Terrorism’s psychological effects cannot be cleanly separated from other conflict factors

Evidence

Researchers are divided on the question of how serious the psychological effects of terrorism have been in Northern Ireland. (This case is a reminder that it is difficult to isolate the effects of terrorism from those of other conflicts, social prejudice, and government countermeasures.) On the one hand, Fields (1980) and Fraser (1973) argue that terrorism has produced dramatic consequences, especially in the children of Northern Ireland. To Fraser children are being socialized into “a perpetual chaotic state of imminent violence” (p. 8). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4174

Categorization

• QUESTION: The methodological difficulty of isolating terrorism’s effects from broader conflict and state countermeasures is a genuinely unresolved empirical puzzle worth probing further.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4174
• XREF: connects to: Civil war and terror are causally heterogeneous across regimes, defying single theories — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 789