Empirical Contributions to the Study of Torture

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The study of torture is one of the newest and most challenging subfields at the intersection of international security, human rights, and law. The scholars on this panel build on existing theoretical and ethical discussions of "enhanced interrogation" by assembling some of the first datasets of torture in our discipline. We draw on a wide range of historical and contemporary cases, with an emphasis on torture conducted by intelligence agencies as a counterterrorism measure. We explore patterns, motivations, processes, and outcomes that help us understand when interrogation is most likely to turn violent, who its intended victims are, what means are employed, and what the observed outcomes are. The topic is as controversial and difficult as it is timely and significant.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 19: International Security

Individual Presentations

• The Cost of Torture: Evidence from the Spanish Inquisition - Ron E. Hassner, University of California, Berkeley

• Enforcing International Law through Domestic Law: Torture Criminalization - Mark S. Berlin, Marquette University

• Torture as Secrecy Logic: News Ways to Study Violence and its Legitimation - Elspeth Van Veeren, University of Bristol

• Informal institutions and the establishment of torture - Tracy L. R. Lightcap, LaGrange College

Chair

• Rebecca Sanders University of Cincinnati

Discussant

• Rebecca Sanders University of Cincinnati