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• How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

Published on January 11, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on August 15, 2023 by Eoghan Ryan.

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . It usually comes near the end of your introduction .

Your thesis will look a bit different depending on the type of essay you’re writing. But the thesis statement should always clearly state the main idea you want to get across. Everything else in your essay should relate back to this idea.

You can write your thesis statement by following four simple steps:

• Start with a question
• Write your initial answer
• Develop your answer
• Refine your thesis statement

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Table of contents

What is a thesis statement, placement of the thesis statement, step 1: start with a question, step 2: write your initial answer, step 3: develop your answer, step 4: refine your thesis statement, types of thesis statements, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about thesis statements.

A thesis statement summarizes the central points of your essay. It is a signpost telling the reader what the essay will argue and why.

The best thesis statements are:

• Concise: A good thesis statement is short and sweet—don’t use more words than necessary. State your point clearly and directly in one or two sentences.
• Contentious: Your thesis shouldn’t be a simple statement of fact that everyone already knows. A good thesis statement is a claim that requires further evidence or analysis to back it up.
• Coherent: Everything mentioned in your thesis statement must be supported and explained in the rest of your paper.

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The thesis statement generally appears at the end of your essay introduction or research paper introduction .

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts and among young people more generally is hotly debated. For many who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education: the internet facilitates easier access to information, exposure to different perspectives, and a flexible learning environment for both students and teachers.

You should come up with an initial thesis, sometimes called a working thesis , early in the writing process . As soon as you’ve decided on your essay topic , you need to work out what you want to say about it—a clear thesis will give your essay direction and structure.

You might already have a question in your assignment, but if not, try to come up with your own. What would you like to find out or decide about your topic?

For example, you might ask:

After some initial research, you can formulate a tentative answer to this question. At this stage it can be simple, and it should guide the research process and writing process .

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Now you need to consider why this is your answer and how you will convince your reader to agree with you. As you read more about your topic and begin writing, your answer should get more detailed.

In your essay about the internet and education, the thesis states your position and sketches out the key arguments you’ll use to support it.

The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education because it facilitates easier access to information.

In your essay about braille, the thesis statement summarizes the key historical development that you’ll explain.

The invention of braille in the 19th century transformed the lives of blind people, allowing them to participate more actively in public life.

A strong thesis statement should tell the reader:

• Why you hold this position
• What they’ll learn from your essay
• The key points of your argument or narrative

The final thesis statement doesn’t just state your position, but summarizes your overall argument or the entire topic you’re going to explain. To strengthen a weak thesis statement, it can help to consider the broader context of your topic.

These examples are more specific and show that you’ll explore your topic in depth.

Your thesis statement should match the goals of your essay, which vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing:

• In an argumentative essay , your thesis statement should take a strong position. Your aim in the essay is to convince your reader of this thesis based on evidence and logical reasoning.
• In an expository essay , you’ll aim to explain the facts of a topic or process. Your thesis statement doesn’t have to include a strong opinion in this case, but it should clearly state the central point you want to make, and mention the key elements you’ll explain.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

Follow these four steps to come up with a thesis statement :

• Ask a question about your topic .
• Write your initial answer.
• Develop your answer by including reasons.
• Refine your answer, adding more detail and nuance.

The thesis statement should be placed at the end of your essay introduction .

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267 Freedom Essay Topics & Examples

Need freedom topics for an essay or research paper? Don’t know how to start writing your essay? The concept of freedom is very exciting and worth studying!

📃 Freedom Essay: How to Start Writing

📝 how to write a freedom essay: useful tips, 🏆 freedom essay examples & topic ideas, 🥇 most interesting freedom topics to write about, 🎓 simple topics about freedom, 📌 writing prompts on freedom, 🔎 good research topics about freedom, ❓ research questions about freedom.

The field of study includes personal freedom, freedom of the press, speech, expression, and much more. In this article, we’ve collected a list of great writing ideas and topics about freedom, as well as freedom essay examples and writing tips.

Freedom essays are common essay assignments that discuss acute topics of today’s global society. However, many students find it difficult to choose the right topic for their essay on freedom or do not know how to write the paper.

We have developed some useful tips for writing an excellent paper. But first, you need to choose a good essay topic. Below are some examples of freedom essay topics.

Freedom Essay Topics

• American (Indian, Taiwanese, Scottish) independence
• Freedom and homelessness essay
• The true value of freedom in modern society
• How slavery affects personal freedom
• The problem of human rights and freedoms
• American citizens’ rights and freedoms
• The benefits and disadvantages of unlimited freedom
• The changing definition of freedom

Once you have selected the issue you want to discuss (feel free to get inspiration from the ones we have suggested!), you can start working on your essay. Here are 10 useful tips for writing an outstanding paper:

• Remember that freedom essay titles should state the question you want to discuss clearly. Do not choose a vague and non-descriptive title for your paper.
• Work on the outline of your paper before writing it. Think of what sections you should include and what arguments you want to present. Remember that the essay should be well organized to keep the reader interested. For a short essay, you can include an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
• Do preliminary research. Ask your professor about the sources you can use (for example, course books, peer-reviewed articles, and governmental websites). Avoid using Wikipedia and other similar sources, as they often have unverified information.
• A freedom essay introduction is a significant part of your paper. It outlines the questions you want to discuss in the essay and helps the reader understand your work’s purpose. Remember to state the thesis of your essay at the end of this section.
• A paper on freedom allows you to be personal. It should not focus on the definition of this concept. Make your essay unique by including your perspective on the issue, discussing your experience, and finding examples from your life.
• At the same time, help your reader to understand what freedom is from the perspective of your essay. Include a clear explanation or a definition with examples.
• Check out freedom essay examples online to develop a structure for your paper, analyze the relevance of the topics you want to discuss and find possible freedom essay ideas. Avoid copying the works you will find online.
• Support your claims with evidence. For instance, you can cite the Bill of Rights or the United States Constitution. Make sure that the sources you use are reliable.
• To make your essay outstanding, make sure that you use correct grammar. Grammatical mistakes may make your paper look unprofessional or unreliable. Restructure a sentence if you think that it does not sound right. Check your paper several times before sending it to your professor.
• A short concluding paragraph is a must. Include the summary of all arguments presented in the paper and rephrase the main findings.

Do not forget to find a free sample in our collection and get the best ideas for your essay!

