To Blame or to Support? Large-scale Insurgent Attacks on Civilians and Public Trust in State Institutions

While there is a substantial body of literature on the consequences of terror attacks on public attitudes toward state institutions in Western democracies, little is known about the impact that such events have in the context of armed conflict. We address this gap by exploring the attitudinal effects of a 2012 Taliban attack on civilians in Kabul City, Afghanistan. We test two competing hypotheses: the “rally-effect” hypothesis according to which individuals increase their trust in incumbent institutions in the aftermath of violent attacks and the “accountability” hypothesis according to which individuals punish state institutions for their inability to provide security by withdrawing trust. Leveraging a quasi-experiment that compares individuals interviewed before the attack to individuals interviewed thereafter, we find that the attack—in line with the rally-effect hypothesis—increased trust in several state institutions among residents of Kabul City.