The Effects of Attitudes Towards Immigrants on Fear of Terrorism in Türkiye

Abstract

Two prominent subjects in recent years that have captivated the Turkish public are immigration and terrorism. The profound migration crisis in Türkiye, coupled with a surge in terrorism-related crimes, has forged a substantial association between immigrants and terrorism in the perception of many Turkish people. Along these lines, although there are many academic studies of the relationship in Europe between immigrants and the fear of terrorism, the number of academic studies focusing on Türkiye is insufficient. For this reason, in this study, we use the seventh wave of the World Values Survey (WVS) to focus on the statistical relationship between the fear of terrorism and the view of immigrants in Türkiye. As shown by regression analysis, the rise in fear of terrorism in Türkiye also increases negative attitudes towards immigrants. However, since the results based only on the quantitative regression analysis do not provide in-depth information, we support the quantitative results with face-to-face interviews. In line with the results of the regression analysis, in the interviews, we find that one of the critical factors that increased participants' fear of terrorism is the immigrants who came to Türkiye in recent years.