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• Freedom in Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” Literature Analysis In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, the main character, Nora is not an intellectual, and spends no time scouring books or libraries or trying to make sense of her situation.
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• “Gladiator” by Ridley Scott: Freedom and Affection This desire to be free becomes the main motive of the film, as the plot follows Maximus, now enslaved, who tries to avenge his family and the emperor and regain his liberty.
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• Protecting Freedom of Expression on the Campus An annotated version of “Protecting Freedom of Expression on the Campus” by Derek Bok in The Boston Globe.*and these stars are where I have a question or opinion on a statement* For several years, universities […]
• Freedom, Equality & Solidarity by Lucy Parsons In the lecture and article ‘The Principles of Anarchism’ she outlines her vision of Anarchy as the answer to the labor question and how powerful governments and companies worked for hand in hand to stifle […]
• Human Freedom: Liberalism vs Anarchism It is impoverished because liberals have failed to show the connection between their policies and the values of the community. More fundamentally, however, a policy formulated in such a way that it is disconnected from […]
• Social Values: Freedom and Justice It is evident that freedom and justice are mutually exclusive, as “the theory of justice signifies its implications in regards to freedom as a key ingredient to happiness”.
• Freedom in Antebellum America: Civil War and Abolishment of Slavery The American Civil War, which led to the abolishment of slavery, was one of the most important events in the history of the United States.
• Freedom and the Role of Civilization The achievements demonstrated by Marx and Freud play a significant role in the field of sociology and philosophy indeed; Marx believed in the power of labor and recognized the individual as an integral part of […]
• Balance of Media Censorship and Press Freedom Government censorship means the prevention of the circulation of information already produced by the official government There are justifications for the suppression of communication such as fear that it will harm individuals in the society […]
• “Human Freedom and the Self” by Roderick Chisholm According to the author, human actions do not depend on determinism or “free will”. I will use this idea in order to promote the best actions.
• “Freedom Riders”: A Documentary Revealing Personal Stories That Reflect Individual Ideology The ideal of egalitarianism was one of the attractive features of the left wing for many inquiring minds in the early decades of the 20th century.
• Women in Early America: Struggle, Survival, and Freedom in a New World The writer shows that women had the same capacities as those of men but were not allowed to contribute their ideas in developing the country.
• Art and Freedom. History and Relationship The implication of this term is that genus art is composed of two species, the fine arts, and the useful arts. This, according to Cavell, is the beauty of art.
• Power and Freedom in America Although it is already a given that freedom just like the concept love is not easy to define and the quest to define it can be exhaustive but at the end of the day what […]
• Freedom of Speech in Modern Media At the same time, the bigoted approach to the principles of freedom of speech in the context of the real world, such as killing or silencing journalists, makes the process of promoting the same values […]
• Philosophy in the Freedom of Will by Harry Frankfurt Why? Frankfurt’s arguments are very applicable to the case of the ‘Amputees by Choice.’ His first argument is that of persons and nonpersons.
• Concept of Individual Freedom Rousseau and Mill were political philosophers with interest in understanding what entailed individual freedom. This paper compares Rousseau’s idea of individual freedom with Mill’s idea.
• Predetermination and Freedom of Choice We assume that every happens because of a specific reason and that the effects of that event can be traced back to the cause.
• Freedom and Social Justice Through Technology These two remarkable minds have made significant contributions to the debates on technology and how it relates to liberty and social justice.
• Personal Understanding of Freedom Freedom is essential for individual growth and development, and it helps individuals to make informed decisions that are in alignment with their values and beliefs.
• Balancing Freedom of Speech and Responsibility in Online Commenting The article made me perceive the position of absolute freedom of speech in the Internet media from a dual perspective. This desire for quick attention is the creation of information noise, distracting from the user […]
• The Effect of Emotional Freedom Techniques on Nurses’ Stress The objectives for each of the three criteria are clearly stated, with the author explaining the aims to the reader well throughout the content in the article’s title, abstract, and introduction.
• The Freedom Summer Project and Black Studies The purpose of this essay is to discuss to which degree the story of the Freedom Summer project illustrates the concepts of politics outlined in Karenga’s book Introduction to black studies.
• Democracy: The Influence of Freedom Democracy is the basis of the political systems of the modern civilized world. Accordingly, the democracy of Athens was direct that is, without the choice of representatives, in contrast to how it is generated nowadays.
• Freedom of Speech as a Basic Human Right Restricting or penalizing freedom of expression is thus a negative issue because it confines the population of truth, as well as rationality, questioning, and the ability of people to think independently and express their thoughts.
• Kantian Ethics and Causal Law for Freedom The theory’s main features are autonomy of the will, categorical imperative, rational beings and thinking capacity, and human dignity. The theory emphasizes not on the actions and the doers but the consequences of their effects […]
• Principles in M. L. King’s Quest for African American Freedom The concept of a nonviolent approach to the struggles for African American freedom was a key strategy in King’s quest for the liberation of his communities from racial and social oppressions.
• Technology Revolutionizing Ethical Aspects of Academic Freedom As part of the solution, the trends in technology are proposed as a potential solution that can provide the necessary support to improve the freedom of expression as one of the ethical issues that affect […]
• The Journey Freedom Tour 2022 Performance Analysis Arnel Pineda at age 55 keeps rocking and hitting the high notes and bringing the entire band very successfully all through their live concert tour.
• Freedom of Speech and Propaganda in School Setting One of the practical solutions to the problem is the development and implementation of a comprehensive policy for balanced free speech in the classroom.
• Twitter and Violations of Freedom of Speech and Censorship The sort of organization that examines restrictions and the opportunities and challenges it encounters in doing so is the center of a widely acknowledged way of thinking about whether it is acceptable to restrict speech.
• Freedom of the Press and National Security Similarly, it concerns the freedom of the press of the media, which are protected in the United States of America by the First Amendment.
• The Views on the Freedom from Fear in the Historical Perspective In this text, fear is considered in the classical sense, corresponding to the interpretation of psychology, that is, as a manifestation of acute anxiety for the inviolability of one’s life.
• Freedom of Speech in Social Networks The recent case of blocking the accounts of former US President Donald Trump on Twitter and Facebook is explained by the violation of the rules and conditions of social platforms.
• Emotion and Freedom in 20th-Century Feminist Literature The author notes that the second layer of the story can be found in the antagonism between the “narrator, author, and the unreliable protagonist”.
• Analysis of UK’s Freedom of Information Act 2000 To preserve potentially disruptive data that must not be released to the public, the FOIA integrates several provisions that allow the officials to decline the request for information without suffering possible consequences.
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• Is There Press Freedom in Modern China? There is a large body of literature in the field of freedom of the press investigations, media freedom in China, and press freedom and human rights studies.
• Freedom of the Press in the Context of UAE It gives the people the ability to understand the insight of the government and other crucial activities happening within the country.
• Freedom of the Press in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) According to oztunc & Pierre, the UAE is ranked 119 in the global press freedom data, classifying the country as one of the most suppressive regarding the liberty of expression.
• Mill’s Thesis on the Individual Freedom The sphere of personal freedom is an area of human life that relates to the individual directly. The principle of state intervention is that individuals, separately or collectively, may have the right to interfere in […]
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• The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom In the introductory part of the book, the author discusses his main theses concerning the link between the development of networks and shifts in the economy and society.
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• The Path to Freedom of Black People During the Antebellum Period In conclusion, the life of free blacks in 19th century America was riddled with hindrances that were meant to keep them at the bottom of society.
• Civil Rights Movement: Fights for Freedom The Civil Rights Movement introduced the concept of black and white unification in the face of inequality. Music-related to justice and equality became the soundtrack of the social and cultural revolution taking place during the […]
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• The Golden Age of Youth and Freedom However, it is interesting to compare it to the story which took place at the dawn of the cultural and sexual revolution in Chinese society.
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• John Stuart Mill on Freedom in Today’s Perspective The basic concept behind this rose because it was frustrating in many cases in the context of the penal system and legislation and it was viewed that anything less than a capital punishment would not […]
• Conformity Versus Freedom at University To the author, this is objectionable on the grounds that such a regimen infringes on the freedom of young adults and that there is much to learn outside the classroom that is invaluable later in […]
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• Social Factors in the US History: Respect for Human Rights, Racial Equality, and Religious Freedom The very first years of the existence of the country were marked by the initiatives of people to provide as much freedom in all aspects of social life as possible.
• Freedom of Speech and the Internet On the one hand, the freedom of expression on the internet allowed the general public to be informed about the true nature of the certain events, regardless of geographical locations and restrictions.
• Freedom Definition Revision: Components of Freedom That which creates, sustains, and maintains life in harmony with the natural cycles of this planet, doing no harm to the ecology or people of the Earth- is right.
• Freedom of Information Act in the US History According to the legislation of the United States, official authorities are obliged to disclose information, which is under control of the US government, if it is requested by the public.
• Media Freedom in the Olympic Era The Chinese government is heavily involved in the affairs of the media of that country. In the past, it was the responsibility of government to fund media houses however; today that funding is crapped off.
• Managing the Internet-Balancing Freedom and Regulations The explosive growth in the usage of Internet forms the basis of new digital age. Aim of the paper is to explore the general role of internet and its relationship with the society.
• Ways Liberals Define Freedom Liberals are identified by the way they value the freedom of individuals, freedom of markets, and democratic freedoms. The term freedom is characterized by Liberals as they use it within the context of the relationship […]
• Boredom and Freedom: Different Views and Links Boredom is a condition characterized by low levels of arousal as well as wandering attention and is normally a result of the regular performance of monotonous routines.
• The Idea of American Freedom Such implications were made by the anti-slavery group on each occasion that the issue of slavery was drawn in the Congress, and reverberated wherever the institution of slavery was subjected to attack within the South.
• Liberal Definition of Freedom Its origins lie in the rejection of the authoritarian structures of the feudalistic order in Europe and the coercive tendencies and effects of that order through the imposition of moral absolutes.
• Newt Gingrich Against Freedom of Speech According to the constitution, the First Amendment is part of the United States Bill of rights that was put in place due to the advocation of the anti-federalists who wanted the powers of the federal […]
• Freedom is One of the Most Valuable Things to Man Political philosophers have many theories in response to this and it is necessary to analyze some of the main arguments and concepts to get a clearer idea of how to be more precise about the […]
• The Enlightment: The Science of Freedom In America, enlightment resulted to the formation of the American Revolution in the form of resistance of Britain imperialism. In the United States of America, enlightment took a more significant form as demonstrated by the […]
• Determinism and Freedom in the movie ‘Donnie Darko’ The term determinism states, the all the processes in the world are determined beforehand, and only chosen may see or determine the future.
• Spinoza’ Thoughts on Human Freedom The human being was once considered of as the Great Amphibian, or the one who can exclusively live in the two worlds, a creature of the physical world and also an inhabitant of the spiritual, […]
• Political Freedom According to Machiavelli and Locke In this chapter, he explains that “It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than […]
• Freedom From Domination: German Scientists’ View He made the greatest ever attempt to unify the country, as Western Europe was divided into lots of feudal courts, and the unification of Germany led to the creation of single national mentality and appearing […]
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• The Existence of Freedom This paper assumes that it is the cognizance of the presence of choices for our actions that validates the existence of free will since, even if some extenuating circumstances and influences can impact what choice […]
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• 19th-Century Marxism with Emphasis on Freedom As the paper reveals through various concepts and theories by Marx, it was the responsibility of the socialists and scientists to transform the society through promoting ideologies of class-consciousness and social action as a way […]
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• Freedom Hospital Geriatric Patient Analysis The importance of statistics in clinical research can be explained by a multitude of factors; in clinical management, it is used for monitoring the patients’ conditions, the quality of health care provided, and other indicators.
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• The United States Role in the World Freedom The efforts of NATO to engage Taliban and al-Qaida insurgents in the war resulted in the spreading of the war into the North West parts of Pakistan.
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• Fighting for Freedom of American Identity in Literature
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• Kuwait’s Opposition and the Freedom of Expression
• Abraham Lincoln: A Legacy of Freedom
• Freedom of Speech and Expression
• Multicultural Education: Freedom or Oppression
• “The Freedom of the Streets: Work, Citizenship, and Sexuality in a Gilded Age City” by Sharon Wood
• Information Freedom in Government
• Dr.Knightly’s Problems in Academic Freedom
• Mill on Liberty and Freedom
• Texas Women University Academic Freedom
• Freedom of speech in the Balkans
• Media Freedom in Japan
• Rivalry and Central Planning by Don Lavoie: Study Analysis
• Review of “Freedom Writers”
• Freedom Degree in Colonial America
• What Is ‘Liberal Representative Democracy’ and Does the Model Provide an Appropriate Combination of Freedom and Equality?
• Is the Contemporary City a Space of Control or Freedom?
• Native Americans Transition From Freedom to Isolation
• “The Weight of the Word” by Chris Berg
• What Does Freedom Entail in the US?
• Leila Khaled: Freedom Fighter or Terrorist?
• Environmentalism and Economic Freedom
• Freedom of Speech in China and Political Reform
• Colonial Women’s Freedom in Society

✍️ Freedom Essay Topics for College

• The S.E.C. and the Freedom of Information Act
• African Americans: A Journey Towards Freedom
• Freedom of the Press
• Coming of Age in Mississippi: The Black Freedom Movement
• Freedom of Women to Choose Abortion
• Human Freedom as Contextual Deliberation
• Women and Freedom in “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin
• The Required Freedom and Democracy in Afghanistan
• PRISM Program: Freedom v. Order
• Human rights and freedoms
• Controversies Over Freedom of Speech and Internet Postings
• Gender and the Black Freedom Movement
• Culture and the Black Freedom Struggle
• Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right and the UN Declaration of Human Rights
• Personal Freedom in A Doll’s House, A Room of One’s Own, and Diary of a Madman
• Hegel’s Ideas on Action, Morality, Ethics and Freedom
• Satre human freedom
• The Ideas of Freedom and Slavery in Relation to the American Revolution
• Psychological Freedom
• The Freedom Concept
• Free Exercise Clause: Freedom and Equality
• Television Effects & Freedoms
• Government’s control versus Freedom of Speech and Thoughts
• Freedom of Speech: Exploring Proper Limits
• Freedom of the Will
• Benefits of Post 9/11 Security Measures Fails to Outway Harm on Personal Freedom and Privacy
• Civil Liberties: Freedom of the Media
• Human Freedom and Personal Identity
• Freedom of Religion in the U.S
• Freedom of Speech, Religion and Religious Tolerance
• Why Free Speech Is An Important Freedom
• The meaning of the word “freedom” in the context of the 1850s!
• American History: Freedom and Progress
• The Free Exercise Thereof: Freedom of Religion in the First Amendment
• Twilight: Freedom of Choices by the Main Character
• Frank Kermode: Timelessness and Freedom of Expression
• The meaning of freedom today
• Human Nature and the Freedom of Speech in Different Countries
• What Is the Relationship Between Personal Freedom and Democracy?
• How Does Religion Limit Human Freedom?
• What Is the Relationship Between Economic Freedom and Fluctuations in Welfare?
• How Effectively the Constitution Protects Freedom?
• Why Should Myanmar Have Similar Freedom of Speech Protections to the United States?
• Should Economics Educators Care About Students’ Academic Freedom?
• Why Freedom and Equality Is an Artificial Creation Created?
• How the Attitudes and Freedom of Expression Changed for African Americans Over the Years?
• What Are the Limits of Freedom of Speech?
• How Far Should the Right to Freedom of Speech Extend?
• Is There a Possible Relationship Between Human Rights and Freedom of Expression and Opinion?
• How Technology Expanded Freedom in the Society?
• Why Did Jefferson Argue That Religious Freedom Is Needed?
• How the Civil War Sculpted How Americans Viewed Their Nation and Freedom?
• Should Society Limit the Freedom of Individuals?
• Why Should Parents Give Their Children Freedom?
• Was Operation Iraqi Freedom a Legitimate and Just War?
• Could Increasing Political Freedom Be the Key To Reducing Threats?
• How Does Financial Freedom Help in Life?
• What Are Human Rights and Freedoms in Modern Society?
• How the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom Affects the Canadian Politics?
• Why Should Schools Allow Religious Freedom?
• Does Internet Censorship Threaten Free Speech?
• How Did the American Civil War Lead To the Defeat of Slavery and Attainment of Freedom by African Americans?
• Why Are Men Willing To Give Up Their Freedom?
• How Did the Economic Development of the Gilded Age Affect American Freedom?
• Should Artists Have Total Freedom of Expression?
• How Does Democracy, Economic Freedom, and Taxation Affect the Residents of the European Union?
• What Restrictions Should There Be, if Any, on the Freedom of the Press?
• How To Achieving Early Retirement With Financial Freedom?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Original research article, the security versus freedom dilemma. an empirical study of the spanish case.

