Abstract
Terrorism often leads to increased stigmatization of groups perceived as “out-groups”. We test two versions of out-group theory and ask whether citizens clearly distinguish between radical Muslims and Muslims in general, or if the fear of terrorism is associated with a general distrust of Muslims? We conducted a survey experiment among Norwegian citizens designed to determine the effect of group treatments on the participants’ attitudes towards wiretapping. We find that our group treatments strongly influence the participants’ attitudes towards wiretapping. However, the hypothesis that the fear of terrorism leads to a backlash against Muslims in general is rejected. Still, Norwegians are prepared to give the police leeway towards the two groups identified by the police as the greatest security risks, i.e., radical Muslim and extreme right-wing groups. Our evidence suggests that citizens are capable of discriminating between groups who aim explicitly at undermining democracy and groups perceived as different from themselves.
Highlights
Fear and intimidation are crucial components characterizing acts of terror (Wilkinson 1992)
The results indicate that Norwegians are highly willing to permit the Police Security Service (PST) to wiretap people’s phones to prevent terrorist attacks
We investigated whether attitudes towards wiretapping are conditional depending on the target of the wiretapping
Summary
Fear and intimidation are crucial components characterizing acts of terror (Wilkinson 1992). Fighting fear can be a crucial component of counterterrorist policies (Christensen and Aars 2017a, b). These policies can be affected by citizens’ psychological reactions to acts of terror. According to previous US studies, citizens react very differently to terror incidents, and diverging psychological reactions have different political consequences (Huddy et al 2005; Huddy and Feldman 2011). The travel ban targeted a distinct group of people, i.e., Muslims, and limited their freedom of movement regardless of whether they posed a threat. In the face of a terrorist threat, do people project their fear onto collective groups, such as Muslims in general?
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