAT database suffers from two major limitations. First, it was launched only in 2007. Second, the
TE-SAT database covers EU Member States only and so, unlike the GTD, does not allow us to compare terrorism-
related data in the EU with the rest of the world.

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                             Page 10 of 64
Globally, we can identify three main phases within this seventeen-year period: (1) a substantial
but relatively gradual increase between 2002 and 2010; (2) a dramatic increase in the number
of attacks between 2011 and 2014 (corresponding to the immediate aftermath of the "Arab
Spring" and the height of Daesh (ISIS) and al-Qaeda (AQ) activity in the Middle East, North
Africa, and Afghanistan, and (3) a substantial decline from the high-water mark of 2014 in 2015-
2019, but with the number of attacks remaining relatively very high (on par with 2012 figures).

The pattern concerning terrorist casualties over the same period is as follows:

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                             Page 11 of 64
We observe that the pattern of terrorism casualties broadly follows that of terrorist incidents,
- ranging from a low of approximately 12,000 fatalities per year in 2003, to nearly 80,000 in
2015 – with the periods 2005-2007 and 2018-2019 displaying proportionally increased lethality
in relation to the number of attacks perpetrated.

This dramatic aggregate increase in terrorism is at odds with the decades-long decline in global
rates of wars between states (i.e. interstate wars) but consistent with the resurgence of other
forms of political violence over the past decade, especially civil wars and internationalized civil
wars. Globally, in 2019 the number of state-based armed conflicts3 reached its highest number
since 1946 (with 54 active state-based conflicts), and the number of internationalized civil wars
(i.e. intrastate conflicts with troop involvement from external states) also reached its highest
recorded number since 1946 (Petterson and Oberg 2020).

Global rates of terrorism incidents and fatalities rose quite dramatically since 2001, yet the
aggregate increase tells us very little about the distribution of terrorist attacks and casualties
across different political regime types. Nor does it reveal the rates of increase in terrorist
incidents and fatalities in different regime type. To address the question what is the relationship
between regime types and terrorism and are some political regimes – on both the democratic
and autocratic sides of the regime spectrum – more vulnerable to this species of political
violence requires examining the numbers in relation to defined regime type categories.

Building on Jørgen Møller and Svend-Erik Skaaning’s typology of political regimes (Møller and
Skaaning 2013) we disaggregate regime types into six theoretically grounded categories, and
apply the GTD data to each category for the years from 2002 through 2019 (the latest available
data). The data is weighed to take account of the different number of states across regime
categories, hence the number of attacks and casualties is presented as an on average per each
category. Movement of states across categories (as the result of improvements or decline in
democratic scores) are also accounted for. Møller and Skaaning sort democracies into four
subcategories based on a taxonomic hierarchy where the more demanding definitions subsume
the less demanding ones. In ascending order, the categories are: Minimalist democracy, which
includes regimes that fulfil the thinnest Schumpeterian definition of competitive elections;
Electoral democracy, which further requires the maximization of the elections criterion (that is,
inclusive, high-integrity elections) but nothing else; Polyarchy, in the classic sense meant by
Robert A. Dahl, which extends beyond elections to cover civil liberties, particularly the freedoms
of speech and association; and Liberal Democracy, the most demanding category, which

3
  A state-based armed conflict is a contested incompatibility that concerns government and/or territory where
the use of armed force between two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, results in at least
25 battle-related deaths in one calendar year. Of these the vast majority of conflicts are civil wars where the state
government confronts one or more non-state actor. See Petterson and Oberg (2020).

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                               Page 12 of 64
denotes substantive democracy complete with inclusive elections, civil liberties, and the rule of
law understood as equality of all persons before and under the law. On the non-democratic
side of the regime type spectrum, autocratic regimes are divided into closed autocracies and
multiparty autocracies. The latter are distinguished from the former by virtue of holding
elections that involve more than one party, though these votes are not competitive enough for
the regime to qualify even as minimally democratic.

The following two graphs present the global GTD data when disaggregated into the six regime
type categories. The first displays the number of attacks, whereas the second displays the
number of casualties.

