Terrorist events, emotional reactions, and political participation: the 2015 Paris attacks

Abstract:

The impact of terrorist events on attitude formation and change among mass publics has been well established in political research. Still, no individual-level study has examined the impact of terrorist attacks on political participation.

This article aims to fill that gap. Drawing on theories of affect, it is predicted that fear stemming from a terrorist attack will increase motivation to seek out political information, yet will have a negative effect on actual participation. On the contrary, anger will hinder information seeking but will boost the intention to participate in political rallies.

These hypotheses are tested using data from a two-wave panel study that collected one wave before and a second wave after the January 2015 Paris attacks, and from one cross-sectional study carried out soon after the November 2015 attacks.