Responding Non-Violently to ETA’s Violence: The Motivations and Emotions of Victims of Terrorism in Spain

Terrorism studies have devoted considerable attention to the motivations and emotions of perpetrators but far less to those of victims of terrorism. This articles fills this gap by analyzing the reasons why victims of ETA’s terrorism in Spain avoided resorting to violence despite their grievances and victimization. Victims of ETA’s terrorism experienced injustice, distrust, vulnerability, helplessness, and superiority: a set of shared beliefs that in other contexts led individuals to engage in violence. However, victims of ETA’s terrorism did not respond violently, many of them also engaging in social mobilization and protest. The article analyzes how victims channeled their emotions after their victimization so that self-control prevailed when feelings of rage and revenge arose. This analysis confirms that individuals are not merely recipients of stimuli, but active constructors of meanings. It also allows to contrast the rationality and emotionality of the victims’ response to terrorism with that of their victimizers.