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                              Page 13 of 64
A number of key patterns can be gleamed from the above graphs:

First, the relative, growing advantage of liberal democracies and polyarchies in minimizing
terrorist attacks and casualties marks what is perhaps the most striking, consequential and
counterintuitive, shift in global patterns of terrorism. Liberal democracies and polyarchies are
now substantially safer than all other regime types, effectively inverting the old convention that
democracies are most vulnerable to terrorism. The new "democracy advantage" is in fact a
triple advantage (Magen 2018). Against a backdrop of a sharp global increase in terrorist attacks
and casualties, liberal democracies and polyarchies suffer the lowest number of attacks in
absolute terms, the lowest rate of increase in terrorism incidents, and substantially fewer
casualties compared with all other regime types.

Second – and crucially for EU Member States – the "democracy advantage" is reserved to
reasonably high-quality democracies alone (i.e. consolidated liberal democracies and
polyarchies). Merely passing the minimalist/electoral democracy threshold does not endow a
country with the same advantage. Electoral and minimalist democracies continue to suffer
terrorism at higher rates in comparison to both reasonably high-quality democracies (liberal
democracies and polyarchies) and closed autocracies. As can be seen from the graph below –
which zooms in to focus on the spectrum of regimes on the democratic side of the spectrum –
the loss of the "democracy advantage" among electoral and minimalist democracies is
especially pronounced in terms of casualty rates.

Third – and another major cautionary tale for EU Member States emanating from the global
data – is an observation pertaining to the fate of multiparty autocracies. These have evidently

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                               Page 14 of 64
become the primary target of terrorism, most acutely over the past decade. Contrasting the
individual years of 2002 and 2019, multiparty autocracies experienced an 868 percent increase
in terrorism. Similarly, multiparty autocracies now suffer starkly high relative terrorism casualty
rates. Looking at the mid-range regime types on both sides of the spectrum – i.e.
electoral/minimalist democracies and multiparty autocracies – draws a key lesson of special
relevance to EU Member States. Processes of democratic backsliding or outright
"autocratization" bring countries into the "danger zone" of substantially increased probability
of relatively high numbers of terrorist attacks and casualties.

For the sake of completeness – and in order to dispel the temptation to "flee into closed
authoritarianism" as a means of improving safety from terrorist attacks and casualties – it is
also important to highlight the pattern in relation to the last regime type category, namely
closed authoritarian regimes. Countering conventional wisdom, closed autocracies have
steadily declined in their previously perceived relative immunity to terrorism. For 2014-2015
and 2018-2019, closed autocracies actually reach the second-highest victims of terrorism falling
behind only multiparty autocracies. Contrasting the individual years of 2002 and 2019, closed
autocracies experienced an 8155 percent increase in terrorism. While lower in raw numbers,
this marks the only percentage increase in terrorism higher than that of multi-party autocracies
noted above. Similarly, we observe an increase in terrorism-related casualties in closed
autocracies, indicating fully autocratic regimes have become relatively less capable in terms of
terrorism damage mitigation, not only terrorism prevention. These findings run counter to the
old conventional notion that saw closed autocracies as the regime type least susceptible to
terrorism.

In sum, the data covering the years 2002-2019 broadly supports the "more violence in the
middle" hypothesis, but with important caveats. The overarching visual image that emerges
from the latest available data is not so much a neat inverted U-shaped relationship, but rather
a "fish-hook" image, in which relatively high rates of terrorist attacks and fatalities in the middle
are complemented by increased vulnerability to attacks and casualties on the closed-
authoritarian side of the spectrum, coupled with a seemingly growing "democracy advantage"
reserved for reasonably high-quality democracies (liberal democracies and polyarchies). In
terms of the latter two categories, there does not appear a significant advantage for one over
the other. Over time, liberal democracies and polyarchies appear to be equally effective at
deterring or preventing terrorist attacks, as well as minimizing casualties from the relatively
few attacks that they do suffer.

EU and UK Empirical Realities

Armed with the above set of observations about global trends, we turn to undertake a more
detailed, finer-grained empirical analysis of conditions in the EU (and UK). Given that, with the
singular exception of Hungary (which was downgraded to "partly free" by the Freedom House

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                 Page 15 of 64
index in 2020) all EU Member States and the UK fall within the liberal democracy / polyarchy
regime type, the nature of the analysis undertaken in the following sub-section is necessarily
somewhat different from the one relating to global trends. We link the data and analysis
between global and EU trends by presenting the figures for the number of terrorist attacks and
fatalities, but in addition present new EU-focused data on the distribution of attacks and
casualties among Member States, attack methodologies and animating ideologies for the
attacks.

