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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Montclair State University Digital Commons Montclair State University Montclair State University Digital Commons Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship Department of Justice Studies and Creative Works Winter 1-1-2010 Balancing Fear: Why Counter-Terror Legislation was Blocked after the Oklahoma City and London Bombings Gabriel Rubin Montclair State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/justice-studies-facpubs Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons, Military, War, and Peace Commons, Other Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons, Peace and Conflict Studies Commons, and the Terrorism Studies Commons MSU Digital Commons Citation Rubin, Gabriel, "Balancing Fear: Why Counter-Terror Legislation was Blocked after the Oklahoma City and London Bombings" (2010). Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 26. https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/justice-studies-facpubs/26 Published Citation Rubin, Gabriel. "Balancing fear: why counter-terror legislation was blocked after the Oklahoma City and London Bombings." Historia Actual Online 22 (2010): 125-142. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Justice Studies at Montclair State University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works by an authorized administrator of Montclair State University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. HAOL, Núm. 22 (Primavera, 2010), 125-142 ISSN 1696-2060 BALANCING FEAR: WHY COUNTER-TERROR LEGISLATION WAS BLOCKED AFTER THE OKLAHOMA CITY AND LONDON BOMBINGS Gabriel Rubin Montclair State University, United States of America. E-mail: [email protected] Recibido: 23 Marzo 2010 / Revisado: 30 Abril 2010 / Aceptado: 8 Mayo 2010 / Publicación Online: 15 Junio 2010 Abstract: This article scrutinizes the legislative chief executive gathers additional powers for reactions to the Oklahoma City Bombing and himself, and civil liberty-abridging counterterror the 2005 London Bombings to try to decipher legislation is easily passed. This supposedly why counter-terror legislation was substantially archetypal response to terrorism is not as blocked after these attacks. It finds that the common as many have come to believe. Indeed, partisan composition of the government and many times the chief executive has attempted to executive approval ratings are critical to the pass new legislation after a terror attack only to passage of counter-terror laws. In light of the find himself stifled by the parliament or recent slew of counter-terror legislation passed legislature. This article explores such cases. worldwide, cases where counter-terror legislation has been blocked have become What happens when legislation forwarded by critically important. To this end, this article the executive gets blocked by the legislature asks, “Why does counter-terror legislation get after terrorist attacks? The theory supported blocked when it does?” To answer the question, here holds that the executive is presented with three variables are tested: partisan composition an opportunity by the crisis created by a terrorist of the government, public opinion-based mass attack, but that he is constrained by levels of fear levels, and executive approval ratings. To mass fear, public satisfaction ratings, and test the variables, two cases are evaluated: the political institutions. passage of diluted counter-terror legislation after the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995 and after This article will be organized in the following the 2005 London Bombings. In evaluating the manner. First, the theory will be summarized. cases, legislative debates and executive Second, why the passage of counter-terror statements that occurred after the terror attacks legislation should be expected in the UK Blair are examined and then compared to cases from case will be examined. the UK in 1974 and the US in 2001 where counter-terror legislation quickly passed. The Third, the case of Tony Blair’s own Labour article concludes that executive approval ratings Party blocking his counter-terror legislation after and the partisan composition of the government the 7 July 2005 London bombings will be have the most explanatory power in determining investigated. Fourth, the case of the Oklahoma whether terror attacks will lead to broad counter- City bombing, where the Republican Party terror legislation or not. blocked Bill Clinton’s counter-terror legislation Keywords: London bombings, counter-terror for over a year, will be examined. legislation, USA, United Kingdom. ______________________ The Oklahoma City case will bolster findings from the Tony Blair case. Finally, conclusions n our post-9/11 world, democratic about why we see variation in the passage of governments’ responses to terror attacks are civil liberty-abridging legislation, the central Iviewed as predictable. An attack occurs, the question of this study, will be stated. polity convulses in a fit