Other People’s Terrorism: Ideology and the Perceived Legitimacy of Political Violence

Abstract

When do Americans view political violence as legitimate? In this article, I use experimental methods to examine public perceptions of domestic political violence perpetrated to advance right-wing or left-wing agendas. Specifically, I examine the extent to which the alignment of political ideology (conservative/liberal) with a political cause influences perceptions of legitimacy for objectively equivalent acts of violence. Controlling for variables such as perpetrator identity, I demonstrate that political ideology influences both how members of the public perceive the morality of political violence and the extent to which they view an act as constituting terrorism, even when the severity of violence and type of target are identical. The findings have implications for policy makers and practitioners in designating acts as terrorism and developing policies to prevent or counter political violence.

Is terrorism necessarily violent? Public perceptions of nonviolence and terrorism in conflict settings

“…Third, we illustrate the strong influence of ideological predispositions toward the adversary, an understudied aspect in many recent works about public perceptions of terrorism and outgroup contention (see Norman 2022). Our analysis finds this heterogeneity incredibly important: right-wing Israeli respondents consider all Palestinian actions forms of terrorism, whereas left-wingers maintain clearer hierarchies by severity.…”

“…Our findings make several contributions to the growing debate about public perceptions of terrorism and outgroup behavior (e.g., Huff and Kertzer 2018;Edwards and Arnon 2021;Manekin and Mitts 2022;Norman 2022). First, by comparing violence and nonviolence, we expand past research to a fuller spectrum of adversary actions.…”

“…We then ran a logit regression estimating the probability of such high support based on an interaction of labeling and partisanship. The results, detailed in SI Section D.2, 9 Norman (2022) shows that public perception of terrorism is heightened around politically salient issues such as violence against abortion clinics in the US. 10 Non-voters were omitted from the analysis.…”

“…This question is highly important: perceiving nonviolent acts as terrorism can justify aggressive state repression and reduce the menu of legitimate tactics in conflictual settings. Recent research on popular perceptions of out-group contention considers different types of violent or physically threatening actions (Huff and Kertzer, 2018; Edwards and Arnon, 2021; Manekin and Mitts, 2022; Norman, 2022). Less attention is given to a broader range of nonviolent acts.…”

Partisan Bias in Episodes of Political Violence

“…This partisan bias also seems to manifest in how individuals experience political violence. Norman (2022), for example, found that the issue orientation of an advocacy organization (e.g., pro- or anti-abortion) impacted beliefs about the legitimacy of bombing that organization. In Barber and Davis’s (2022) experiment, subjects showed greater willingness to sacrifice an outparty member’s life compared to a copartisan.…”