• 1 Sociology Department, University of Malaga, Málaga, Spain
• 2 Sociology Department, University of Almeria, CEMyRI, Almería, Spain

One of the classic debates in public opinion, now more prevalent due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has been the dilemma between freedom and security. Following a theoretical review, this article sets out to establish the sociodemographic profiles and those variables that can correlate and/or explain the inclination towards one or the other, that is, the dependent variable “freedom-security,” such as victimization or the assessment of surveillance. The analysis is based on the results of a survey prepared by the Center for Sociological Research (CIS, in Spanish) and administered to a sample of 5,920 Spaniards. The conclusions indicate that the majority inclination is for security, especially among older men, with elementary education attainment level and right-wing ideology. Furthermore, although victimization correlated with the dependent variable, the perception of being a possible victim led to a preference for safety rather than the actual experience of having been a victim. Finally, the positive assessment of surveillance through technologies such as video cameras explains or is strongly associated with security, making it a promising line of research for future work and a means to improve the understanding of the analyzed dilemma.

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic is not the first event that has forced public opinion to consider the dilemma of freedom versus security in a world dominated by the influence of so-called new information and communication technologies. Currently, technological control is provoking debates around the right to privacy in the context of the surveillance society ( Lyon, 2018 ; Lyon and Wood, 2021 ).

There are precedents to the influence of information and communication technologies, the extent to which they can control or influence citizens and countries, and their effect on these actors when valuing one side over the other when balancing freedom versus security. By way of example, the following cases affected both the personal safety of private citizens and nation-states: the case of “Wikileaks” in 2006; the “Snowden” case in 2013; “Cambridge Analytica” case in 2014, the spying of Jeff Bezos by Saudi Arabia in 2019, or the most recent “Pegasus case” which was made public in 2021.

Currently, the incidence of the pandemic has had a more significant impact on control over citizens and a corresponding lower degree of freedom. An example of this is the research carried out by the Canadian Citizen Lab into internet censorship, wherein it analyzed how the Chinese authorities, through WeChat, used an artificial intelligence system capable of detecting the semantic meaning of texts. From 1 January to 15 February 2020, up to 516 keyword combinations were set to trigger censorship, automatically locking the server, and preventing further communication ( Ruan et al., 2020 ). According to “The COVID-19 Civic Freedom Tracker” database, developed by “The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law” ( www.icnl.org ), most of the restrictions applied by States as a result of the pandemic are: an increase in powers related to surveillance of citizens; suspension of rights; control over information and delay of political elections. The Spanish case is even more severe regarding freedom of information and the press, given that the Spanish government commissioned a government body, the Sociological Research Center, to include in its February Barometer the possibility of limiting all information on the pandemic in official sources ( González-Requena, 2020 ).

Given these antecedents, this research aims to analyze the dilemma based on the opinions, attitudes, and behaviors of Spaniards with regards to freedom and security. This is a continued and constant dilemma in the field of sociology and social sciences, starting from the analyzes on the change from materialist to postmaterialist values worldwide as stated by Inglehart ( Inglehart, 1990 ; Inglehart, 2018a ), and particularized for the case of Spain by Díez Nicolás (2011) , Díez Nicolás (2020) . The working hypothesis established by Inglehart (1977) , widely verified in countless investigations, was that those societies and individuals when reaching higher levels of personal security, including a lower level of crime, and a higher level of economic security, tend to be oriented toward more libertarian or self-expressive values.

This trend, however, is not valid for all the countries, as shown by the different waves of the World Values Survey. In the case of Spain, there has been a decrease in the post-materialism index compared to the waves of 1990 and 2005, further verified by the most recent wave of 2014 ( Díez Nicolás, 2020 ). This empirical inclination can be ascribed to factors that have changed the perception of citizens towards feeling greater personal insecurity, such as, among others, the irruption of jihadist terrorism, the increase in organized crime and crime in general, the greater flexibility of the labor market and job insecurity, the uncertainty about the future pension model, the increase in crime and insecurity related to the internet and social networks, the real estate market, or lately, the current global viral pandemic.

For this reason, we believe that, in the Spanish case, depending on their perception of security, citizens will choose a greater or lesser degree of freedom. In this regard, we believe that security takes precedence over a greater or lesser degree of freedom. In other words, security is, to a greater extent, is the dominant value over freedom. More specifically, and as a working hypothesis, we believe that historical, economic, geographical, or sociological influences and the perception that the majority of Spaniards have towards citizen insecurity determine that security be valued more highly than freedom. In this instance, citizen insecurity refers to crime and other types of insecurity such as economic, employment, health, or informational.

This study traces the most significant theories about security versus freedom. It presents an empirical investigation for the Spanish case, based on the 2016 CIS General Social Survey, where a descriptive analysis will be carried out based on the more significant sociodemographic and socioeconomic variables. Secondly, multiple regression models will carry out an explanatory analysis to discover if Spaniards prefer security over freedom using crime and victimology as a dependent variable in terms of perception, opinion, attitude, and experience.

Freedom Versus Security

In a globalized world, the interrelation and connectivity of countries, economies, and citizens are constant. In this order of things, it is observed that the private sphere is ever decreasing, resulting in a smaller margin of freedom, either for individuals or collectives, whereby citizens, in general, cannot control their information themselves, and the privacy of their information is constantly threatened. There is a general perception about the vertiginous social changes, hence the data mentioned above from the World Values Survey on the orientation of the most developed countries in recent waves towards more materialistic, scarcity, or survival values instead of values related to postmaterialism, self-expression, or emancipation ( Inglehart, 2018b ).

Our research does not focus on the classic six or twelve items of materialist/postmaterialist values but rather on the debate between, on the one hand, freedom and accessibility to surveillance information and, on the other hand, security related to surveillance linked to citizen security, such as personal security against crime and victimology. The research question for the Spanish case is: Do Spaniards, in general, perceive a greater degree of citizen insecurity and thus accept lower degrees of freedom in return? or simply stated; Do Spaniards demand higher levels of security measures because they feel insecure?

It is not easy to define the concept of freedom in philosophical terms, as it is a polyhedral and contradictory word. However, the type of freedom at stake is easier to define since it affects the collective. Two examples of freedom from the territorial and evaluative perspectives are the differing visions of American and European liberalism ( Leonard, 2011 ) or Bauman’s consumerist interpretation of capitalist liberalism ( Bauman, 1989 ). Similarly, differences of perspective could be included from the academic stance of authors such as Bay (1958) , Sen (2001) , Skinner (2012) , Honneth (2015) .

The term freedom is contradictory and difficult to apply to specific realities and is even more complicated when combined with the term security. In this sense, the questions posed are: what freedom? Freedom for whom? How much freedom? Freedom for what purpose? Inversely, the questions posed could be: what security? Security for whom? or how much security? Or even, security for what purpose?

Suppose we place ourselves in the classic dilemma, positive versus negative freedom ( Berlin, 2002 ; Rothbard, 2015 ) or, more recently, quantitative versus qualitative freedom ( Dierksmeier, 2019 ). In that case, it is observed that the object of freedom passes from the individual/property dyad to an individual triad/own good/other people’s good.

In this instance, we understand freedom as being able to carry out any individual or collective initiative, without any limitations or coercion, whether by the State or other individuals, and with budgets and objectives that reinforce both one’s own good and that of others. With this definition in mind, we believe that we can answer the questions previously formulated.

The concept of security has a similar or even greater number of facets as that of freedom. The most classic issue is that there are different types of security, national or state security, which ensures the protection of State, and human security, which ensures the protection of individuals ( Mack, 2005 ; Krause and Williams, 2016 ). Logically, to the two types of security mentioned above, the supranational system that is increasingly important in the globalized world should also be added. Similarly, these supranational entities, together with nation-states, would also become subjects responsible for security. To these entities, we could also add other new actors such as NGOs or public opinion.

References to national or state security or supranational security are logically interrelated. The denomination of collective security seems more logical. In December 2004, the High-level Panel of the United Nations Secretary-General on Threats, Challenges, and Change presented a report entitled: “A more secure world: our shared responsibility.” The report highlights six groups of threats to collective security: conflicts between states; violence within the state (civil wars, human rights abuses, and genocide); poverty; infectious diseases; environmental degradation; nuclear, radiological, chemical, and biological weapons; terrorism; and transnational organized crime ( Morillas, 2007 ). The UN Secretary-General, K. Annan, also pointed to the March 2005 document entitled: “In larger freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All,” highlighting in point IV, “Freedom from Fear,” that most of the victims of these new conflicts are civilians.

The above notwithstanding, the discussion remains constant, whether in reference to state security or human security. With regards to the former, many believe that the State is predominant in matters related to security as it is the institution which must ensure it. Although individual citizens remain a definitive reference in this matter, it is the State that provides the necessary framework for the security of all. In the latter case, although human security is essentially focused on protecting individuals, there are two variants: the focus on “freedom from wants” and the “freedom from fear.” In the first, human security is based on basic human needs, or more specifically, on threats to well-being in the spheres of human rights, religion, poverty, hunger, disease, epidemics, the environment, wars, education, and information. In the second, human security revolves around the elimination of all types of coercion, threat, and violence in the daily lives of individuals ( Suhrke, 1999 ; Seiple and Hoover, 2004 ; Knox Thames et al., 2009 ; Seiple et al., 2015 ).

Bauman’s sociological theory of liquid modernity and the nature of community extends the debate. Individuality increases freedom but does so at the expense of security and a sense of community. The concepts of “freedom versus security” and “individuality versus community” are simultaneously complementary and contradictory. Increasing either freedom or security comes at the expense of the other. The conflict between “security and freedom” and between “community and individuality” may never be resolved, but as they are equally indispensable values, we continue to search for a solution ( Bauman, 2000 , Bauman, 2001 ). In this sense, achieving a balance between freedom and security is probably impossible. The problem, however, is that when security is lacking, free agents are deprived of the trust without which freedom can hardly be exercised. When, on the contrary, it is freedom that is lacking, security feels like slavery or a prison ( Bauman, 2005 ).

In methodological terms, in this research, we will consider information through the new information and communication technologies, which would essentially fit into the field of human security, both with regards to “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear.” Therefore, we understand security to be the central value that encompasses both the structure of human needs and its limitations due to coercion and threats in the daily lives of individuals.

These definitions align with United Nations Development Programme (1994) and more specifically with the idea that freedom also includes security. However, in operational terms, we believe that, among others, fear, insecurity, coercion of religious freedom, hunger, crime, epidemics can constrain citizens, essentially because the survival instinct is more fundamental than freedom. As Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, states in his report entitled: “In larger freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All” of 21 March 2005, in point 14 of the document: “The notion of larger freedom also encapsulates the idea that development, security, and human rights go hand in hand” ( Annan, 2005 ). Grim and Finke (2012) , in an empirical investigation in 200 countries, observed that when governments and various social groups restrict religious freedom, the possibilities of violent persecution, conflicts, instability, and terrorism increase.

