European Union, transnational terrorism and the strategic choice of counterterrorism policies in democratic countries
| Author | Mario Gilli,Paolo Tedeschi |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14651165221120370 |
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Union,
transnational terrorism and
the strategic choice of
counterterrorism policies
in democratic countries
Mario Gilli
Department of Economics, Management and Statistics,
University of Milan-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
Paolo Tedeschi
Department of Economics, Management and Statistics,
University of Milan-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
Abstract
There are two main categories of counterterrorism policies: proactive and defensive mea-
sures. Proactive policies directly target terrorists and, by weakening their ability, share
public good features. Defensive measures, on the other hand, seek to protect a potential
target. Unilateral defensive measures may induce terrorists to replace one target with
another, possibly a foreign one, as confirmed by the succession of terrorist attacks in
the European Union over the last 20 years. We analyse different institutional frameworks
to determine the best one for interstate cooperation considering the externationalites of
various counterterrorism measures. This article highlights the combined effect of voter
propensity towards defensive policies, certain intelligence policies and different institu-
tional scenarios on the (in)efficient strategic choice of counterterrorism defensive policies
in democratic countries, where efficiency means maximising the joint welfare of countries.
We consider four different institutional scenarios: decentralisation, intelligence cooper-
ation, unanimous political cooperation and full political union. We model these situations
as a three-stage signalling game and show that, surprisingly, intelligence cooperation
increases the probability of efficient defensive policies more than unanimous political
cooperation.
Corresponding author:
Mario Gilli, Department of Economics, Management and Statistics, Center for European Studies, University of
Milan-Bicocca, Piazza Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milan, Italy.
Email: mario.gilli@unimib.it
Article
European Union Politics
2022, Vol. 23(4) 612–638
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14651165221120370
journals.sagepub.com/home/eup
Keywords
Counterterrorism, democracy, efficiency, transnational institutional scenarios,
transnational terrorism
Introduction
Transnational terrorism and counterterrorism policies are particularly important in
Europe. In the period 2010–2016, more than 300 people were killed in jihadist attacks
in the European Union (EU), and since 2015 a new wave of jihadist terrorism hit
European countries.
1
The first attacks occurred in France, a few months later in Belgium and in December
2016 in Germany. Facing an increase in terrorism and other serious crimes, the EU and its
member states decided to better organise the institution’s counterterrorism policy. On 28
June 2016, the EU Global Strategy (hereafter EUGS) was adopted to improve the effect-
iveness of counterterrorism defensive policies in EU member countries (Bigo et al., 2015;
EUGS, 2016). However, EU member states continued to have front-line responsibility for
security. Although 16 people were killed on 17 August 2017 in Barcelona, casualties
decreased by 52% after 2016, from 168 in 2016 to 81 in 2017. Between January and
October 2018, fewer than 10 victims linked to jihadist terrorism were recorded in
Europe. Yet, despite the decrease in the number of victims, the number of attacks and
arrests increased: 16 jihadist terrorist plots were foiled in the EU in 2019, which suggests
that the EU counterterrorism policies are effective.
This situation raises two research topics that are jointly addressed in this article for the
first time: the analysis of the determinants of governments’reactions to counterterrorism
and the search for institutional cooperation that maximises the overall welfare of coun-
tries while reducing terrorist threats. In general, governments’counterterrorism policies
can be: (a) military, treating the fight against terrorist organisations as a form of
warfare; (b) police-based, treating terrorism as a form of criminal activity to be detected
and then defeated using the criminal justice system (the existing or a specially modified
version); (c) political, considering terrorism as a form of armed rebellion to be resolved
through negotiation and political process (Fenwick, 2008). The starting point of this ana-
lysis is that EU members are democratically accountable to their national citizens but
cannot effectively address transnational threats by acting alone, due to the externalities
involved in counterterrorism policies. It is well known that there are two main categories
of counterterrorism policies, namely proactive and defensive. Sandler and Lapan (1988)
were the first to introduce the distinction between proactive and defensive counterterror-
ism measures, focusing on the externalities generated by defensive measures. Proactive
measures directly weaken the terrorists’ability to operate, as a kind of public good.
On the other hand, defensive measures seek to protect a potential target. Therefore, uni-
lateral defensive measures may induce terrorists to replace one target with another, pos-
sibly a foreign one. Thus, although countries may decide their counterterrorism policies
independently, the results of these decisions are interdependent and potentially lead to
inefficient results,
2
that is, they do not maximise the common welfare of countries.
Gilli and Tedeschi 613
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