As the graph below records, the number of terrorist attacks experienced by EU Member States
and the UK since the turn of the millennium has oscillated quite extensively, ranging from a low
of 45 attacks in 2004 to a high of 236 attacks in 2015. Somewhat contrary to the general global
trend over the past five years, the period 2015-2019 (the latest available figures) was marked
by an only very moderate decline in the number of attacks in Europe, falling from the 2015
peak to 192 attacks in 2019.

              Total Number of Terrorist Attacks in EU Member
                        States and UK 2000-2019
                                                                                     236
                                                                                                 216
                                                                                           194               192
  173                                              173
        159
                                                                         148                           149
                                             136                               140
                                                                   127

               91             92                         87
                    72             78
                                        54                    52
                         45

  2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

The picture that emerges in relation to the number of casualties from terrorist attacks is
presented in the graph below. 2004 stands out as a year with relatively few attacks, but high
casualties (191 of which were caused in a single attack, the March 11 2004 al-Qaeda Madrid
train bombings). In contrast, 2015 and 2016 were years characterized by a relatively high
number of attacks and casualties, while 2006-2014 and 2018-2019 can be characterized as
years with relatively moderate to high numbers of attacks that resulted in few casualties.

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                            Page 16 of 64
Number of Terror Fatalties in EU & UK
                                   2000-2019
                        194
                                                                                171 166

                                                                                           79
                              60
  40
       22                                                     19                            19 21
             10    5               6   8   3   10    6    4         7    6
 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
  Source: Global Terrorism
  Database

If we adopt a somewhat broader time horizon, comparing the period of focus (2000-2019) to
earlier decades, we observe that the period 2015-2019 represents an era characterized by only
moderately high levels of terrorist attacks and fatalities. As Alex Nowrasteh (2017) illustrates
with reference to casualty rates in five European countries, compared with the 1970's and
much of the 80's, the number of terrorism fatalities suffered in Europe since 2000 is relatively
low.

       Terrorism fatalities in Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, 1975-2017
                                           (Source: Nowrasteh, 2017)

While every terrorist death is a tragedy and every attack an outrage, sober risk management
and political judgement requires that the nature and scope of the threat be kept firmly in
perspective. Looked at empirically, the lifetime odds of being killed by a terrorist, foreign or
domestic, in a Western democracy remain miniscule. Over the nearly 42-year period between
1975 and June 2017 examined by Nowrasteh, a total of 3,568 Americans were killed in terrorist

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                      Page 17 of 64
attacks, which means the annual chance of an American perishing from an act of terrorism was
1 in 3.24 million. That number includes the 2,983 people murdered in the 9/11 attacks, an
extremely deadly outlier event. Compared to the threat of being killed by a terrorist on
American soil, the average American is 29 times more likely to die from an asteroid strike, 260
times more likely to be struck down by lightning, 4,700 times more likely to perish in an airplane
accident, and 407,000 times more likely to die in a motor vehicle accident. With the single
exception of the UK, the odds of being killed by a terrorist in Europe are even lower. Over the
same 1975-2017 period, the annual chance of a German being killed in a terrorist attack was 1
in 23.23 million, that of a Swede 1 in 19 million, a Belgian 1 in nearly 7 million, and a French
resident 1 in nearly 5 million. Residents of the UK suffered the most, with almost 78 percent of
European fatalities being British residents. 95 percent of those British victims died before 2001,
chiefly at the hands of secular nationalist Irish terrorist groups, not Salafi jihadists or alt-right
extremists. All in all, among the five European countries examined by Nowrasteh, post-2001
terrorist fatalities were substantially lower than in the 1970's and 80's. For example, in 1975
terrorists murdered 252 residents of the UK, Belgium, France, Germany and Sweden. In 2015
the number of fatalities in these countries was 172, or 32 percent lower. In 1976 there were
354 terrorist victims, whereas in 2016 the total stood at 166, or 47 percent lower than they
were in 1976.