Materials and Methods

This work is based on the descriptive analysis of a survey administered in Spain at the start of 2016 in which the behavior of the dependent variable “freedom or security” is analyzed.

The survey research was carried out by the Sociological Research Center (CIS) on a representative sample of adult Spaniards (see Table 1 ). The sample selection is based on a vast network of sampling points by municipality and a multi-staged sample selection system, culminating in face-to-face interviews. The sampling error was ±1.4% for the whole of the corresponding sample. All the methodological information of the survey, such as the technical sheet, questionnaire, data matrix, and descriptive results, are available for download in the corresponding link (see Table 1 ).

TABLE 1 . Factsheet of the survey.

The instrument or questionnaire presents the study variable (“freedom-security”) in the following literal way: “On a scale of 0–10, in which 0 means having full access to information even if it meant losing security, and 10 means having maximum security even if it meant losing access to information. Where would you position yourself? [0 = Maximum access to information even if it meant losing security (Freedom); 10 = Maximum security even if it meant losing access to information (Security)].” The question or dependent variable used includes an attitude, a certain predisposition, or a simple opinion rather than values. The latter, according to Rokeach (1973) are important life goals or standards which serve as guiding principles in a person’s life, while attitudes are learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object ( Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975 ).

The independent variables used include, on the one hand, traditional classificatory sociodemographic variables such as gender, age, marital status, subjective social class, ideology, education, size of locality, income, national identity, and religion. On the other, a set of questions related to security such as victimization, having been a victim of a crime, reporting a crime, having engaged in delinquent behavior in youth, and the perception of potentially being a victim of a crime ( Herranz and Fernández-Prados, 2019 ); and other questions related to freedom of information or privacy such as internet use and assessing the presence of video cameras in public spaces.

The data analysis includes a descriptive, correlational, and explanatory methodology of the dependent variable being studied and is presented in three sections of the results. The descriptive analysis aims to draw a profile according to the sociodemographic variables and other “freedom-security” dilemma issues. The correlational analysis shows the relationships between those variables of a continuous nature with the study variables and their orientation (either towards greater security or towards greater freedom). Finally, a table with two multiple regression models is presented in the explanatory analysis, one with all the outstanding independent variables and the other with only those deemed to be significant.

Descriptive and Profile

Table 2 presents the relationship between sociodemographic and socioeconomic variables and their frequency or percentage according to the sample of their values or alternative responses in some grouped cases. Thus, the survey sample is composed mainly of women (51.5%) who are over 60 years old (28.4%), married (55.6%), middle subjective social class (70.4%) with centrist ideology (33.9%), describing the most representative social characteristics of the Spanish population.

TABLE 2 . Descriptive and sociodemographic profiles.

Table 2 also contains the descriptive analysis, mean and standard deviation, of the dependent variable “freedom-security” for each of the sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristic values of the sample. For the sample as a whole, the mean of the “freedom-security” variable is 6.4 on a scale of 0–10 with a standard deviation of 2.36. In essence, this means that Spanish population leans towards “security.” The profile where security tends to stand out corresponds to that of men (M = 6.6; SD = 2.28); over 60 years old (M = 6.9; SD = 2.29); widowed, divorced or separated (M = 6.7; SD = 2.44); low subjective social class (M = 6.5; SD = 2.38); with right-wing ideology (M = 6.8; SD = 2.3); elementary education (M = 7.0; SD = 2.22); rural locality (M = 6.5; SD = 2.34); low income (M = 6.7; SD = 2.34); identified as a Spanish national (M = 6.5; SD = 2.30) and practicing Catholic (M = 6.8; SD = 2.19).

Table 3 also shows the description of the variables related to safety or victimization and freedom or privacy that appear in the questionnaire. Thus, half the respondents said they had been the victim of a crime (50.7%), a third had reported a crime (33.6%), two-fifths had engaged in delinquent or quasi-criminal behavior in adolescence (22%), and a 10th considered they were likely to be the victim of a crime (9.4%). Likewise, the vast majority considered surveillance cameras in public spaces to be very good (37.7%) or good (46.6%), and finally, almost three-quarters used the internet (72.3%), and almost half the respondents used social networks (48.2%).

TABLE 3 . Descriptive and sociodemographic profiles.

As in the previous table, the means and standard deviations for each variable are presented with the values of the independent variables that lean towards either security or freedom are highlighted. Thus, the profile of those surveyed with higher means and, therefore, lean more towards security are those who had never been victim of a crime (M = 6.6; SD = 2.29); never reported a crime (M = 6.5; SD = 2.34); nor engaged in pre-delinquent behaviors in adolescence (M = 6.5; SD = 2.29); although they did consider that they were likely to be a victim of a crime (M = 6.7; SD = 2.36); strongly agreed with surveillance cameras (M = 6.8; SD = 2.26) and did not use the internet (M = 7.1; SD = 2.17).

Correlation Among Continuous Variables

The results of the correlation matrix between the dependent variable, “freedom-security,” and the continuous sociodemographic variables and those related to victimization and privacy are shown in Table 4 . Only the variable “nationalism” does not correlate with the study variable, and all the others reach a significance of p value < 0.001 except for size of locality and religious practice with a p value < 0.01. Although it should be borne in mind that the n of the sample is high and can cause this significant correlation with most of the variables, we can point to certain co-variations between the dependent variable and the remainder. That is, a desire for greater levels of security is related to older age, lower social class, more right-wing ideology, lower educational attainment and living in smaller localities, and greater religious observance. In addition, the demand for greater security shows a lower correlation with having been the victim of a crime, reporting a crime, and having pre-criminal or delinquent behaviors, or manifesting stronger agreement with surveillance cameras and lower use of social networks.

TABLE 4 . Correlation between Freedom-Security and continuous variables.

Explanatory and Regression Analysis

Finally, Table 5 shows the results of two multiple regression models where, on the one hand, all the variables used in the descriptive variables and the correlation are contemplated (with the insignificant variable of nationalism); and, on the other hand, only those variables that in the last step had proven to be significant in this multivariate technique. Thus, the first model is comprised of 15 variables attaining a low R squared (R 2 = 0.068), and only five variables are significant within the model. The second model presents only those five significant variables in the final step. These reinforce the level of significance; they all reach p value < 0.001 and increase the R squared (R 2 = 0.080). These variables confirm a first approximation to a more detailed explanatory profile or predictive variables that lean towards security, male gender, older age, right-wing ideology, low educational level, and supporting surveillance cameras in public spaces.

TABLE 5 . Regression analysis multiple (Dependent variable = Freedom-Security).

Discussion and Conclusion

The principal hypothesis of the present study was that the majority trend of the population would lean towards security rather than freedom. This has been confirmed by the results in the case of Spain. In the seventh and last wave of the World Values Survey (2017–2021), which is still being developed, similar results are found for the set of 54 countries for which data was available, where 69.7% of the more than eighty thousand interviewees answered that security is more important than freedom. Only in three countries does freedom have a majority percentage: the United States, New Zealand, and Australia ( Haerpfer et al., 2020 ). In this sense, comparisons with other international studies that include similar questions related to the freedom vs security debate such as the European Social Survey, International Social Survey Program ( Fernández-Prados et al., 2019 ), as well as sociodemographic profiles and other social characteristics or explanatory factors could be helpful to confirm or expand this hypothesis and trend.

The study conducted is not able to give a definitive answer about future trends in the population’s preferences between freedom and security. Among other reasons, the research is Cross-sectional and not longitudinal, moreover, it is limited to an only country to the influence of a global context. Certainly, it would be necessary to conduct or analyse cross-sectional and international studies. The recent analysis of the World Values Survey shows a return to the values of loyalty, security primacy, distrust, and authoritarian populisms as a reaction to the values of tolerance and individual freedom ( Norris and Inglehart, 2019 ). In short, culture seems to be facing the freedom-security dilemma as a historical pendulum, although our current context is priming security.

The relationship and correlation found in this article between victimization and the “freedom-security” debates provide at least two nuances. Firstly, against what is expected, people who are victims of crimes, whistle-blowers, and those who had delinquent or pre-criminal behaviours in adolescence lean more towards freedom than security, while those who are perceived as priority targets of crimes overwhelmingly opt for the security. That is, the issue of security has is related to personal experiences or behaviours, thus connecting them to the theory of securitization and de-securitization by Butler (2020) , which states that the major security issues such as terrorism, climate change, gender violence, or any conflict are constructed and deconstructed in political discourses and public opinion. In this sense, the inclusion of more variables related to the perception of insecurity in future studies could also be helpful to build more significant explanatory models with a stronger association.

In addition to the sociodemographic variables in which the association with security rather than freedom have been verified (male gender, older age, and lower level of education attainment), ideology has behaved as a highly predictive variable, associating the right more towards security. In contrast, the left was associated more closely with freedom. Azmanova (2020) points to a redefinition of the ideological panorama and the left-right axis as a consequence of the impact of globalization in Western societies, with a winning party that considers it an opportunity and a losing party that perceives it as a risk. The winners and supporters of globalization value its advantages for a more cosmopolitan lifestyle and open economy, placing themselves in traditionally left-wing positions. The losers of globalization represent blue-collar workers, those who fear or are insecure about opening international markets and migration, defending positions of a certain economic patriotism, materialistic values, and ideological positions located to the right and extreme right ( Azmanova, 2020 ).

Perhaps another fitting interpretation of the trend towards security comes from the interpretation of the consumer society, and by extension the network society, in the context of Bauman’s sociological theory. In liquid modernity, consumer society replaces groups with an increasing number of “swarms” and the comfort of flying in a swarm derives from having security in numbers. The individual is based on the idea that when many have chosen to fly in the same direction, it must be a good and safe choice. In a “swarm” there is no exchange, cooperation or complementarity; there is only physical proximity and basic coordination in a given direction. Swarms have no leaders and no hierarchy of authority. They gather, disperse and reassemble from one event to the next, drawn by shifting and moving targets. The actual leadership of the swarm may “assign” leadership roles to particular members for a short period of time before they return to anonymity within the “swarm” ( Bauman, 2007 ).

The role of new technologies requires a reflection that Manuel Castells (1996) pointed out in the last century when he differentiated between the mere information society and the informational society. In other words, information and communication technologies have been the basis for entering a new informational era after the industrial society. This radical social and cultural change situates the debate on the dilemma between freedom and security precisely in the development and trends of technologies. Thus, the great historical and current challenge, according to Clarise Véliz (2020) , is to recover individual and collective privacy (freedom) in the face of the data economy (security) in the hands of the power of large technology companies and governments. The fact of shifting the debate from a mere technological issue to the realm of power relations makes the freedom-security dilemma an exciting ideological and philosophical topic.

The theses and the consequences of the surveillance society proposed by David Lyon have been reflected in the solid and significant association between the assessment of the presence of cameras in public spaces and the “freedom-security” debate. The results have confirmed that the preference for security is supported by those who defend the presence of public social control tools such as surveillance cameras. The current crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked the debate on “freedom-security” and the new mechanisms of social control such as mobile phones and tracking and surveillance applications used by States and technology companies ( Taylor et al., 2020 ). In this way, the virtual space acquires an increasing relevance to address the redefined dilemma as privacy-cybersecurity.

