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Why does the public care more about some terrorist attacks than others? In recent years, there has been a wave of terrorist attacks carried out by similar terrorist organizations, but these attacks have produced disparate public responses. Existing research shows that terrorist attacks are more traumatic for people who live near terrorist targets, but this research cannot explain differences in public attitudes about attacks occurring in other countries. We argue that threat perceptions are shaped by the physical and personal proximity of terrorist attacks. The identities of the victims are rarely known. People impute the characteristics of victims based on the country where the attack occurred. These perceived identities determine the empathy people feel toward victims and affect perceptions of terrorist threats. People feel a greater sense of vulnerability when attacks occur near their borders. We test these arguments using a series of online experiments. We find that the location of the attack and the race and nationality of the victims drive threat perceptions.

Scholars assume that transnational terrorism has culminated in policy securitization with expansive restrictions on migration. I evaluate the impact of transnational terrorism on asylum recognition among European Union and Schengen member-states from 1980 until 2007. I unpack the impact of terrorism according to the location of incidents. The article illustrates that policy tightening is more pronounced when recipient states experience terrorism on their own soil or against their citizens. In contrast, measuring transnational terrorism as attacks worldwide mutes the impact of security concerns. The findings show that policy stringency is not directed against particular sources of terrorism and demonstrates that the humanitarian principles underpinning asylum recognition have not been eroded by terrorism. The article thus represents an important step in differentiating between channels of impact whereby transnational terror shapes policy outcomes.

This paper examines the relationship between states’ migration control policies and human trafficking in origin, transit and destination states. Using cross-sectional data on states’ visa policies for 192 states and indicators for human trafficking from the Global Patterns report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the paper analyses feedback mechanisms between policies and trafficking. The empirical evidence suggests that, contrary to the pessimistic predictions of policy scholarship, the feedback is characterised by a virtuous mechanism. Firstly, the results show that, in line with expectations of security studies, states tighten visa policies in response to trafficking threats. Origin and transit states face a greater number of restrictions on travel. Similarly, destination states of trafficking impose tighter controls. Secondly, visa restrictions against origin and transit countries mitigate trafficking from and through these states. Finally, the paper demonstrates that the vicious effect whereby stricter policies exacerbate trafficking pertains mostly to destination states’ visa policies and to visas imposed at borders.

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