The 2005 Danish cartoon crisis has been the topic of much discussion among political science scholars. In September 2011 we ran a symposium on Jytte Klausen’s The Cartoons That Shook the World that centered on the tensions between multiculturalism, civility, and freedom of expression disclosed by the controversy. Paul M. Sniderman, Michael Bang Petersen, Rune Slothuus, and Rune Stubager’s Paradoxes of Liberal Democracy: Islam, Western Europe, and the Danish Cartoon Crisis (Princeton 2014) revisits the Danish crisis. Drawing on randomized experiments linked to broader survey research, the authors offer a nuanced account of Danish public opinion, and argue that the sensitivity of Danes to civil liberties concerns explains why the cartoon controversy did not result in an anti-Muslim backlash. The topic, the argument, and the methodology are important, and so we have invited a range of political science scholars to review the book. — Jeffrey C. Isaac