Another important dimension to be considered when examining terrorism threats in the EU
and UK concerns the distribution of attacks among Member States. As the graph below
demonstrates, the range of susceptibility to terrorist attacks among EU Member States and the
UK over the focus period (2000-2019) is very broad indeed. It extends from zero (no attacks) in
Luxembourg and Slovenia, to single digits in 10 EU Member States (Croatia, Estonia, Hungary,
Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia), to 787 attacks in the UK. Among
current EU Member States, only France, Germany, Greece, and Spain suffered more than 100
attacks over the entire focus period (2000-2019), with Ireland, Italy, and Sweden sustaining
between 45 and 96 attacks over the same period. This broad disparity in the experience of
Member State terrorism does not necessarily mean of course that common European concern
or coordinated counter-terrorism action is impossible, but it does mean that Member States
experience the realities of terrorist threats very differently and are likely to prioritize security
attention and resource allocation to this cluster of threat differently (see section 6 of the report
below).

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DISTRIBUTION OF TERROR ATTACKS AMONG EUROPEAN UNION
                              MEMBER STATES AND THE UK, 2000 -2019

                                                                                                                                     787
                                                             517
                                                 383

                                                                                                                          346
                                                       196

                                                                            96

                                                                                                                                78
                                                                       45

                                                                                                 24
      18

                                            18
                         17
                              15
           14
                14

                                   11
                     8

                                                                   5

                                                                                             5

                                                                                                      5
                                        3

                                                                                 2
                                                                                     2

                                                                                                          2

                                                                                                                  2
                                                                                                              1
                                                                                         0

                                                                                                                      0
                         Source: Global Terrorism Database

Three additional sets of observations complete the main empirical picture needed to provide
the basis for the subsequent qualitative analysis (presented in sections 4 and 5 below) and
policy-oriented insights (section 6 below). The first relates to the methods of attack deployed
by terrorists in the EU and UK, the second captures the animating motivations for such attacks,
and the third concerns the shifting patterns in the terms of the source of terrorism in different
periods – what we might call different "waves" of terrorism violence in Europe. The three
dimensions are closely related, since the actualization of terrorist attacks, and consequent
harm, entail two core dimensions: terrorist capacity and motivation (Ganor 2005). Shifts in
animating motivations (or ideologies driving terrorism) produce different patterns of terrorist
threats (Honig and Yahel 2017).

As the graph below documents, although a range of methods have been used in attacks in the
EU and UK over the focus period, three modes of attack stand out as preferred methods,
namely bombings, incendiary attacks, and shootings. This is significant in two main respects.
First, in contrast with melee or stabbing attacks, bombings and shootings in particular carry a
high potential for mass-casualty events. At the same time, the rarity of chemical, vehicular and
hijacking attacks in Europe and the UK are welcome indicators of the denial of such capacity to
would-be attackers. And second, the relative prevalence of a small number of methods of
attack mean that EU security officials and other agencies concerned to deny terrorist capacities,
can focus on those methods with greater precision. It is to be emphasized, however, that past
methods of attack do not necessarily predict future ones and that EU counter-terrorism efforts
require preparation and anticipation of terrorist innovation in, inter alia, methods of attack (see
section 6 below).

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Method of Attack in Six Most Vulnerable EU States and UK.
                                          2000-2019
      Hijacking
     Vehicular…
      Chemical…
        Melee
Hostage Taking
 Infrastructure
    Incendiary…
      Stabbing
      Bombing
      Shooting

                  0              200             400   600          800          1000           1200

 Source: Global Terrorism Database.

 Hijacking includes car, bus and plane attacks

Second, it is vital to distinguish between major motivating ideologies that drive terrorist activity
in the EU. As the graph below demonstrates, terrorist activity in the EU and UK has been
motivated by a range of animating ideological and religious forces, with a rather broad
distribution of animating ideologies. Somewhat counterintuitively, it is separatist (or
secessionist) ideology that has been the dominant animating force behind the largest share of
terrorist attacks in the EU and UK over the period 2000-2019 (44 percent of attacks). 17 pecent
of attacks have been motivated by radical Islam, followed by radical-right neo-Nazi ideology (10
percent), anarchist and radical-left (7 percent each) and anti-Muslim motivation (5 percent of
attacks). Anti-IRA, anti-Semitic, and radical animal-rights activist attacks complete the list.

