Terrorism, threat and time: The mediating effect of terrorist threat on public willingness to forego civil liberties

Abstract

Public trust in government efforts to combat terrorism is of central importance to policy makers and terrorists alike. Undermining the public's confidence in its government is a central aim of any strategy of terrorism, while public support is critical to securing funding for, and acceptance of, counterterrorism measures. This article uses two national surveys of Australians, carried out over the last four years, to study the role of public confidence in government through the willingness of citizens to allow the police to search, without a court order, the homes of suspected terrorists, the impact of perceived personal threat, and the probability of future terrorist attacks on Australia. The results indicate that there is a strong relationship between public fear of terrorism, and the willingness of the public to allow the erosion of civil liberties for increased security, leading to the conclusion that the greater the perceived personal threat of terrorism the public has, the more likely the public is to accept infringements of civil liberties, which could undermine the existing arrangements of liberal democracy and potentially play into terrorist aims, while the perceived probability of a future terrorist attack on domestic soil acts as a significant mediating factor, which decreases during periods with no high-visibility terrorist attacks.