Civil Liberties versus National Security - Political Tolerance in the United State in the post-September 11 period

Abstract

Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, America’s commitment to national security increased, Americans seem to have become increasingly willing let their commitment to civil liberties diminish in favor of increased national security. Thus Americans may have become more willing to support policies that target certain groups so long as such policies have at least a perceived national security benefit. To test this hypothesis I constructed an experiment design in which security policy targeted increasingly specific group and the experiments was conducted by jury pools in the United States. Included in these experiments were a number of demographic and attitudinal measures which allowed me to compare support for targeted policies to given particular characteristics of respondents. At the aggregate level, I find that respondents were largely unwilling to express support for increasingly targeted policies. However, at the individual level, I find that certain demographic and attitudinal characteristics do tend to correlate with a willingness to express support for targeted policies.