Aaron M. Hoffman

From the Interpersonal to the International: Understanding Commitment to the “War on Terror”

Applying constructs from the investment model used traditionally to understand interpersonal commitment, the present investigation seeks to elucidate social cognitive antecedents of commitment to the war on terror waged by the United States. In Study 1, satisfaction with, investments in, and alternatives to the war on terror predict levels of commitment to the war beyond several important control variables. In Study 2, levels of satisfaction with, investments in, and alternatives to the war are experimentally manipulated. The highest levels of commitment to the war are observed among participants exposed to a high satisfaction, high investment, and low alternatives scenario, and the lowest levels are among those exposed to a low satisfaction, low investment, and high alternatives scenario. These results support broadening the targets of commitment normally considered within the context of the investment model and suggest applying relational models to understanding broader societal concerns.

Press Freedom, Publicity, and the Cross-National Incidence of Transnational Terrorism

Publicity is central to terrorism, but demonstrating a link between press freedom and the targeting of attacks is challenging. There are several reasons for this: (1) studies do not distinguish between press freedom and press attention; (2) perpetrators use press freedom to weed out unacceptable targets rather than to determine which targets to attack; (3) only foreign, not domestic, perpetrators depend on press attention; and (4) foreign terrorists satisfy their desire for press attention by attacking powerful states. Our models confirm this argument about press freedom and national power even after controlling for executive constraints, polity, and foreign policy activity.

Voice and silence: Why groups take credit for acts of terror

Terrorism is designed to draw attention to particular issues and causes. Yet, the incidence of credit-taking (announcing one’s responsibility for acts of terror) varies even though anonymity can undermine the clarity of the intended messages. This article offers an explanation of the variation in credit-taking that emphasizes how the competitive context in which groups operate shapes terrorists groups’ need to cultivate support for their activities. Increasing numbers of terrorist organizations make it difficult for the supporters of terrorism to reward the perpetrators of particular attacks with their backing. Since such support is critical to the proper functioning of terrorist organizations, groups use claims of responsibility to distinguish themselves from those that had no hand in the violence. Consequently, variation in the probability of credit-taking fluctuates as a function of the number of active terrorist groups in a given theater of operations. This argument is contrasted with theories that suggest credit-taking is influenced by: the ideological mix of terrorist organizations; the willingness of governments to respond to terrorism using military force; state sponsorship; the depth of communal grievances; and the use of suicide attacks. The results, based on an analysis of transnational terrorism events conducted in the Israeli theater of operations between 1968 and 2004, suggest that competitive context is a consistently strong predictor of credit-taking. By implication, the results point to the utility of counter-terrorism strategies that interfere with the transmission of information between terrorist organizations and their supporters.

Satisfaction, Alternatives, Investments, and the Microfoundations of Audience Cost Models

In this paper, we suggest that the Investment Model of Commitment, developed in social psychology, offers a solution to an important microfoundational issue in audience cost theory. Audience cost models are useful for thinking about the foreign policy behaviors of democratic and nondemocratic states. However, they often assume that citizens reliably penalize leaders who break their foreign policy promises even though the empirical record suggests this is not always the case. We argue that public commitment to foreign policy assets and relationships is a precondition for the application of audience costs. Using the UN and NATO as case studies, we hypothesize that the commitments people develop to international organizations emerge as a function of (1) their satisfaction with the performance of the organization, (2) the investments in those organizations, and (3) an assessment of the alternatives to these associations. Correlational and experimental tests of the model confirm that the strongest individual-level commitments arise when people are highly satisfied with the performance of specific institutions, believe that much has been invested in support of them, and perceive that the alternatives to particular institutions are poor. Implications for the development of audience cost theory are discussed.

How Does the Business of News Influence Terrorism Coverage? Evidence From The Washington Post and USA Today

Observers argue that the business of news is responsible for worsening the coverage of terrorism, but exactly how economic considerations influence coverage is controversial. Based on an analysis of over 1600 articles from The Washington Post and USA Today, we find that concerns about the effects of economic pressures on terrorism reporting are exaggerated. The business climate affects coverage, but the long-term impact of market pressures on coverage is modest. Articles about terrorist violence are increasingly prominent, but coverage of counterterrorism remains robust. Efforts to inoculate the press against the worst excesses of the market are unnecessary.