Finally, the current crisis caused by the global pandemic points to an emphasis on security and new social challenges to be faced at global, national, and individual levels ( Varin, 2022 ). At the global level, it has increased tensions between the superpowers of China and the United States and demonstrated the unwillingness of rich countries to help much poorer countries when the health of their own populations is at risk. For countries, in some cases it has increased their tendency to fragment, and in others it has led to authoritarian rule that may well outlast the pandemic. And at the individual level, it has led to unprecedented forms of intervention, accentuating the growth of the “surveillance state” and “quarantining” rights and freedoms. In this context in which the pandemic and the measures adopted have led to greater confrontation, polarization and socio-political control, the debate between security and freedom takes on greater interest and connotations of a political and ideological nature from the point of view of public perception and opinion ( Fernández-Prados et al., 2021 ). In this way, the new context of the global pandemic crisis, the dilemma between freedom and security, and public opinion become a triad that will undoubtedly generate future lines of research.

Data Availability Statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Author Contributions

GH contributed to conception and design of the study. JF organized the database and performed the statistical analysis. GH and JF wrote the first draft of the manuscript and all authors contributed to manuscript revision, read, and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors, and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: security, freedom, victimization, ideology, surveillance

Citation: Herranz de Rafael G and Fernández-Prados JS (2022) The Security Versus Freedom Dilemma. An Empirical Study of the Spanish Case. Front. Sociol. 7:774485. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2022.774485

Received: 12 September 2021; Accepted: 17 January 2022; Published: 08 February 2022.

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Copyright © 2022 Herranz de Rafael and Fernández-Prados. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Juan S. Fernández-Prados, [email protected]

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Let’s talk about security and freedom

• By discoversociety
• September 05, 2017
• 2017 , Articles , DS48

Barry Knight

We live by the stories we tell ourselves. The most important storyline is how to live a good life, since this determines what we believe in, how we act, and the institutions we build. The key text here is the famous 1977 essay by Berger and Neuhaus , which examines the importance of mediating structures such as family, church, workplace, trade union and community association in connecting individuals to society. In a healthy society, these connections are at the heart of the common public good.

In the period following the Second World War such mediating structures formed the bedrock for organising British society. This, combined with government policies that pursued full employment and a welfare state, led to social advance on a scale never seen before. This was planned during the wartime Conservative-led coalition government and implemented in full by the Labour government after 1945. The leitmotif was “security”. Politicians of all stripes were determined to avoid the return of the dark days of the 1930s depression.

In the 1970s, this story failed. The post-war consensus between parties buckled under the weight of “stagflation” – the coincidence of low economic growth, high unemployment and high inflation. This resulted in industrial disorder and social unrest, from which a strong leader emerged with a new story. Following her election victory in 1979, Margaret Thatcher was determined to raise the status of business, money-making and growth by creating an “enterprise culture”. The new philosophy was based on five principles: free markets, small state, low tax, individual liberty and big defence.

The watchword for this approach was ‘freedom’. The importance of security was downplayed, since this had produced a ‘dependency culture’. Moreover, Thatcher believed that expenditure on the welfare state was wasteful because it undermined economic growth. While many people criticized the social dimensions of this approach, the economic consequences were remarkable, and median household income has more than doubled in real terms in the 40 years since 1977.

To achieve such growth, society shifted from an economy based on production to one based on consumption. Zygmunt Bauman has described this as moving from ‘solid modernity’ to ‘liquid modernity’. (1) While in the past we saw ourselves as ‘pilgrims’ in search of deeper meaning in a stable world, we now see ourselves as “tourists” in search of multiple but fleeting social experiences. As a result, we now find it harder to construct a durable sense of ourselves as we tend to live a fast life in a kaleidoscope of relationships.

This has created a crisis of meaning. While mediating institutions have declined, shopping has filled the void. As Neal Lawson puts it in All consuming , “Shopping has been emotionally, culturally and socially grafted onto us.” (2) He also says that for many it is an addiction that fails to satisfy us: “Turbo-consumerism is the heroin of human happiness.” An extreme form of such consumerism can be found in ‘celebrity culture’ in which famous individuals transform their fame into product brands, which the public then consumes. In emulating celebrities, ordinary people use the ‘selfie’, posting their photos on social media to display the illusion that life is ‘all about me’. Such developments were foreseen 50 years ago by Guy Debord in his 1967 Society of the spectacle in which “authentic social life has been replaced with its representation.” (3) Debord argues that the history of social life can be understood as “the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing”. This condition is the “historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life”.

The price is a soul sickness at the heart of our society, which breeds deep insecurity and unhappiness for many, while violating the basis in nature on which our species depends. The Webb Memorial Trust reviewed the evidence on social attitudes, housing, work, finances, and health, and concluded that the UK is a deeply insecure society. Such insecurity permeates society and is not restricted to the one-fifth of the population who experience chronic poverty.

So, while pursuit of the word ‘freedom’ may have led to much progress, it has come at the expense of “security”. Looking back at history, it appears that security and freedom are antinomies. In their book, The Fourth Revolution Micklethwait and Wooldridge trace the history of government over the past 500 years and find that one or other of these two concepts has been central to the story of societies during different periods. (4) In the 17 th century, security rose to the fore influenced by the work of Thomas Hobbes, but by the 19 th century liberty got the upper hand through the influence of John Stuart Mill. In the mid 20 th century, security became paramount though the influence of Beatrice Webb, only to be replaced by freedom from the 1970s onwards under the influence of Milton Friedman.

We see this dynamic in the organization of contemporary politics, in which the dominance of two political parties encourages bifurcation, one stressing freedom and the other security. And yet, this framing has failed us as a society – the pursuit of one at the expense of the other leads to distortions when what we need is balance. Our current trajectory, based on freedom, encourages untrammelled economic growth, even though Carbon Tracker warns that the destruction of our ecosystem is just around the corner. At the same, there is no obvious alternative because the framing of the current narrative on security takes us back to yesterday’s world of the welfare state for which there is little capacity, finance or public support.

So how do we make progress? The two camps are increasingly polarised, and communication between them seems to occur through shouting. Ponder for a moment the extraordinary fact that, despite all the problems that Greece faces, a Greek foundation – the Stavros Niarchos Foundation – has committed $150 million to Johns Hopkins University to lead a worldwide effort to restore open and inclusive discourse to rescue our democracies.

So how can we make progress? The first helpful step would be to admit our confusion. As Yanis Varoufakis puts it: “Nothing humanizes us like aporia – that state of intense puzzlement in which we find ourselves when our certainties fall to pieces… and when the aporia casts its net far and wide to ensnare the whole of humanity, we know we are at a very special moment in history.” (5)

Such a perspective takes us back to basics, forcing us to rethink our values and to decide what kind of society we want. We attempted to do this in Rethinking poverty: What makes a good society . We used many techniques – surveys, focus groups and participative research to find out what kind of society people want.

Our results show that people want security and freedom. Rather than being antinomies, people see them as complementary. People’s views are complicated and nuanced, and cannot easily be captured in opinion polls that yield binary answers. While our results are provisional, detailed analysis of the results suggests that there are five core principles in what people want from their society:

• We all have a decent basic standard of living
• So, we are secure and free to choose how to lead our lives
• Developing our potential and flourishing materially and emotionally
• Participating, contributing and treating all with care and respect
• And building a fair and sustainable future for the next generations

One underlying concept that links these five principles is the idea of ‘community’. This reflects the fact that, if there is one factor above all others that people value most, it is the quality of the relationships they have. This is the source of people’s sense of security and freedom.

The conclusions of Rethinking poverty: What makes a good society set out the implications of the findings for the methods of developing a society we want. The conclusions are that a completely different approach is needed, and we cannot rely on politics to do this for us. A good society is one that we create, it cannot be something done to us. As Terry Pratchett wrote in Witches Abroad , “You can’t go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it’s just a cage”. Nowhere is this truer than in relation to the ending of poverty, a process that now can and must involve the poor as their own agents of change

Notes: (1) Bauman, Z. (2013) Liquid modernity , New York: John Wiley and Sons. (2) Lawson, N. (2009) All consuming , London: Penguin. (3) Debord, G. (1994) The society of the spectacle , New York: Zone Books. (4) Micklethwait, J. and Wooldridge, A. (2015) The fourth revolution: The global race to reinvent the state , London: Penguin. (5) Varoufakis, Y. (2011) The global minotaur, University of Chicago Press Economics Books

Barry Knight is a social scientist and statistician, and Director of the Webb Memorial Trust . Having advised the Ford Foundation and the CS Mott Foundation, he now works with the Global Fund for Community Foundations, the Arab Reform Initiative and the European Foundation Centre.   He is co-chair of the Working Group on Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace and is the author or editor of 14 books on poverty, civil society, community development and democracy.

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Home > ETDS > Dissertations and Theses > 5816

Dissertations and Theses

Freedom vs. security: analyzing the connection between states' prioritization of security over civil liberties and citizen support for democratic norms.

Carlyn Trumbull Madden , Portland State University Follow

Hatfield School of Government. Department of Political Science

First Advisor

Melody Valdini

Term of Graduation

Summer 2021

Date of Publication

Document type, degree name.

Master of Science (M.S.) in Political Science

Political Science

Civil rights -- New Zealand -- Public opinion, Civil rights -- Turkey -- Public opinion, Civil rights -- United States -- Public opinion, National security, Democracy

10.15760/etd.7687

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1 online resource (vi, 136 pages)

Is global democracy declining? This is a question many have argued over, leading to multiple, oftentimes contradictory, answers regarding causes and potential solutions. This thesis seeks to explore the question of democratic decline by analyzing changes over time in public opinion survey data in three states- New Zealand, Turkey, and the United States- looking specifically at how the government has balanced the tradeoff between security and civil liberties in the post-9/11 world. I argue that long-term government prioritization of security over freedoms has eroded support for fundamental democratic norms, as citizens willingly accept restrictions to their rights in exchange for a sense of security, causing gradual democratic decline. The evidence from an analysis of survey data over the past ten years supports this theory, with New Zealand emerging as a best-case scenario that always prioritized freedom, and remains a strong democracy, Turkey as a worst-case scenario that strongly supported security over all else and quickly transitioned away from the fledgling democracy they were into full autocracy, and the US gradually, and worryingly, slipping deeper into hybridity with enduring restrictions on civil rights. Further, the gap between citizen perceptions of the abstract and reality of democracy appears to be growing, resulting in a general inability (or unwillingness) among citizens to see an increase in security policy as counter to democracy, in either an abstract or practical sense, despite evidence that expanding security is balanced out by a decrease in freedoms. While not the only factor leading to democratic decline, government prioritization of security policy over civil liberties has long term consequences for democratic survival and serious implications for the future.

© 2021 Carlyn Trumbull Madden

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Madden, Carlyn Trumbull, "Freedom vs. Security: Analyzing the Connection between States' Prioritization of Security over Civil Liberties and Citizen Support for Democratic Norms" (2021). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 5816. https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.7687

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The value conflict between freedom and security: Explaining the variation of COVID-19 policies in democracies and autocracies

Nicole j. saam.

