A Continuum of Nation-State Resiliency to Watershed Terrorist Events

Abstract

This article is a qualitative analysis of nation-state population “resiliency” to several spectacular and/or highly symbolic terrorist assaults that were watershed events. It draws heavily from qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) frameworks to isolate and identify the presence of what Goertz calls the “secondary dimensions” of a “primary concept” such as resiliency to terrorist assaults. In turn, the presence of those secondary dimensions and their strength presuppose and derive from “tertiary indicators” that are the basic metrics and concrete manifestations of those secondary dimensions. The nation-states under consideration include the London bombings of 2005, the United States for 9/11, the Madrid bombings of 2004, the first suicide bombings within pre-1967 boundaries of Israel, and the Russian Federation in the case of the 2002 terrorist assault against the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow. The results serve as the basis for the development of a “resiliency continuum” of nation-states where placement of those countries on the continuum reflect “nonresilient,” “semiresilient,” and “resilient” conditions, themselves defined by the number of secondary dimensions found in each case study. In the process, the analysis illuminates possible interconnections between “context specific” factors, such as a country’s historical experience with terrorism and population characteristics (e.g., education levels, degree of heterogeneity) to the resiliency or nonresiliency condition, and describes possible links between exogenous “systems factors” such as war and power ranking to the resiliency condition.