As the Westminster system cannot function as a model for all parliamentary systems, two non-Anglo-Saxon cases, Germany and France, provide additional opportunities to assess how variations in government structure affect counterterrorism policymaking in these countries. At the national level, the type of legislature and electoral system, inter alia, determines the balance of power between the branches of government and results in varying degrees of centralized parliamentary or presidential systems of representation. While state and local governments have little independent power in France or Britain, they possess significant veto powers in the federal system of Germany. Moreover, the existence or absence of vertical power-sharing arrangements determines how national governments connect and coordinate reforms with their regions and states.
So far, existing literature also does not provide for this kind of comprehensive cross-national analysis of how government structures shape policy responses in one specific policy area. This issue-specific focus can help distinguish variations in structural effects across all four countries as well as differences in government capabilities within systems. That executivelegislative balances and decision-making processes can change depending on the nature of the policy issue15 is particularly obvious in the French and German cases. Issues regarding national security policy translate into more informal powers for the French president and result in higher structural barriers in the German case, where the Länder (states) gain important veto powers through the upper house, the Bundesrat.16
Systematic research on the effects of government structures and capabilities has been hampered by the fact that they cannot be “observed and measured directly.”17 As noted by Peter Gourevitch, only “big events in world politics provide students of international relations and comparative politics with the closest thing to a natural experiment.”18 Recognizing that the cataclysmic events of 9/11 offer a unique opportunity for such a quasiexperimental research design, this book uses the attacks as a benchmark for comparative analysis. Indeed, the attacks offer an unusually clear opportunity to see government structures at work. Confronted with a new level of terrorist threat, Western-style democracies have been reorienting their focus toward the same problem at the same time. Beyond their initial counterterrorism responses in 2001, an examination of domestic counterterrorism reforms adopted between 2002 and 2013 offers additional insights on structural effects and opportunities for weighing political and bureaucratic factors vis-à-vis structural explanations. During this twelve-year time frame, inter alia, two additional terror attacks occurred in Madrid and London; various other terrorist plots were staged; new governments came to power in all four countries; and the Bush and Obama administrations governed under both unified and divided government conditions in the United States.
The focus on domestic counterterrorism is neither arbitrary nor coincidental. The research opportunity provided by the 9/11 events is further enhanced by the fact that—while reorienting their focus—all four states have paid particular attention to reforming their institutional and operational counterterrorism capacities.19 Specifically, these four states have all targeted their own domestic policies and institutional designs to improve (1) intelligence gathering, analysis, and dissemination; (2) information sharing within the intelligence and counterterrorism community; and (3) coordination among security agencies. The domestic focus is all the more relevant, as international counterterrorism responses are not only often decided outside the legislative realm but also tend to be more classified and less affected by civil liberty restraints.
Policy literature typically describes the broad evolution of domestic and foreign counterterrorism responses in individual countries, highlighting methods that are unique to national counterterrorism arsenals, but the literature lacks a systematic comparison of their approaches.20 By contrast, I seek to identify corresponding institutions and practices in all four countries and point out those that exist in some but not all national counterterrorism arsenals. A comprehensive analysis of decision-making processes and resulting security architectures, as well as the political cultures they represent, further helps determine whether certain best practices represent appropriate or viable solutions for other government systems. Dissecting domestic decision-making processes and resulting responses should help improve mechanisms needed to forge counterterrorism responses within and among these four allies and NATO member states. However, it is also crucial with regard to counterterrorism cooperation within Europe. European Union counterterrorism institutions lack executive authorities and remain mostly excluded from day-to-day counterterrorism matters, as operational cooperation remains based on bi- or multilateral arrangements between countries.
To this effect, I also seek to clear up common misperceptions about domestic counterterrorism efforts that—depending on the U.S. or European perspective—are considered too lax or over the top. From a European standpoint, the 2001 U.S.A. Patriot Act and colossal bureaucratic creations like the U.S. Department of Homeland Security represent examples of executive power grabs after the 9/11 attacks and a checks-and-balances system gone awry. On the other side of the transatlantic divide, U.S. officials and lawmakers have continuously warned about “extremists from visa-waiver countries, who are merely an e-ticket away from the United States”21 and the threats to the United States that come from Europe due to countries’ lax security provisions.22 According to popular opinion, overall U.S. and European approaches to terrorism since the 9/11 attacks could not be more different. However, a closer look at post-9/11 responses in the domestic counterterrorism arena illustrates that reform objectives have actually been very similar in the United States and three of its closest NATO allies (also known as Europe’s “Big Three”), Great Britain, Germany, and France.
While European states did not suffer an attack on 9/11, the impact of the events was considerable; subsequently, there have been more attacks in Europe. Indeed, since 9/11, Jihadi terrorism is viewed as a major security threat in all four countries.23 The number of casualties and the way the attacks were executed showed a new threat requiring new methods and answers. Even though the three European states have dealt with domestic terrorism in the past24 and these experiences resulted in reforms, they have reviewed or even revised these “older” institutional arrangements and policies.
Whereas I recognize that some of their policy inheritances and past experiences may have affected French, British, and German responses after 9/11, it is important to note that countries’ approaches are not judged by the quantity and scope of their responses per se. Rather, the focus is on the question of what the nature and extent of the reforms can tell us about the workings of government structures. Interestingly, the list of domestic counterterrorism reforms continues to grow in all three countries—not only after 9/11 but also long after the 2004 Madrid and 2005 London attacks. That being said, the latter observation is not supposed to indicate a preference for government action or other prescriptive considerations. I do not assume that any responses are needed, nor am I seeking to provide normative judgments regarding the effectiveness or extremeness of countries’ counterterrorism policies.
The rest of the book is organized as follows. Chapter 1 synthesizes the conceptual approaches of the structural school, outlines the theoretical models of the bureaucratic and cognitive schools of thought, and explains methodology and definitional considerations. Chapters 2, 3, 4, and