… But these findings together indicate public opinion is not a backstop preventing the United States from torturing. Instead, mass opinion on torture is malleable and conditional. Support for torture in the early 2000s indicates that, in times of perceived security threat, people are more supportive. Unfortunately, those are exactly the circumstances when political leaders might use torture again in the future. And large question wording effects underline how responsive torture opinions are to elite framing. If political elites in the future discuss specific heinous torture practices, then support will be lower. But if elites discuss torture in euphemisms, and claim that it is effective at getting information, then public support will be higher.
These patterns suggest that public opinion is unlikely to reject a future re-institution of torture if it is supported by political elites. In torture, as in other realms, the norms of acceptable behavior among elites determine the ethical boundaries of government behavior that we live under. CONT.
Jonathan Ladd (Georgetown), The Mischiefs of Faction
Recent polls: Torture