Vrijheid versus veiligheid: Wie steunt vrijheidsbeperking omwille van veiligheid in Nederland?

Summary Liberty versus Security Who supports the restriction of personal freedom by governmental means in order to increase collective security? The question of this paper is ‘what affects people’s willingness to trade-off individual liberty for security?’ We assess who agrees with the statement that restriction of personal freedom by governmental means is allowed in order to increase security. We further investigate the support for concrete security measures which encroach on individual liberty and privacy. Various hypotheses are tested using the Dutch National Freedom Survey 2005 (NVO2005). We find that characteristics of vulnerability have a stronger influence on the support for concrete measures than on the general willingness of people to trade-off liberty for security. Contrary to our predictions this also holds for factors related to social conservatism. Furthermore, we found that social groups subscribing to conservative norms are more likely to support freedom limiting security measures. Remarkably, the same also applies to people holding liberal political views.