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A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Social Studies, University of Regina. ix, 106 p. Terrorism can be broadly defined as “the intentional use of, or threat to use, violence against civilians or against civilian targets, in order to attain political aims” (Ganor, 2002: 294). Without a doubt, terrorism provokes deep fear and insecurity. The fear of terrorism has now become one of the major global issues. In fact, civilians and noncombatants are becoming the major targets of terrorism groups to reshape the political order. The purpose of the present study is to explore fear of terrorism and punitive attitudes toward terrorism in a sample of university students. In terms of research methodology, a convenience sample of 304 undergraduate students who enrolled in a Sociology or Social Studies course at the University of Regina during the fall session of 2015 were recruited. Participants completed a self-administered questionnaire during class time. Univariate and multivariate statistical techniques were employed to explore the data. With respect to fear of terrorism, this study revealed that a majority of the sample did not consider terrorism to be a serious problem in Canada and trusted that the Canadian Government could prevent future terrorist attacks in this country. A relatively small but notable number of the respondents admitted that they feared terrorism would get worse in the future, paid attention to media coverage of acts of terrorism, reported having changed their lifestyle, worried about becoming a victim of terrorist attacks, and were aware of the counter-terrorism legislation, policy, and practice in Canada. Regarding punitive attitudes toward terrorists, a majority of the respondents believed that punishment for terrorism should be more severe than for common crimes. A notable number of the respondents considered terrorists to be the most brutal and violent criminals, indicated that terrorists deserved no legal rights, and supported the use of both torture and the death penalty for terrorists. Using multiple ordinary least-squares and multinomial logistic regression, this study identified a number of socio-demographic and contextual variables that were predictive of respondents’ fear of terrorism (i.e., general fear of terrorism, fear of future terrorist attacks in Canada, and fear of becoming a victim of terrorism) and attitudes toward terrorists (i.e., punitive attitudes toward terrorists, denial of legal rights to terrorists, use of torture in anti-terrorism efforts, and use of the death penalty for terrorists). The limitations of the present study and the implications of these findings for future research are discussed. Student yes |
