1. I
Ri LIGI)N, R1s/(.AND I"EGAL CUI,TURE 5t7
Table FiveCountries, Fuleof Lawandthe Threat Terrorism
1: the ol
0r26
0urGovt people
& 0121
Percentile World
on respectandobeythe Thereis a realthreatof
Bank 200E law morelv. less) terrorism no threal"or
{v
Ruleof Law lndex than in restof Europe threatexaggerated)
Percentile % "1"
Norway 100 93 49
England 58 7B
Poland D' n
Bulgaria 51
Ukraine 31 l0 13
Note TheWorld BankRule Lawpercentile England
of for applies theUK{dtouob population Enoland
st.iatly to tbe of
cofirpdses percentoa popuiatjsn theUKl. other
84 the of Th6 datscome fromqüestions and0l2l in 0urs!rvey-
0126
merit separate investigation. But. of course, lerrorist acdons anywhere within the
UK have an irnpact on English public opinion.) We also draw some insights lrom
Lhe 84 focus groups that preceded our suryeys and lrom the 750 fuee-fomat
inlervi€l,!.s with 'legal insiders' (i.e. legislators, prosecutors, lawyers, judges. !Joy-
ernment officials, police) that followed our surveys.
Our spectrum of five European countries ranges from Norway which regularly
scoresat or near the top on world Bank'Rule ol Law'ratings (World Bank 2008)
to Ukraine whicfi scores nearer the bottom-a rar <ing that is echoed by their
publics in our own survey (see Ql26 in Table l).
These five countries also range from thosr that have suffered major terrorist attacks
(England) to those whcre the people feel they are almost invisible to ifiemational
terrorists (Ukraine, see Q12l irr Table l). The English especially may be rnore
willing to accept a reducrion in their civil liberties than Norwegians, Poles, Bulgar-
ians and Ukrainians since England has been directly affected by IRA terrorisn from
1969 to 1998 and more recently by al Qa'eda terrorism.
In our focus groups and interviews, we avoided the emotive and much criticised
phrase 'wär on terror' and asked instead about public perceptions of 'terrodsm' o(
the 'tllreat of terrorism'; about whether the supposed'threat of teüorism'is real or
exaggeraled; about whether to prioritise cil.il ighls or combating lenorism; and
about whether the govemment and secudty servicesshould respond to ttre 'threat
oI tenorism' by 'staying within existing laws and procedures', 'enforcing existing
iaws more stricdyi 'introducing Dew and tougher laws' or 'stepping outside the law
whenever they tNnk it useJul'.
Terrorisnr or the'war on terro srn'is likely to hav€ innuenced popular legal culture
in all five countries-though to different degrees. Reflecting their recent experi-
ence, the English are the most concerned aboul the 'tlreat ol terrorism' within their
ofPotiri. dd tatm,tia,at Retatio"s 2011
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