Outgroups and Ingroups: How Support for Torture and Aggressive Counterterrorism Policies Varies by Extremist Type

• In Event: Public Responses to Terrorism and Mass Shootings

Abstract

Public opinion is an important determinant of government policies. As domestic terrorism has come to the forefront of the national security agenda, developing a nuanced understanding of public reactions to terrorism can offer insight into current government responses. Using a survey experiment with a national sample of 1,300 Americans, this study makes three primary contributions. First, it examines the American public’s responses to three types of terrorism: (1) Islamist, (2) right-wing, and (3) left-wing. Second, drawing on social identity theory and research on racial attitudes we assess the impact of political partisanship and white nationalist sentiment on both emotional responses and on counterterrorism policy preferences. Third, among these counterterrorism measures, we include support for an extreme measure—torture. Overall, we find that respondents are less supportive of restrictive counterterrorism measures and the use of torture in the case of domestic terrorists, relative to Islamists. Also, both partisanship and white nationalism matter for responses to different types of terrorism in ways that are consistent with social identity theory—partisans tend to support restrictive policies and the use of torture for terrorists of opposing ideologies, while white nationalists support these measures for Islamist and left-wing terrorists but not for right-wing terrorists.

Authors

• Murat Haner, Arizona State University

• Melissa Sloan, University of South Florida

• Justin Pickett, University at Albany, SUNY

• Francis Cullen, University of Cincinnati