Rampage Shootings and Gun Control

Front matter

ROUTLEDGE RESEARCH IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS

Rampage Shootings and Gun Control

Politicization and Policy Change in Western Europe

Introduction

Rampage shootings, politicization and policy change

2.1 Rampage shootings as potential focusing events & 2.2 Conceptualizing politicization 11 2.3 Conceptualizing policy change 12

The impact of focusing events on public policy

3.1 Theoretical frameworks on the political process 17 3.2 The politics of gun policy 22

3.3 Typologies of crises and disasters 24

3.4 Rampage shootings in the academic literature 26

3.5 Beyond rampage shootings: findings on event-related policy change 31 3.6 Research gap and research promise 34

Theorizing conditions for politicization, policy change and stability

4.1 Theoretical expectations on the politicization of gun control 41

4.2 Theoretical expectations on policy change and stability 48

4.3 Summary of the theoretical expectations 55 viii

Contents

How to study the political impact of rampage shootings

5.1 Scope conditions 59

5.2 Case identification procedure 63

5.3 Pool of cases and some background information 65

5.4 The methodology of (fS) OCA 67

5.5 QCA: a primer on terminology and technique 69

5.6 The varying applicability of QCA in the present research context 74

Paths to the (non-)politicization of gun control

6.1 Operationalization, measurement and descriptive information 80

6.2 Set calibration 82

6.3 Analysis of necessity 85

6.4 Analysis of sufficiency 92

6.5 Summary of the findings on politicization 103

When laws bite the bullet (and when they do not)

7.1 Great Britain 109

7.2 Germany 115

7.3 Finland 128

7.4 France 136

7.5 Austria 139

7.6 Switzerland 143

7.7 Belgium 147

7.8 Comparative assessment 151