1 Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany

Carmen Friedrich

2 Department of Sociology, University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany

Henriette Engelhardt

3 The State Institute for Family Research (ifb), Bamberg, Germany

Associated Data

The data underlying the results presented in the study are available from the World Values Survey (WVS) research program ( https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp ) and from the Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) project ( https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/research/research-projects/covid-19-government-response-tracker ). The authors confirm that the data is third-party data and that they had no special access privileges other researchers would not have. The data files can be downloaded without restrictions.

In the name of health security, individual freedoms were constrained in an unprecedented way in many countries, democratic or authoritarian, all over the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet the constraints have not been consistent across countries, which motivates this paper to examine the relevance of value preferences towards freedom or security in the society for COVID-19 policies. Based on data for 40 democratic and authoritarian countries, the analyses show that the variation in the stringency of COVID-19 policies can be explained by value preferences of the population only in autocracies. In democracies, however, we do not find such a relationship. Governments in democratic political systems, we argue, are responsive to their constitutions and face prosecution by the judiciary if they violate the law or provisions of the constitution, limiting their capacity to implement strong COVID-19 policies. Nevertheless, their COVID-19 policies restricted citizens’ freedoms and liberties, which means that these policies were rather not responsive to citizens’ preferences for freedom, democratic rights and liberties. By highlighting how autocracies respond to their citizens’ value preferences for security, this paper contributes to a better understanding of how autocracies might gain legitimacy in times of crises.

1 Introduction

In the name of health security, individual freedoms were constrained in an unprecedented way in many countries, democratic or authoritarian, all over the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nation-wide lockdowns have become standard policies in fighting the spread of COVID-19. Yet the constraints have not been consistent across countries, which have motivated researchers to explain variations across jurisdictions [ 1 – 3 ]. Studies on policies in democracies find that the constitutional protection of individual liberties had a negative effect on restrictions of freedoms [ 4 ]. Studies involving democracies and autocracies offer a mixed picture: Some find that democracies were slower in adapting COVID-19 policies [ 5 , 6 ], while others find that democracy is not significant in predicting the speed of government stringency [ 7 ]. Frey et al. [ 8 ] show that autocracies have been stricter in their mobility restriction and contact tracing policies. Lins et al. [ 9 ], however, find no differences in social distancing policies between autocracies and democracies, and the level of democracy was not associated with the number of tests for COVID-19 [ 10 ]. Two studies include the overall freedom of the country: Toshkov et al. [ 3 ] find that a higher Freedom House global freedom score was related to a slower policy reaction in European countries, while Gutkowski [ 11 ] find that there was no relationship between lockdown timing and the degree of freedom in a sample of 128 countries. Toshkov et al. [ 3 ] conclude that “countries with higher freedom might have also been more reluctant to restrict the personal liberties and freedoms of citizens.” We do not find, however, an inclusion of the value conflict between (health) security and (individual) freedoms in statistical models that analyze the variation of COVID-19 policies across democracies or autocracies. This value conflict is extensively discussed in legal studies (e.g., for Germany, see [ 12 , 13 ]), political philosophy (e.g., [ 14 , 15 ]), political psychology (e.g., [ 16 , 17 ]), and economic history (e.g., [ 18 ]). From all these perspectives, this value conflict is considered to be relevant in times of pandemic. In Bilgen’s words, the question is “how a democratic order can overcome the security crisis while preserving its fundamental principles, such as individual freedom as a highest value” [13, p. 371]. Then, concepts (“securitas libertatis” [ 13 ]) and principles (“SAFE principles” [ 16 ]) are developed to guide preservation of supremacy, preponderance or primacy of one of both values or to restore the balance between freedom and security. Delanty [ 14 ] argues, that philosophical theories, such as utilitarianism and libertarianism, and ideas from philosophers such as Kant, Foucault, Agamben and Zizek, as well as nudge theory have shaped COVID-19 policies and draw attention to the problem of liberty or biopolitical securitization. He concludes that “the Coronavirus is more than a pathogen that threatens the lives of many people, but democracy is also in danger from the recent experiments with emergency government. … populations … have been disciplined in the late Foucauldian sense of the term to desire safety over liberty” [14, p. 14f.]. Vasilopoulos et al. [ 17 ] reveal the emotional mechanisms that lead citizens to decide to sacrifice their civil liberties in the light of threatened health security. We therefore claim that value preferences for freedom and security should be considered in explanations of variations of COVID-19 policies across jurisdictions. We find this value conflict also in the society, e.g., people were discussing the pros and cons in this value conflict in the social media. Political decision makers respond to value preferences in the society [ 19 – 21 ], we argue, however in different degrees. Since policy choices cannot simultaneously incorporate the totality of societal values, they are necessarily the selective result of competitive processes, favoring certain values over others, and excluding some values from the discourse altogether [ 20 ]. Distinguishing democracies and authoritarian regimes, our analyses show based on data for 40 countries that the variation in the stringency of COVID-19 policies in autocracies can be explained by value preferences of the population in this value conflict between freedom and security. In democracies, however, we do not find such a relationship. Governments in democratic political systems, we argue, are responsive to their constitutions and face prosecution by the judiciary if they violate the law or provisions of the constitution, limiting their capacity to implement strong COVID-19 policies. Nevertheless, their COVID-19 policies restricted citizens’ freedoms and liberties, which means that these policies were rather not responsive to citizens’ general preferences for freedom, democratic rights and liberties. By highlighting how autocracies respond to their citizens’ value preferences for security, this paper contributes to a better understanding of how autocracies might gain legitimacy in times of crises. Our study therefore provides quantitative support for the hypothesis that the Corona crisis will possibly strengthen autocratic regimes and weaken democratic political systems as the democracies fail to satisfy citizens’ demands for freedom while the autocracies respond to citizen’s demand for security.

The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 elaborates on the theories and previous findings that aim to explain variations in state COVID-19 responses–the relevance of values in politics, the differences found for democracies and authoritarian regimes, the relevance of policy diffusion as well as economic and health factors. In section 3, we explain material and methods. In section 4, we present our results. There are no substantial differences in the average stringency of COVID-19 policies over time between democracies and autocracies. Only the random effects models estimated for autocracies show a negative, significant association between value preferences of the population and the stringency of COVID-19 policies. In the conclusion, we argue that the Corona crisis provides an opportunity for autocracies to respond to value preferences of the population in a value conflict and thereby might gain legitimacy in times of crises.

2 Theories and previous findings

Values and politics.

Engler et al. [4, p. 2] as well as many others who research into the COVID-19 policies argue that governments are confronted with the “dilemma of weighing public health goals against democratic norms, rights and freedoms” resp. handling the trade-off between public health responses and democratic principles. We argue that this dilemma reflects a classical value conflict–the conflict between security and freedom, here between health security [ 22 ] and individual freedoms. In the context of the Corona crisis, health security and individual freedoms can be considered to be political values, not just individual values. Political values are correlated with attitudes towards policy goals [ 23 – 25 ], preferences for political parties [ 26 ], and electoral behavior [ 27 – 29 ]. We therefore argue that for political elites, it is rational to consider the value preferences in the society when adopting measures that, during normal times, either contradict fundamental democratic principles, such as freedom of movement or freedom of assembly, or are extraordinary anyway, e.g., the so-called “social distancing”. Toshkov et al. [ 3 ] distinguish two theoretical perspectives: (1) Party-political ideologies are related to the commitment to particular social values. COVID-19 policies are earlier or later based on these commitments. In particular, parties emphasizing traditional, authoritarian and nationalist values in their ideology, adopt faster and more restrictive COVID-19 policies. (2) Societal values and the overall freedom of the country influence COVID-19 policies. In more free societies, there is an appreciation of personal and collective liberties and freedoms–they are “protected by civil society” [3, p. 10] which imposes higher thresholds for governments to justify and enforce restrictions on fundamental freedoms. It is this latter theoretical perspective, which we investigate in this study, but we look at it from two sides and consider two societal values–freedom and security. We look at the trade-off between (health) security and (individual) freedoms considering not just the single values [ 30 ] but the value conflict. Stewart [ 20 ] delineates six forms of managing value conflict used by political and bureaucratic executives: structural separation, hybridization, casuistry, incrementalism, bias, and cycling.

Authoritarian versus democratic systems

We claim that democracies and authoritarian regimes respond differently to this societal value conflict. In democracies, politicians should hesitate to limit individual liberties because they are inherent to democracy [ 31 ], and because negative public perceptions of restrictions of personal freedoms may jeopardize their reelection [ 32 ]. Differences in COVID-19 policies between authoritarian and democratic political systems were found by several empirical studies. In particular, democracies were slower in adapting the new policies [ 5 , 6 ] or could possibly have been so [ 33 ]. The stronger the democratic institutions, the slower has the reaction in OECD countries been [ 2 ]. Autocracies have been more strict in their mobility restriction and contact tracing policies [ 8 ]. In democracies, the constitutional protection of individual liberties had a negative effect on restrictions of freedoms [ 4 ]. In democracies, political elites know that they are accountable [ 34 – 36 ]. Once the pandemic is over, or even before, other political as well as societal actors may question the legitimacy and proportionality of the COVID-19 policies and hold decision-makers accountable for their decisions. E.g., Maor & Howlett [1, p. 236] quote Israeli Minister of Finance Moshe Kahlon who argued that “surely there will be a national committee of inquiry, and no one wants [to have] to explain why there are Israeli corpses”. Such as Engler et al. [ 4 ], we argue that the strength of democratic institutions influences how political decision-makers in democracies handle the trade-off between health security and individual freedoms. The willingness to constrain civil liberties decreases with the degree to which democratic norms, rights and freedoms are protected and respected in non-pandemic times or times without a major crisis. The legal framework of democracies (rule of law; [ 37 , 38 ]), and here we go beyond Engler et al. [ 4 ], establishes a point of reference for decision-makers which outweighs the value preferences in the society. Created as a safeguard against the misuse of power by governments [ 39 ], strong democratic institutions also establish an impediment or check to rely and respond directly to moods, attitudes or value preferences in the society [ 40 , 41 ].