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                 Page 20 of 64
Third and finally here, within the focus period (2000-2019) we can detect different "eras" or
"waves" of terrorist activity in the EU and UK, motivated by different animating ideologies.
While the demarcation lines between one "era" and another are never entirely clear cut,
distinguishing periods characterized by different animating ideologies provides us with an
important toolkit for better understanding, managing, and anticipating changes in terrorist
threats. Indeed, a rich body of existing research emphasizes shifting eras of political violence
and how transitions from one era to another are characterized by different formative events,
tactics, funding sources, and even use of media. In his seminal "The Four Waves of Modern
Terrorism", for example, David Rapaport suggested that the history of modern terrorism can
be divided into four different eras, or "waves". Rapaport defines a wave as "a cycle of activity
in a given time period, with international character; with similar activities occurring in different
regions, driven by a common prominent energy that shapes the participating groups" (Rapaport
2004, 47). In his analysis, Rapaport views the motivating ideology as the "common prominent
energy" but also observes that different waves bring with them different organizational and
operational features, such as sources of funding and tactics. The four waves he identifies are as
follows: the Anarchist Wave (1880-1920); the anti-Colonial Wave (1920-1960); the New Left
Terrorism (1960-1979); and the Islamist/Religious wave, which Rapaport saw as triggered by
the 1979 Iranian revolution and the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Building on
Rapaport's waves scheme, subsequent scholarship has suggested that the emergence of
"terrorist semi-states" (like Hezbollah, HAMAS, and ISIS in Iraq and Syria) represents a fifth-
wave of terrorism (Hong and Yahel 2017).

Over the period of focus (2000-2019) we can generally, and tentatively, identify three waves of
terrorism in the EU and UK. The period 2000-2002 captures the fading out of a wave of
terrorism which can be defined as a nationalist, independence, or secessionist wave, and that
primarily involved groups such as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) as well as Basque and Corsican
separatists using bombing and shooting tactics. A second wave can be defined as an al-Qaeda
orchestrated wave, and is concentrated between 2004 and 2007. What defines this short-sharp
wave is a relatively small number of highly organized, devastating attacks deploying
sophisticated bombs (Madrid 2004) and suicide-bombings (London 2007). The March 11 2004
Madrid train bombings involved nearly simultaneous, coordinated bombings against the
Cercanías commuter train system of Madrid, timed strategically to occur just three days before
Spain's general elections. The explosions killed 193 people and injured around 2,000. Similarly,
on July 7 2007, four suicide bombings were carried out on mass transport targets in London,
killing 52 people and injuring more than 950. Between 2007 and 2014 we enter a period with
no clearly defined primary motivating ideology, but rather disparate motivations – ranging from
Anarchist violence in Greece, to sporadic anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim attacks. Lastly, from
2014 onwards we identify a third wave of attacks, defined by a combined era of ISIS inspired
(often returning foreign fighter and "lone wolf") attacks – most notably in Paris, Nice, Brussels,
London, Manchester, Barcelona, and Berlin – coupled with rising neo-Nazi and other extreme-
right attacks. To more fully grasp these dual challenges of emergent terrorist threats to the EU,

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sections 4 and 5 delve into the populism far-right extremism nexus, and the returning fighters
dilemma, respectively. Tying these challenges to RECONNECT's conceptual framework, we
frame these sections in terms of test cases for democracy and the rule of law.

4. A Test Case for Democracy: Populism, Far-right
  Extremism, and Terrorism in Europe
Recent blows to the liberal order – the 2008 financial crisis, demographic decline and economic
stagnation in Europe and Japan, European fears of rising migration flows from Africa and the
Middle East, as well as the endemic risk of terrorism – have whipped up support for illiberal,
anti-establishment political parties and candidates across the developed world (Dalio et al.
2017). So far at least, organized challenges to the liberal order have primarily come not from
Islamist or other overtly authoritarian ideologies, but converge on variable forms of "populism"
emanating from both the far-left and far-right sides of the political spectrum (Snyer 2017).
Indeed, the vote share of populist, far-right, and far left parties in national elections for
European countries is now at its highest level since the early 1990s (Rooduijn et al., 2019).

 Source: Rooduijn, M., Van Kessel, S., Froio, C., Pirro, A., De Lange, S., Halikiopoulou, D., Lewis, P., Mudde, C. &
    Taggart, P. (2019). The PopuList: An Overview of Populist, Far Right, Far Left and Eurosceptic Parties in
                                           Europe. www.popu-list.org.