The Strategic Development of Border Areas: Explaining Variation in Interaction Opportunity Across Land Borders

The ability to interact with others is a necessary condition for the emergence of both cooperative and conflictual interstate relations. Yet, the spaces separating states vary in terms of the opportunities they offer for contacts to take place: some borders are difficult to traverse, others are not. Building on Harvey Starr and G. Dale Thomass work on the permeability of land borders, we test the three most prominent hypotheses about the forces that shape cross-border interaction opportunities. The results confirm that that the desirability of trade influences the accessibility of borders. However, the anticipated relationship between state capacity and accessibility does not materialize clearly. Finally, our results suggest that governments invest in transportation infrastructure when facing threatening neighbors, resolving a debate over the relationship between mobility and security in favor of those who argue that accessible borders facilitate military defense.

Media effects: Do terrorist organizations launch foreign attacks in response to levels of press freedom or press attention?

Terrorists are supposed to be influenced by opportunities for news coverage, but does this mean that groups initiate foreign attacks in response to the absence of press freedom in their country or inattention to that state by foreign media organizations? Using Asal and Rethmeyer’s BAAD1 data on terrorist organizations, we find that increasing levels of attention by the international press reduce the odds of groups launching cross-border attacks. The propensity of groups to launch foreign attacks appears unrelated to press freedom. These results suggest that the protections that states provide for the press motivate foreign terrorism less than the way the media determines newsworthiness.

Norms, Diplomatic Alternatives, and the Social Psychology of War Support

Using experiments, we show that subjects who are asked about their support for war without being told about diplomatic strategies to deal with crises back military operations at levels consistent with people who are told that the alternatives to war are of low quality. In contrast, subjects who are told that diplomacy could work to resolve conflicts express less support for military operations. These results suggest that, in the absence of conflicting evidence, people premise their support for war on the assumption that leaders use force as a last resort. Implications for the study of success as an influence on public attitudes about US military operations are considered.

When the “Laws of Fear” Do Not Apply: Effective Counterterrorism and the Sense of Security from Terrorism:

We investigate how effective counterterrorism influences (1) confidence in government efforts to deal with terrorism and (2) the sense of insecurity from attacks. Research on “heuristic judgments” implies information about counterterrorism undercuts people’s perceived security from terrorism. Across three experiments, however, we find that people who are exposed to information about effective counterterrorism express more confidence in governments to protect citizens from future attacks and prevent future violence than those who did not receive these treatments. People who receive information about effective counterterrorism also show greater willingness to travel to locations where the risk of terrorism is prominent than those who are only exposed to material about terrorism. Finally, we find that counterterrorism information does not inevitably undermine government efforts to reassure people about their security. On the contrary, information about effective counterterrorism erased the effects of exposure to information about terrorism in one study.

The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism (review)

Vol. 30, No. 1 ♦ 2011 of the fundamentalist idea in their hands. Their radical activities pose new threats, and show that the Temple Mount will remain a focus of contention in the future. Inbari’s account of Israel’s foremost fundamentalists concentrates on their theology. His evenhanded account enables the reader to comprehend the logic of marginal groups, who are acting, as scholar Karen Armstrong expresses it, between the mythos and the logos. In keeping a critical distance and listening carefully to what those radical groups have to say, Inbari has rendered an important service to the study of Israeli society and of fundamentalism in general. At the end of his book he allows himself to express his anxiety regarding the “true believers” he has encountered. Following historian Jacob Katz, he mentions that messianism is a problematic blueprint for a modern state, and the tensions between desire for salvation and the actual capability to negotiate everyday life in a complex, multiethnic and, more important in this context, multi-denominational society may have important implications for the future of Israel. Inbari’s concerns are shared by many in Israel. Michael Feige Ben-Gurion Research Institute Ben Gurion University of the Negev