SGER: The Attack on America, Civil Liberties Trade-offs and Ethnic Tolerance

Michigan State University, East Lansing MI

Investigators

Abstract

This project, submitted under the Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) program, will examine public attitudes toward civil liberties following the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In particular, the researchers will conduct a national survey to probe how public anxiety and fear influence support for civil liberties and personal freedom. The survey will ask whether respondents are willing to limit their own personal freedom, the freedom of people who are like them, or those who are different from them. It is exactly the fact that efforts to constrict personal freedom are motivated by a threat to public safety that allows the researchers to question whether people are differentially committed to civil liberties norms. The study will test whether during a time of widespread social anxiety, people view civil liberty standards as universal or instead as more of a way to constrain the behavior of others - in particular those who are viewed as different from the respondent in ethnicity, race, or citizenship.