Abstract Our study examines respondents’ perceptions of terrorism and counterterrorism in the USA during the 2016 presidential campaign. It does so by conducting an experiment where a group of respondents were randomly assigned to a vivid example of a terrorist attack and another group did not receive this treatment. The study’s results find opposing individual perceptions of the job government is doing to protect the country from terrorism and on differences among respondents as to the root causes of terrorism. Our research points to one explanation of this difference: Americans feel there is little they can do about terrorism and though the government is working to protect the nation, the public feels the government cannot stop, only prevent, terrorist acts from occurring. This causes the public to shift their perceptions of terrorism away from questions of efficient public policy responses to one of values. The experiment suggests heightened levels of fear among 2016 Trump voters who received the treatment compared to both Republican voters and Clinton supporters, though control and treatment groups also showed variation. Finally, this work highlights a major challenge for counter-terrorism policymakers in dealing with a highly polarized public. Recent electoral campaigns have demonstrated that politicians are actively trying to politicize terrorism. This work provides evidence that these efforts are resonating among the public. The danger of politicizing terrorism is that it blocks efforts to find common ground, between polarized groups in society in keeping the nation safe.

中文翻译：

---

对恐怖主义和反恐的看法：恐惧，风险和2016年特朗普效应

摘要我们的研究调查了受访者在2016年总统大选期间对美国恐怖主义和反恐的看法。为此，我们进行了一项实验，将一组受访者随机分配给恐怖袭击的生动例子，而另一组则没有得到这种待遇。该研究的结果发现，个人对政府为保护国家免受恐怖主义所做的工作以及在受访者之间关于恐怖主义根源的差异上存在相反的看法。我们的研究指出了这种差异的一种解释：美国人觉得他们对恐怖主义几乎无能为力，尽管政府正在努力保护国家，但公众却认为政府不能制止，只能防止恐怖主义行为的发生。这导致公众将对恐怖主义的认识从有效的公共政策应对问题转移到价值观之一。该实验表明，与共和党选民和克林顿支持者相比，接受治疗的2016年特朗普选民的恐惧感加剧，尽管对照组和治疗组也表现出差异。最后，这项工作凸显了反恐政策制定者在与两极分化的公众打交道时面临的主要挑战。最近的竞选活动表明，政客正在积极地努力使恐怖主义政治化。这项工作提供了证据，证明这些努力在公众中引起了共鸣。将恐怖主义政治化的危险在于，它阻碍了为维护国家安全而在社会两极分化的群体之间寻求共同立场的努力。