An Extended View of Public Opinion and Torture

Paul Gronke

I was interested to see Jeff Alworth's recent posting on American public opinion, religious sentiments, and attitudes toward torture.

A colleague of mine at Reed College, Darius Rejali, is the world's expert on electronic torture, with all that implies for his conduct at faculty meetings!  Darius's book, Torture and Democracy, won a prize from the Human Rights section of the APSA.

Darius and I wrote an oped for the Huffington Post on the broad contours of public opinion about torture and I just put up the longer whitepaper that we drew upon on my webpage.

When I started this work with Darius, I suspected that public attitudes about torture were a lot more complex than were being portrayed in the media and by politicians.  I'm not sure whether I'm more disappointed that 30-45% of Americans are willing to accept government use of torture, or that it is virtually impossible to get over 50% acceptance of torture, even when the question is posed as addressing an "imminent terrorist threat."

Here are the bullet points from the paper:

1. A majority of Americans are opposed to government use of torture, even when asked
about an imminent terrorist attack.  These attitudes on torture have remained stable and
consistent over this period.

2. Even when “enhanced interrogation” techniques are not called torture, and even when
Americans are assured that they work to get crucial information, Americans still reject
many techniques approved by the Bush administration.

3. American military personnel serving in Iraq are strongly opposed to the use of torture.

4. False consensus pervades the opinions of those who support torture, leading them to
significantly overestimate the proportion of the public who agree with them.  Those
opposed to torture, in contrast, have remarkably accurate perceptions of the rest of the
public.

5. Outright support of torture is rare anywhere in the world, even in countries that have been
sites of domestic terrorism in the last ten years.  Most countries that have experienced
recent terrorism have publics even less supportive of torture than the United States.

By Paul Gronke May 03, 2009