Civil Liberties in Nations Under Seige: The Cases of France and the Netherlands.

This paper examines the impact of events that constitute a widely perceived threat to public safety and life style on expressed commitment to tolerance of out groups. Using the 2000 and 2005 World Values Survey we measure the level of tolerance toward Muslims in particular and toward out-groups in general France, which experienced Muslim led riots, and the Netherlands, which experienced a public assassination involving Muslims and one by another culprit before and after those events. Both countries have expressed concern about significant minority Muslim populations. We expect to find a deterioration in civil liberties values not only respecting Muslims but an increase in hostiliity toward out-groups in general. In this age of a perceived conflict between Western countries and Islamist extremists, preservation of our commitment to civil liberties values has become a widespread concern. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]