Collaborative Research: The Effects of Terrorist Threats on Democratic Support in Liberal and Illiberal Democracies

国际恐怖主义的威胁是现代一个突出且日益严重的问题。因此，越来越多的公民在恐怖威胁的幽灵下做出政治评估和决定。该项目审查了恐怖主义威胁对民主支持的影响程度，以及这些影响在民主类型(自由主义与非自由主义)和信息环境(有或没有提醒民主价值观的情况下)之间的差异。非自由民主是指那些正式的民主程序运作，但公民自由和其他民主条款没有得到广泛保护的民主政体。很少有研究专门着眼于一般威胁背景，大多数研究没有具体考虑恐怖主义威胁，也没有研究不同类型的民主和信息环境的影响。调查人员预计，在缺乏民主价值观背景提醒的恐怖威胁存在的情况下，非自由主义和自由主义民主国家对民主的支持将会减少。然而，在狭隘的环境中，这些转变预计会更加全面。当提醒人们注意民主价值观时，预计自由社会中的那些人在抽象民主(即支持言论自由)和具体情况(即支持反恐战争中的抗议)方面都将保持相对较高的民主支持率。在非自由主义社会中，对民主价值观的广泛支持并不根深蒂固，也不会引起共鸣，这样的提醒不会产生任何效果。为了评估这些预期，研究人员在代表自由民主国家(美国、英国、法国和西班牙)和非自由民主国家(阿尔巴尼亚、土耳其、玻利维亚和厄瓜多尔)的八个国家进行了一系列十项调查实验。实验设计通过让参与者阅读一篇随机分配的报纸文章来改变人们脑海中恐怖威胁的突出程度，这篇文章要么提到了恐怖主义威胁级别，要么降低了恐怖主义威胁级别。这篇文章是否伴随着民主价值观的提醒也是多种多样的。然后，调查受访者被问及他们对民主价值观、程序和制度的支持程度。这种类型的实验提供了因果关系的最干净的测试。一些调查是通过互联网进行的，另一些是在实验室的电脑上进行的；这些并行方法的使用通过利用不同的主题池来提高结果的可靠性。该项目有几个更广泛的影响。鉴于国际恐怖主义阴谋和袭击在数量、规模和地理范围上都有所增加，了解恐怖主义威胁的阴影如何影响世界各地公民理解和参与政治的方式至关重要。关于自由民主国家，有证据表明，对核心民主价值观的提醒会减少恐怖主义威胁对民主支持的其他负面影响，这就意味着，在真正的威胁面前，这种提醒可能会提供重要的平衡，帮助公民避免对民主做法失去信心。关于不自由的民主国家，有证据表明恐怖主义威胁对民主的支持会产生无条件的负面影响，并警告公民可能撤回对民主的支持，这可能会导致政治不稳定。然而，如果民主价值观的提醒真的被证明是有效的，即使在非自由社会，这将是一个重要的教训。

The threat of international terrorism is a salient and growing fixture of modern times. As a result, citizens are increasingly making political evaluations and decisions under the specter of terrorist threat. This project examines the extent to which terrorist threats affect support for democracy and how these effects vary across type of democracy (liberal versus illiberal) and information environment (with or without reminders of democratic values). Illiberal democracies are those in which formal democratic procedures operate, but in which civil liberties and other democratic provisions are not extensively protected. Few studies have looked specifically at general threat contexts, most have not considered terrorist threats specifically, and none explore effects across different types of democratic and information environments. The investigators expect support for democracy to decrease in illiberal and liberal democracies in the presence of a terror threat absent contextual reminders of democratic values. However, these shifts are expected to be more comprehensive in illiberal settings. When reminders of democratic values are presented, those in liberal societies are expected to maintain relatively high support for democracy both in the abstract (i.e., support for free speech) and with respect to specific situations (i.e., support for protests in the war on terror). In illiberal societies, in which diffuse support for democratic values is not well-engrained and does not resonate, such reminders will have no effect. To assess these expectations, the investigators perform a series of ten survey experiments in eight countries representing both liberal democracies (the U.S., the U.K., France, and Spain) and illiberal ones (Albania, Turkey, Bolivia, and Ecuador). The experimental design varies the salience of the terrorist threat brought to mind by having participants read a randomly assigned newspaper article that either invokes or decreases the terrorist threat level. Also varied is whether or not the article is accompanied by a reminder of democratic values. The survey respondents are then queried about their level of support for democratic values, procedures, and institutions. This type of experiment provides the cleanest test of a cause-effect relationship. Some surveys are taken over the internet, others are taken on a computer in a lab; the use of these parallel approaches improves the reliability of findings by drawing on different subject pools. The project has several broader impacts. Given that international terrorist plots and attacks have grown in number, size, and geographic scope, it is critical to understand how the shadow of a terrorist threat affects the ways that citizens around the world understand and engage in politics. With respect to liberal democracies, evidence that reminders of core democratic values reduce the otherwise negative effects of terrorist threat on support for democracy carries the public policy implication that such reminders in the face of a real threat may provide important balance, helping to keep citizens from losing confidence in democratic practices. With respect to illiberal democracies, evidence for an unconditional negative effect of terrorist threat on support for democracy carries with it the warning that citizens may withdraw their support for democracy, which may lead to political instability. However, if reminders of democratic values do prove effective even in illiberal societies, this would be an important lesson.