Policy diffusion

In the name of health security, not only individual freedoms were constrained in an unprecedented way in many countries. Also, other measures implemented were very similar, although with some variation, hinting to politics of policy diffusion. Note that some measures, such as the closure of schools, are laid out in national pandemic plans, while others are not, e.g., the closure of borders, which means that the enforcement of the former cannot easily be interpreted as an indicator of policy diffusion. Policy diffusion has been defined as a process where policies in one political unit influence the politics of other units [ 42 ]. Already Meyer and Rowan [ 43 ] have argued that policies can spread because policy makers aim to conform to dominant international norms, in the Corona crisis to the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO), while considering also domestic constraints which results in a legislation that locally adapts policies to serve a domestic constituency. Four mechanisms are proposed to explain policy diffusion: learning, competition, coercion and emulation. Gilardi & Wasserfallen [ 42 ] derive a dominant stylized model of policy diffusion from the relevant literature in international relations and studies in federalism and argue that this model is based on the assumption that decisions are the result of fact-based assessments. They claim that instead policy diffusion should more be seen as a political process. E.g., diffusion may also involve unsuccessful policies, may be based on ideologically biased learning, may be shaped at the issue-definition stage or based on empirically false assumptions. In this framework, policy diffusion during the Corona crisis can considered to be based on the mechanism of emulation. Emulation scholars emphasize the social construction of appropriate policies [ 44 ], and that international organizations, such as the WHO, not only construct the norms fostering the appropriateness of policies but also promote policy diffusion [ 45 , 46 ]. Such policies may be considered as legitimate [ 47 ]. However, in many cases, it is quite difficult to distinguish learning or coercion from emulation. E.g., in the Corona crisis, countries may also learn from mistakes of neighbouring countries’ COVID-19 policies; or announcements of the WHO together with announced financial support by other international or transnational organizations rather coerce some poorer countries to implement the proposed policies. Recently, Blatter et al. [ 48 ] have presented an alternative typology of policy diffusion, based on four motivational mechanisms (called interest-, rights-, ideology-, and recognition-driven policy diffusion) in an effort to overcome inconsistent operationalizations in empirical diffusion studies shown by Maggetti & Gilardi [ 49 ]. However, this typology is not yet suited to study diffusion processes in autocracies. In their empirical study on the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic Rausis & Hoffmeyer‐Zlotnik [ 50 ] found tentative evidence for processes of policy diffusion in the field of mobility restrictions in Europe (EU, EFTA and UK). Engler et al. [ 4 ] and Sebhatu et al. [ 2 ] found diffusion effects for COVID-19 policies in European democracies and OECD countries, respectively.

Economic and health factors

While diffusion effects may be present, we expect that the stringency of COVID-19 policies adopted by governments generally follow the epidemiological situation. The number of cases, deaths or case-fatality rates associated with COVID-19 vary strongly across countries and over time within countries [ 51 ]. For example, the case-fatality rates in June 2020 differed substantially between South Korea and Italy, while those of Germany and the United States were in between [ 52 ]. Hale et al. [ 53 ] show for the first phase of the pandemic that policies broadly track the reported COVID-19 cases. Thus, the varying severity of the COVID-19 situation could explain differences in the stringency of measures. Number of cases and deaths are only rough indicators for a country’s actual epidemiological situation: Number of confirmed cases are underestimates of actual cases and depend on testing policy, while number of deaths depend on how each country records and defines COVID-19 deaths. However, this is the only data available policy-makers can base their decisions on.

Apart from the epidemiological situation itself, a country’s resources and its vulnerability to the pandemic might influence the introduction of stringent measures as well. Countries with a low health care system capacity and a high proportion of risk groups for COVID-19, e.g. a large share of elderly population , are in need to introduce strict measures in order to prevent an overload of the health care system. We also assume that countries with a high GDP are able to introduce more stringent measures than countries with a low GDP, because they have more resources to react and are more capable of enduring damaging impacts on the economy due to lockdown measures than countries with a low GDP.

Number of deaths due to the virus, number of cases of people infected (epidemiological situation), share of risk groups, health care system capacity and GDP are common control variables in existing studies on the variation of COVID-19 measures [ 2 , 4 , 5 , 11 ]. While the epidemiological situation and the share of risk groups should only influence the stringency of COVID-19 measures, we argue that the GDP and health care system capacity influence value preferences of the population towards freedom or security as well. A country’s GDP and health care system capacity are indicators of a country’s level of socioeconomic development, which leads to rising levels of existential security. According to the “revised theory of modernization”, existential security results in a shift from emphasis on survival values to emphasis on self-expression values [ 54 ]. Inglehart and Welzel [ 54 ] particularly mention the link between GDP and self-expression values.

3 Material and methods

Data and sample.

The analytic sample consists of 40 countries (20 democracies, 20 autocracies) for which information about the value conflict between freedom and security in the population is available in the World Values Survey (WVS) 2017–2020 dataset [ 55 ]. S1 Table provides a list of all countries included in the analysis. We excluded four countries (Iran, Myanmar, Ukraine, Zimbabwe) where the fieldwork of the WVS 2017–2020 continued until after March 11, 2020, when the WHO had already declared the COVID - 19 outbreak a global pandemic. It is possible that the spread of COVID-19 and first political measures influenced the responses to the question about the value conflict between freedom versus security. In addition, Taiwan was excluded because of its unique trajectory of COVID-19 cases and policies [ 56 ]. Respondents in the WVS were asked the following question: “Most people consider both freedom and security to be important, but if you had to choose between them, which one would you consider more important?” We aggregated this information to the percentage of the population that considers freedom more important than security.

The stringency of policy responses were measured by the Stringency Index provided by the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) dataset (version July 2021; [ 57 ]). This index allows us to track COVID- 19 policy changes; starting from January 1, 2020, it has been measured daily. Varying between 0 and 100 it shows the stringency of lockdown policies, such as school and workplace closing, cancelation of public events and movement restrictions. S2 Table provides an overview of all nine indicators of the stringency index. All indicators have an ordinal scale of severity or stringency; the specific coding is shown in S2 Table as well. Detailed information about the calculation of the index and its indicators can be found in Hale et al. [ 57 ].

Analytic strategy

We estimated random effects models: The models are linear panel regression models (daily observations nested in countries) with random effects (random intercept) at the country level. The models were estimated jointly for all 40 countries as well as separately for democracies (20 countries) and autocracies (20 countries). We distinguish democracies and autocracies using the Regimes of the World typology by Lührmann, Tannenberg, and Lindberg [ 58 ], which is included in the data provided by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project [ 59 , 60 ]. The analysis was restricted to the time span from February 01 to June 30, 2020, since we are interested in policy reactions during the first wave of the pandemic. We adopted this investigation period from Engler et al. [ 4 ]. In this wave, all countries had limited knowledge about adequate responses to COVID-19. For a robustness check, we estimated all models with different time spans by varying the end date (May 15, 2020; May 30, 2020; June 15, 2020; July 30, 2020) and the results were very similar.

The main models only controlled for variables that we expect to have an effect on both the Stringency Index and on the societal value conflict between freedom and security (confounders) to avoid overcontrol bias [ 61 , 62 ]: (1) gross domestic product (GDP , logged) ; health care system capacity, measured by the (2) number of hospital beds per 1000 people and (3) share of the GDP spent on health care expenditures ; (4) democracy level . We used the data of the World Bank for the GDP (year 2019) and health care expenditures (year 2017), which is included in the World Value Survey 2017–2020 dataset [ 55 ]. The number of hospital beds per 1000 people (most recent year available) was from the OWID COVID-19 data [ 51 ] and the democracy level was measured by the Liberal Democracy Index of the V-Dem Institute (multiplied by 100; [ 59 , 60 ]). GDP and health care system capacity is expected to influence not only the Stringency Index, but also the societal value conflict between freedom and security [ 54 ] (see section “Economic and health factors”). Likewise, the democracy level should not only be relevant for the stringency of COVID-19 policies (see section “Authoritarian versus democratic systems”), but is also likely to influence self-expression values within a population: “According to ‘institutional learning theory’, individuals’ values, preferences and behavior are heavily influenced by the institutional environments within which they operate” [ 63 ].

Main model with GDP, health care system capacity and democracy level as control variables:

The indices i and t denote countries and date, respectively. The unobserved time-constant effect is called c i and u it denotes the time-varying error term.

In addition, we present models that further controlled for five variables that we expect to have an effect solely on the Stringency Index. First, to capture the severity of the COVID-19 situation, we included the (1) daily number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million (smoothed, 7-day rolling average; [ 51 ]). As a robustness check we used the daily number of new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million (smoothed, 7-day rolling average; [ 51 ]) instead and the results were similar. Second, to account for diffusion effects, the models controlled for the (2) worldwide daily average of the Stringency Index (calculated from the OxCGRT data). Third, the models included the proportion of three COVID-19 risk groups. Those are the (3) percentage of the total population aged over 60 years in year 2015 [ 64 ], the (4) percentage of people aged 20–79 who have type 1 or type 2 diabetes in year 2019 [ 65 ], and the (5) obesity prevalence (BMI ≥ 30, crude rates) among adults aged over 20 years in year 2016 [ 66 ].

Model with additional control variables:

Our variable of interest, freedom vs. security, is statistically significant correlated with all control variables, except worldwide average Stringency Index and diabetes prevalence (Pearson’s r, see S3 Table ). However, none of these correlations is higher than 0.5, so there should be no collinearity between freedom vs. security and any of the control variables.

Descriptive statistics

Table 1 presents descriptive statistics for all variables included in the analysis in the three analytic samples (all countries, democracies, autocracies). There are no substantial differences in the average Stringency Index over time between democracies and autocracies. The average percentage of the population that considers freedom more important than security is higher in democracies (33.5%) than in autocracies (26.8%). However, as the range shows, there is a high variation between countries within both regime types. For the distribution of the societal value conflict and its single values for each country see S1 Fig and S1 Table , respectively.

Fig 1 shows the development of the Stringency Index of all countries, democracies, and autocracies separately for countries with a high individual appreciation of freedom versus security and countries with a low individual appreciation of freedom versus security. High appreciation and low appreciation at this point mean that at least or less than 28% of the population consider freedom more important than security, respectively (median split). For autocracies, we find that except for a short period in February, the level of the Stringency Index between February 01 and June 30, 2020 of countries with a high appreciation of freedom versus security is consistently below that of countries with a low appreciation of freedom versus security. For democracies, we do not see this pattern until the end of April 2020. Within democracies, the period between end of March and mid of April 2020 shows an interesting pattern. Democratic countries with a high and low individual appreciation of freedom vs. security have similar levels of the Stringency Index in the beginning. However, at the end of March 2020 the stringency of lockdown measures in democratic countries with a high individual appreciation of freedom vs. security increases to a higher value than that of countries with a low individual appreciation of freedom vs. security and it remains at this level until mid of April 2020. It seems that countries with a high individual appreciation of freedom vs. security overreacted at the very beginning of the pandemic and relaxed their lockdown levels to a level below that of countries with a low individual appreciation of freedom vs. security only at a later point in time. However, it is important to note that the 90% confidence intervals of the lines overlap in all three samples, which means that there is no clear evidence of a difference between the two groups of countries. Moreover, from these descriptive results it is not possible to conclude that such a difference in the stringency of COVID-19 policies would be in fact due to value preferences in the population. The analyses in the next section will account for important confounders of this relationship.

For countries with a high individual appreciation of freedom versus security and countries with a low individual appreciation of freedom versus security (median split: high = at least 31.56%, low = less than 31.56%); for all countries, and separately for democracies and autocracies. Notes : All countries: high: n = 20, low: n = 20; Democracies: high: n = 11, low: n = 9; Autocracies: high: n = 9, low: n = 11.

Impact of value preferences of the population on the stringency of COVID-19 policies

Fig 2 shows the results of the main models that only controlled for variables that we expect to have an effect on both the Stringency Index and on the societal value conflict between freedom and security (estimated for all countries and separately for democracies and autocracies). There is no significant association between value preferences of the population and the Stringency Index in the sample that includes all countries. The coefficient is small and negative. In the sample that includes only democracies, we find a small positive, not significant association. The results of the third model, which was estimated only for autocracies, show a negative, significant association between value preferences of the population and the Stringency Index (p < 0.05). On average, if the percentage of the population that considers freedom more important than security increases by 1.0, the Stringency Index decreases by 0.5, ceteris paribus.

