The electoral impact of the attacks of march 11th in Madrid: explanatory mechanisms

The main objective of this work is to analyse the mechanisms through which the attacks occurring on March 11th 2004 in Madrid could have influenced citizen’s vote decisions and hence the results of the legislative elections held three days later in Spain. It is argued that the most probable hypothesis is that the attacks influenced the voting decisions of citizens through a combination of several mechanisms: (1) the indignation caused by the belief that the government had violated a series of moral norms when trying to manipulate information to obtain an electoral benefit and (2) the anger and indignation that arose from attributing the political responsibility for the attacks to the government due to its support of the USA during the Iraq War.