How politics constrain the public's understanding of terrorism.

This article examines how political ideology influences Americans' causal attributions for different types of terrorism—far-right, far-left, and Islamist—and how these attributions shape perceptions of threat. Using attribution theory and data from a national survey experiment (n = 700), the study finds that the public generally attributes terrorism to internal causes (e.g., hate, evil), especially for far-right terrorists, contrary to expectations that Islamist terrorism would receive the strongest internal attributions. Political views moderate these attributions: individuals tend to attribute terrorism committed by ideologically aligned groups more to external causes (e.g., injustice, oppression) and terrorism by opposing groups more to internal causes, reflecting motivated reasoning and the "ideo-attribution effect." These findings highlight how partisan perspectives shape public understanding of domestic terrorism and may influence policy preferences regarding counterterrorism responses.