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                                Page 22 of 64
Populism is an amalgam of moralistic, discursive political propositions whose cumulative
meanings are fundamentally anti-liberal and corrosive to democratic values and institutions.4
They also happen to be deeply unhelpful – and in some instances outright toxic – to the
responsible management of, inter alia, terrorist threats. Putting aside the parallels between
"populism" and "terrorism" – as contested concepts, stigma-carrying terms, and historical
phenomena5 – there are five main constitutive political propositions that make up the core of
populism:

    1. Society is sharply separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups: "the pure
       people" and the "corrupt elites" ("the establishment"). Right wing populism often
       includes fringe groups at the bottom of society – immigrants, recipients of social-
       welfare, and religious minorities – in the castigated "out group" or "parasites" feeding
       off decent folk. The "pure, innocent, hard-working people" have been downtrodden and
       deprived of "their rights" by the corrupt elites and/or the "parasites". They must rise
       and take what rightfully belongs to them.

    2. Internationally too, society is divided sharply into "us" and "them". Economic, cultural,
       and security threats emanating from outsiders endanger "us" and deprive the people
       of their prosperity, equality, safety, "traditional values", culture, identity, and voice.
       Protectionism, nationalism, xenophobia, antagonism, propensity for conflict and
       militarism follow.

    3. There is no legitimate middle-ground or opposition. Populism is essentially anti-
       pluralist. Whoever opposes, or is suspected of not supporting the populists, is
       castigated as not being "part of the people" and, in extremis, to be "the enemy of the
       people".

    4. Conspiracy: The corrupt elites and outsiders (including immigrants) have conspired
       against "the people". The enemies are everywhere. There is something vast and
       shadowy going on behind the scenes. The political system is rigged and so is the

4
 The five-dimensions definition of populism below is drawn from a lecture given by Amichai Magen at the 2017
Special Meeting of the Mont Perelin Society titled "The Populist Threat to the Free Society and the Reconstruction
of the Liberal Project" (Stockholm, November 25-27, 2017).

5
  The terms "populism" and "terrorism" share several interesting, but for our purpose secondary, parallels. First,
they are actively contested concepts, currently "enjoying" great media, policy and scholarly attention. Within the
academic world both are the subject of diverging political, sociological, and legal interpretations see for example:
(Aslanidis 2016). Second, both "populism" and "terrorism" are morally-laden terms, often used to draw sharp
dividing-lines between opposing camps, place one camp on high moral grounds and brand the other as illegitimate
and criminal. Third, historically both phenomena tend to rise and ebb every several decades. For a detailed
discussion of the history, evolution, and diversity of scholarship on populism see: (Gidron and Bonikowski 2013)

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                               Page 23 of 64
economy ("corporations", banks, and "globalization" are especially culpable). The world
        is dangerous and hostile. Democracy is a sham, the security organizations that are
        meant to protect us are failing, the media lies. The populists are the only one who
        (bravely) expose the conspiracy and can fix it. "Political correctness", an oppressive tool
        of the elites, must be cast aside and "the truth" revealed. There is a permanent state of
        crisis and an apocalyptical confrontation between the forces of good and evil is coming.

    5. Solutions are simple. The singular common good of the people (the volonté générale)
       is clear and commonsensical, capable of being defined and implemented by "a strong
       leader" or "the party". What needs to be done is obvious and decisive, "no debate about
       values or weighing of empirical evidence is required (Müller 2016, 26)." Whoever
       opposes "the solution" harms the people and is therefore a traitor.

Populists advance the above moralistic, discursive claims when in opposition and typically
persist in blaming "entrenched elites", the media, and other nebulous enemies long after
coming to power and becoming the ruling elite themselves.

Just as importantly, populist politics and state-craft often involve certain practices and
institutional changes that are central to an analysis of the populism-terrorism nexus. Müller
identifies three sets of practices in this context: First, the "colonization of the state" which seeks
to bring core institutions of state-power (and potential sources of effective opposition) –
particularly the military, police, secret services, civil service, public media, prosecution and
judiciary – under the control of the leader or party. Second, "mass clientelism" which seeks to
remove opponents, reward loyalists, and (as in the case of Chavez's Venezuela) effectively build
up entire classes of regime supporters by bestowing material rewards on acolytes or exempting
"the righteous" from legal scrutiny – what Müller calls "discriminatory legalism". And finally,
populist state-craft tend to involve the harassing, or even coercive suppression of dissenting
NGO's, journalists, or other critical voices deemed to be "foreign agents" inconsistent with the
volonté Générale (Müller 2016, 44-48).

