Rally ’round which flag? Terrorism’s effect on (intra)national identity

Exploiting a unique panel of student respondents surveyed both shortly before and after the March 2016 bombings in Brussels, this paper analyzes the effects of terrorism on social identities and preferences over security policy. Social identification—including individuals’ feelings of connection to social groups such as countries or regions—is often considered a possible determinant of political and economic preferences. In turn, it is widely supposed that social identities may be subject to influence by acts of terror; indeed, our respondents report stronger connections to Belgium after the attacks than before. Problems with endogeneity and causality can confound analyses of those relations. Our novel pre- and post-attack responses help disentangle causality between terror and country connection: respondents feeling affected severely by the attacks show stronger connections ex-post at the country level, but close ex-ante connections do not predict stronger feelings of affectedness. Feelings of terrorism’s influences also correlate significantly with preferences over security policy and police resourcing, unmediated by jurisdictional connections.