The Impact of Terrorism on Civil Servants: Longitudinal Evidence from the 22 July 2011 Attack in Norway

Abstract

Building on a growing literature assessing the societal impact of terrorism, this article analyzes whether and how a terror attack targeting public institutions affects civil servants in their day-to-day work. This is an important question to enhance our understanding of how terrorism can (or cannot) affect the operation of core government functions. Theoretically, the study contributes to a broader account of the political consequences of terrorism by combining insights from social identity and organization theory. Empirically, we exploit a two-wave survey fielded before and after the 2011 terror attack in Norway, which allows us to study the same civil servants (N = 186) before and after this event. While terrorists wish to disrupt public institutions, our findings indicate that a terror attack targeting core government institutions strengthens internal cohesion and increases attention to political signals in work tasks. We discuss implications of these effects for the functioning of democratic government.