The populism-terrorism nexus

With the above constitutive elements and sets of practices in mind, we can begin to unpack the
populism-terrorism nexus. Specifically, it is possible to identify four main distinctive and
pernicious effects:

Creating perverse incentives to join radical identification and activity

The essential populist proposition, which divides society (domestic and international) into two
homogenous and antagonistic camps, risks greatly expanding the number of people
incentivized (pushed and pulled) into the orbit of radical ideology and action. The pool of

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potential jihadi sympathizers and recruits is vast, and extends to Muslims (including converts)
and other followers both within Western democracies and internationally.

The link between increased support for populist parties, anti-immigration and anti-Muslim
sentiments, is well established, particularly in Europe.6 The highest levels of anti-Muslim
migrant sentiments today are found in Hungary, Poland, and the Netherlands, which have all
experienced sharp rises in support for populist parties and candidates in the last decade (Wike
et al. 2016). More broadly, the platforms of right-wing political parties – such as "Alternative
for Germany", the "Party of Freedom" in the Netherlands, France's "National Front", the
"Freedom Party" in Austria, and "Jobbik" in Hungary – converge around measures to restrict
Muslim migration, partly in the name of ensuring security.

Somewhat ironically, radical Islamists and populists share an anti-pluralist stance as a key
dimension in their respective doctrines. Both advance an image of a world in which "the sons
of light and the sons of darkness" are not only absolutely and irreconcilably pitted against one
another, but are destined to clash in existential battle. Both insist that there is no neutral space
or middle-ground.

Perhaps the greatest success of free societies in the ongoing fight against terrorism, thus far at
least, is reflected in the relatively tiny number of acolytes Islamic radicals have managed to
recruit in the West. Even at the apex of their appeal, between 2011 and 2015, the total number
of foreign fighters travelling to the Middle East from Western countries to fight under the
banner of various radical Islamist groups did not exceed 5,000 individuals, and was probably
closer to 4,000.7 By maintaining pluralism, and avoiding forcing individuals with competing civic
and religious identities to make sharp choices among those competing identities, liberal-
democracy provides the vast majority of potential sympathizers of radical Islam with diffuse but
potent "opting out" possibilities from terrorism or terrorism-supporting activities – such as
participation in incitement, financing, recruitment, or providing logistical support for attacks.

At one important level, effective counter-terrorism is primarily about creating and
strengthening material and symbolic incentives – both sticks and carrots – for would-be
sympathizers of, or activists in, political violence, to eschew or exit such involvement. Liberal
democracies, though not entirely immune of course to radicalization and home-grown
terrorism, are in fact much better than illiberal, more authoritarian regimes, at minimizing
terrorist attacks and casualties. This is at least partly because they possess diffuse but powerful

6
    Anti-Muslim attitudes are often located on the far-right end of the political spectrum (Fangen and Nilsen 2020).

7
  Official US sources estimated that, worldwide, between 12,00 and 15,000 foreign fighters travelled to join Jihadist
activity by September 2014, but that of those between 15% and 25% emanated from Europe and North America
(see: Byman and Shapiro 2015). See also (Zelin 2013).

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                               Page 25 of 64
inhibitors to political violence. A key dimension in counter-terrorism strategy involves creating
and maintaining positive and negative incentives to reduce the number of individuals who enter
each of the above spheres (radicalization, mobilization, action). Populism risks creating and
exacerbating perverse incentives that would reverse the desired logic and increase the number
of individuals who enter each sphere. Effective counter-terrorism, in this sense, is
fundamentally a numbers-game, where the sum of individuals entering processes of
radicalization is minimized, and of those already radicalized the number of people graduating
to active terrorist involvement is further reduced by intelligent, measured intervention. The
first constitutive populist claim – that society is divided into homogenous and antagonistic
groups – works in diametrical opposition to this terrorism-reducing logic.