of rage and fear, the © Historia Actual Online 2010 125 Balancing Fear Gabriel Rubin 1. THE DESCRIPTION OF THEORY is, something that occurs outside of the governmental process. It gets the process going, After a terrorist attack occurs, the government but does not determine how that process will seems to convulse in a quick and forceful transpire. An important point made by this reaction. But the theory that is forwarded and study is that the nature of legislative responses supported here shows that the process of to terror attacks cannot be predicted by the reaction is much more complex and that those nature of the attack or by the number of reactions vary much more greatly than public fatalities. The limited reaction to the 7 July perception holds. As depicted in Figure 1, the bombings in London, the 2004 bombings in theory begins with the terrorist attack. That Madrid, and numerous other attacks are attack is viewed as an exogenous variable, that testament to that fact. Figure 1: The Depiction of the Theory Executive Legislative Response and Passage of Attack Support Threat-Shaping Legislation (DV) Crisis (Int.V) (IV) X Legislative Public Opinion/ Enforcement of Opposition Mass Fear Law (DV) (Int.V) X Political Institutions The executive’s role, the independent variable, The executive’s response and threat-shaping has two components. First is what I call the strategies are constrained by two broad factors. executive response. At this stage the executive First is public opinion/mass fear. In this study, decides generally how to respond to the attack. mass fear levels, public willingness to forego He could try to seek new legislation, seek to liberties and executive approval ratings as well deport immigrants (among other options) or as other factors are measured using public not seek to respond at all. The executive opinion trend analysis. These factors work forwards his plan by employing the second either to constrain or to enable executive component of the independent variable: action. The second constraint variable is executive threat-shaping. Executive threat- political institutions. This variable shaping, defined simply as how the encapsulates the following three factors: government’s chief executive shapes the terror whether a government is run by a presidential threat, is the mechanism by which the or parliamentary system, level of partisan executive pushes his counter-terrorist agenda. competition and government Though this study is focused solely on the civil composition/party in power. Though all of implications of this strategy, the way that the these constraint variables will be looked at, executive attempts to shape the terror threat two will be shown to have especially strong colors the state’s international response to explanatory power: approval of the executive terror as well. Note that a critical distinction in and the government’s partisan composition. executive threat-shaping strategies is whether The legislature, the theory’s intervening the leader shapes the threat as an act of war or variable, enters the picture in the next stage of a crime. the process. It can either support or block the 126 © Historia Actual Online 2010 Gabriel Rubin Balancing Fear executive’s proposed legislation. If it attempts legislation that had been blocked by parliament to block the new counter-terror laws, an in Blair’s eight-plus years in power to that interplay between the executive and legislature date. may occur wherein the executive tries to push the legislature to pass new legislation by Second, the Bush administration successfully shaping the threat accordingly. This give-and- passed extensive counter-terror law after the take is depicted by the dashed line in Figure 1. terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. If a The final stage is passage of civil liberty- system that has many more checks on abridging legislation and enforcement of civil executive power was able to pass legislation, liberty-abridging legislation. These two then we can infer that the Blair government outcomes are the dependent variables of this should have been able to push through its bill. theory. Third, the United Kingdom has a much more extremist Muslim population than does the 2. WHY SHOULD WE EXPECT United States. For one, recall the arrests of 24 LEGISLATION TO PASS IN THE suspected terrorists who allegedly were LONDON BOMBINGS CASE? plotting to blow up ten airliners flying from London to the United States on 10 August Why should we expect counter-terror 2006.1 Further, a 2006 poll in the London legislation to have been passed after the Telegraph found that 4 in 10 British Muslims bombings of 7 July 2005? There are myriad wanted Islamic Law implemented in the reasons why we should expect legislation to United Kingdom; that same year a poll in the have passed in this case. First, in the British Sunday Times found that 1 in 5 British system the prime minister controls Muslims sympathized with the London government. That means that as long as the bombers2.

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