Support for Torture. Experimental Evidence from the Mexican War on Drugs

• In Event: The Impact of Armed Groups on Civilians

Abstract

People living in communities torn by violence are often forced to make hard choices between supporting government efforts to provide for their personal security or supporting a legal framework that protects their liberties. In the context of the ongoing wave of drug-related violence in Mexico, this research seeks to understand why some individuals are willing to support their governments' use of torture to fight crime. To overcome the challenge to elicit truthful responses from sensitive questions, this study relies on a list experiment to unobtrusively assess public support for the use of torture. Results reveal that 30 percent of respondents are in favor of the government using torture to interrogate suspected members of criminal organizations. In congruence with research on defensive behavior in behavioral neuroscience, results suggest that attitudes towards torture are shaped by the diverging effects of anxiety and fear caused by perceptions of threat and exposure to violence.

Author

• Francisco Javier Osorio Zago, John Jay College, CUNY