Deliberate preying on public fears to further political goals and the erosion of trust in public
security

The responsible management of terrorist threats requires that political and security decision-
makers pursue measured, empirically-based risk-analyses and policy responses. As part and
parcel of an effective counter-terrorism posture, moreover, leaders ought to assuage public
fears, inspire trust in the values and institutions of the liberal democratic state, nurture unity,
and promote hope for a safer more harmonious future for all members of society.

This involves the careful handling of intelligence information, supporting law and order
agencies while simultaneously holding them accountable for wrongful conduct, and signalling
to adversaries that society is resilient and united. It also entails the development and
maintenance of a credible political communication strategy that informs the public of existing
levels of threat while maintaining trust in the security apparatus of the state, encouraging the
continuation of normal economic and social life, and discouraging vigilantism or reprisals
against minority communities. And in the immediate aftermath of a terrorist attack, responsible
leadership requires the skilful balancing of rapid, decisive action and public reassurance with
the avoidance of knee-jerk reactions that are likely to prove counter-productive in the longer-
term.

The populist instinct for antagonism and conspiracy is antithetical to these goals. In pitching
"the People" against "corrupt elites", religious or ethnic minorities, and foreign bogeymen, the
temptation for populists to stoke public fears, accentuate internal differences, nurture a
permanent atmosphere of emergency, and encourage aggressive nationalism, xenophobia, and
militarism is often overwhelming.

Toxic consequences are likely to follow. The deliberate exaggeration of known terrorist
dangers, for example, exacerbates the problem of threat-distraction and cultivates a public
atmosphere of hyper-tension in which an inflated terror threat appears to be both omnipresent
and undefeatable. Prolonged periods of uninterrupted high-alert incur public health and

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                Page 26 of 64
economic costs, and may undermine long-term social resilience. The exaggeration of terrorist
dangers can also trigger policy changes and the reallocation of resources that are either wildly
out of kilter with the likelihood and severity of actual threats, or simply serve to advance some
aspect of the populists' political agenda – notably the extension of surveillance and arrest
powers, erosion of rule of law protections, and unwarranted anti-immigrant and anti-trade
measures. In an atmosphere of fear and mistrust, furthermore, "terrorism" can readily serve as
a catch-all excuse for a "strong leader" to stack intelligence services, the police, prosecution,
and courts with party loyalists, and suppress dissent. In Ergodan's Turkey and Putin's Russia, for
example, “terrorism” has come to mean making statements the government doesn’t agree
with, terrorist attacks exploited to crack down on unrelated dissidents, and anti-terror
legislation expanded and used systematically to target opposition politicians and journalists
(Matthews 2017; Weise 2016).

The dangerous fallacy of "magic bullet" solutions

Whereas populism's tendency to nurture conspiratorial and antagonistic views of the world
risks wrongly portraying the struggle against terrorism as omnipresent, eternal, and therefore
unwinnable – which it is not – its penchant for oversimplifying policy "solutions" opens another
set of hornet nests. An effective counter-terrorism ecology – whether local, national, or
international – is built on anything but silver bullet solutions; it is a complex system requiring
decades of careful development and constant adaptation. Indeed, the history of counter-
terrorism is scattered with policies whose simplicity and decisiveness were matched only by
the disastrousness of their outcomes. Nothing has done more harm to the U.S.'s moral
leadership or eased the recruitment effort of jihadists, for instance, than the revelations of Abu
Ghraib and the "extraordinary rendition" program in which foreign nationals suspected of
involvement in terrorism were transferred for detention and interrogation to countries (like
Egypt, Iraq, or Jordan) where, in the CIA's view, federal and international legal safeguards do
not apply.

Selling the illusion that terrorist threats can be neutralized quickly and decisively (Müller 2016,
26), is likely to undermine public resilience, cohesiveness, and trust. In the aftermath of a major
terrorist attack in a country whose leaders have been promising silver bullet solutions to
complex security threats, public morale is more likely to sink, public confidence in the security
and political establishment eroded, and the risk of vigilantism and reprisals – of citizens "taking
the law into their own hands" - increase. All these are potentially ruinous to the effective long-
term management of terrorist threats.

Populist state-craft erosion of democracy and the rule of law

We can identify distinct mechanisms by which populist politics and state-craft can manipulate
public fear of terrorist threats (real, inflated, or imaginary) in ways that undermine democratic

www.reconnect-europe.eu                                                                Page 27 of 64
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