Notes: Coefficients are statistically significant if the 95% confidence intervals do not cover zero. Full regression tables are shown in Tables ​ Tables2 2 and ​ and3 3 (model 5).

For the full regression tables see Tables ​ Tables2 2 and ​ and3. 3 . Model 5 is equivalent to the results shown in Fig 2 and model 6 additionally includes variables that that we expect to have an effect solely on the Stringency Index. Model 1 presents the bivariate relationship without control variables, as suggested by Lenz and Sahn [ 62 ]. To show how the effect size of the societal value conflict between freedom and security changes after including important confounders, the models 2, 3, and 4 only control for GDP, health care system capacity, and democracy level, respectively. Tables ​ Tables2 2 and ​ and3 3 also report two measures of goodness-of-fit, the adjusted overall R-squared and the Bayesian information criterion (BIC). In all three samples (all countries, democracies, autocracies), the goodness-of-fit is highest in model 6, which includes all control variables. However, because our aim is to explore the role of societal value preferences towards freedom or security for COVID-19 policies and not to fully explain the national variation of the stringency index, we do not interpret these measures of goodness-of fit further.

Standard errors in parentheses

*** p < 0.001

** p < 0.01

* p < 0.05

+ p < 0.1

As an additional analysis, we estimated models for all countries that included an interaction between the societal value conflict and the regime type (0 = Autocracy, 1 = Democracy; see S4 Table ) instead of the separate analysis for democracies and autocracies. The interaction term is not statistically significant and we find a negative effect of the societal value conflict on the Stringency Index for autocracies (-0.36) and a positive effect that is close to zero for democracies (-0.36 + 0.41 = 0.05) in model 6, which includes all relevant control variables. However, it is important to note that our research question is not if the effect of the societal value conflict differs between democracies and autocracies, but if there is an effect within democracies and within autocracies. Our split sample analysis showed a small and not statistically significant positive effect of value preferences in the society on the stringency of COVID-19 policies in democracies, but a negative and statistically significant effect in autocracies. Therefore, it seems that there is a negative effect of the societal value conflict between freedom and security on the stringency of COVID-19 policies in autocracies, but not in democracies.

Limitations

One main limitation of our analysis is the limited number of countries under study. We were only able to include countries in the analytic sample for which information about the societal value conflict between freedom and security is available in the WVS 2017–2020 dataset [ 55 ]. Due to the small sample size, our results might be sensible to the samples of countries. However, as a robustness check, we estimated the models excluding different single countries and the results were robust.

Moreover, our analysis is based on the assumption that the measured societal value conflict between freedom and security in the WVS is comparable across different countries. Alemán and Woods [ 67 ] questioned the measurement validity of survival–self-expression values. With respect to freedom and security which is relevant in this study, we might e.g., find self-censorship as well as a social desirability effect in favor of security as a consequence of autocratic indoctrination. However, Inglehart and Welzel and their co-authors have shown in numerous publications that measured values from the WVS are strongly linked to an extremely large number of social indicators—such as prosperity, equality, or democracy—which supports the cross-country comparability [ 68 , 69 ].

One advantage of the random effects model is that it accounts for within- and between-country variation. However, it is not possible to identify a causal effect of the societal value conflict between freedom and security in the population on the stringency of COVID-19 measures, because there could still be unobserved heterogeneity that our analysis cannot account for. Although we attempted to account for all relevant observable confounders, we cannot completely eliminate the possibility that the assumption of exogeneity of both time-constant and time-varying unobserved heterogeneity may be violated.

5 Conclusion and discussion

The results indicated a negative association between the societal value conflict “freedom versus security” and the stringency of lockdown policies in autocracies, but not in democracies. This supports our anticipation that during the COVID-19 pandemic governments in democratic political systems are less responsive to their citizens’ value preferences for freedom, democratic rights and liberties than governments in autocratic political systems to their citizens’ value preference for security.

Our findings highlight how the Corona crisis provides an opportunity for autocracies to respond to value preferences of the population in a value conflict and thereby might gain legitimacy in times of crises. Recent studies on regime legitimation strategies in autocracies [ 70 – 73 ] emphasize specific support (first proposed by Easton [ 74 ]) as a source of legitimation. It is based on the regime’s claim to successfully satisfy citizens’ demands. Therefore, several authors subsume specific support to the type of performance-based legitimacy (e.g., [ 70 , 75 ]). Instead, Gerschewski [ 71 ] argues that support should be considered to be a superset of legitimacy. His semantic analysis reveals that support also subsumes actors who hold anti-regime beliefs. These actors then behave as if they were in favor of the autocratic regime. In addition, we can also argue that there is an element of a democratic-procedural legitimation. Dukalskis & Gerschewski [ 73 ] distinguish two dimensions of democratic-procedural legitimation: (seemingly) rational elections, and responsiveness to the demands of the citizens. Seen from a theoretical perspective, autocracies have three advantages then: Their obvious capacity to respond to citizens’ demands for security strengthens their performance-based legitimacy, their democratic-procedural legitimation and the support by those citizens who actually hold anti-regime beliefs. Our study therefore provides quantitative support for the hypothesis that the Corona crisis will possibly strengthen autocratic regimes and weaken democratic political systems as the democracies fail to satisfy citizens’ demands for freedom while the autocracies respond to citizen’s demand for security (see also [ 76 ]). This hypothesis should be investigated by further studies. E.g., studies on the satisfaction with democracy indicate that only richer democracies might be affected and perceive a decline in citizens’ satisfaction with the way democracy works in their country [ 77 ].

The effort to managing value conflict between health security and individual freedoms may result in different dominant forms. Applying the delineation by Stewart [ 20 ] incrementalism and cycling may dominate in democracies because they have to deal with the value conflict beyond institutional limitations while a bias in favor of security may dominate in autocracies. This is not only a formal difference: incrementalist and oscillating policies are stressful for the citizens. They generate political emotions against democratic governments and their COVID-19 policies. Bias towards security, on the other hand, creates no additional stress in autocracies, which are in any case used to suppress any opposition. Future studies should investigate whether such a difference can be empirically found.

Supporting information

Funding statement.

This study was funded by the Bavarian Academy of Sciences ad hoc-group grant to the project ‚Zukunftswerte‘ (2019-2022; https://zukunftswerte.badw.de/en/working-group.html ). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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US-funded Radio Free Asia closes its Hong Kong bureau over safety concerns under new security law

FILE - Surveillance cameras are seen as a visitor looks at Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, Monday, March 11, 2024. The president of U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia said its Hong Kong bureau has been closed because of safety concerns under a new national security law, deepening concerns about the city’s media freedoms. Bay Fang, the president of RFA, said in a statement Friday March 29, 2024 that it will no longer have full-time staff in Hong Kong, although it would retain its official media registration. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte, File)

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HONG KONG (AP) — The president of U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia said Friday that its Hong Kong bureau has been closed because of safety concerns under a new national security law, deepening concerns about the city’s media freedoms.

Bay Fang, the president of RFA, said in a statement that it will no longer have full-time staff in Hong Kong, although it would retain its official media registration.

“Actions by Hong Kong authorities, including referring to RFA as a ‘foreign force,’ raise serious questions about our ability to operate in safety with the enactment of Article 23,” Fang said.

RFA’s move is widely seen as a reflection of the city’s narrowing space for a free press following the enactment of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance , locally also known as Article 23 legislation.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed concern over RFA’s shutdown and said the new law “not only represents a significant escalation in efforts by Hong Kong and Beijing authorities to suppress free speech and expression,” but “also undermines media freedom and the public’s ability to obtain fact-based information.”

Cédric Alviani, the Asia-Pacific bureau director for Reporters Without Borders, called the broadcaster’s withdrawal “a consequence of the chilling effect applied on media outlets” by the new security law.

“We urge democracies to build up pressure on Chinese authorities so that press freedom is fully restored in the territory,” Alviani said.

The U.S. State Department on Friday announced it was taking steps to impose new visa restrictions on a number of unspecified Hong Kong officials “responsible for the intensifying crackdowns on rights and freedoms” in the territory, following its annual assessment under the Hong Kong Policy Act.

The State Department said the new security law could be used to suppress dissent inside Hong Kong and further Beijing’s campaign to intimidate activists abroad.

Hong Kong, once seen as a bastion of media freedom in Asia, has already changed drastically since Beijing imposed a similar security law in 2020, following anti-government protests in 2019.

Since the introduction of the 2020 law, two local news outlets known for critical coverage of the government, Apple Daily and Stand News, were forced to shut down after the arrest of their senior management , including Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai.

Hong Kong ranked 140th out of 180 countries and territories in Reporters Without Borders’ latest World Press Freedom Index.

The new home-grown security law, which was enacted through an expedited legislative process last week, has expanded the government’s power to stamp out challenges to its rule.

It targets engaging in espionage, disclosing state secrets and “colluding with external forces” to commit illegal acts, among others. Some offenses, such as treason and insurrection, carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

The legislation has sparked worries among many journalists over a further decline in media freedom. They fear the broadly framed law could criminalize their day-to-day work.

RFA, funded by the U.S. Congress through the U.S. Agency for Global Media, has recently been under the Hong Kong government’s attack. In January, police issued a letter to RFA and condemned it for quoting “false statements” by wanted activist Ted Hui that they said smeared the police force.

Hui, a former pro-democracy lawmaker, is one of the overseas-based activists for whom police have offered awards of 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($128,000) for information leading to their arrest. He is accused of requesting foreign countries to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and China.

In February, Hong Kong’s security minister, Chris Tang, said some comments quoted in reports by RFA about the new legislation were “fake” and “false.”

He did not specify the comments or reports, but said they suggested that some provisions of the law were targeting the media. He insisted there were protections for the media in the legislation.

When asked whether the work of RFA is considered “external interference” or “espionage,” Tang said any violation of the law should be judged on a case-by-case basis. If someone deliberately used false information to defame the government’s legislative work, he said he had to let Hong Kongers see clearly the intention of these “external forces” and those who have fled and want to endanger Hong Kong’s security.

The Hong Kong government on Friday refused to comment on operational decisions of individual organizations. But it condemned “all scaremongering and smearing remarks” against the new law in an email response.

It said many other countries also have security laws. “To single out Hong Kong and suggest that journalists would only experience concerns when operating here but not in other countries would be grossly biased, if not outrageous,” it said.

The government insisted the new law only targets an extremely small minority of people who endanger national security and that most journalists will not unwittingly violate it.

Fang said RFA’s Hong Kong bureau has operated as a private news organization since its launch in 1996 and that its editorial independence was safeguarded by a firewall endorsed by the U.S. Congress.

“This restructuring means that RFA will shift to using a different journalistic model reserved for closed media environments,” she said.

But she assured RFA’s audience in Hong Kong and mainland China that its content would “continue without disruption.”

Hong Kong authorities have not announced any arrests under the new law. But the government on Wednesday condemned the BBC for what it called an “extremely misleading report” about an activist who was blocked from a remission of sentence, or early release , under the law. Tang also wrote a letter to condemn an opinion piece by The New York Times.

Over the past months, articles by other international media outlets, including the Washington Post and The Times, also have been criticized by officials.

Associated Press writer Didi Tang in Washington contributed to this report.