ABSTRACT
As Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus argue with reference to political tolerance more broadly, how citizens react to terror speaks to the character of liberal democracies under stress. In this study, we investigate how Danes reacted to the terrorist attack in Copenhagen on February 14–15, 2015. The question is whether the reactions of a significant number of the majority to Muslim minorities will harden, become more hostile, less accommodating. It would be an indefensible mistake to underestimate the forces of resistance to Muslim immigrants becoming full members of a common community. But our results here—that there was minimal or no backlash against Muslim immigrants even in the immediate aftermath of terrorist attacks—reinforce previous findings about the strength of the commitment of a majority to the rights of a minority. Further, we believe that our results bring out some unappreciated strengths of contemporary liberal democracies. We also draw methodological lessons from this study. In response to the current concern over the fragility of social science findings, we believe that distinguishing between conceptual and operational replication may point a way forward.
